The Title IX committee is working to recommend a policy that will promote transparency of the events that happen after an investigation is finished, the faculty’s role in an investigation and what the faculty’s vote in that is. They are also debating whether tenured faculty should have a different level of burden of proof from other employees when it comes to Title IX issues, as they do currently.

“I think when it comes to termination of anyone, whether it’s a student, staff member or faculty…(We should discuss) that the tenured faculty is given additional protection because they’re tenured, than a supervisor that’s been here for 30 years,” said Megan Mahoney, assistant professor of university libraries and archives. “If the reason is that faculty are concerned about bad faith reporting, then we need to have a bad faith section in (the) policy.”

The committee also discussed how to regain the students trust in the Title IX process.

“I think that it is worth (understanding) where those people are coming from. It’s coming out of a distrust of the process,” said Kayla Gilmore, senior political science major. “Also a fear out of ‘what if this happens to me.’ I think if we have a process that’s transparent, that’s easily accessible, and that we believe in, over time students will come to believe in the process.”

There was a consensus among the committee that students aren’t aware of the process, and have a lack in faith in it because of it.

“I think that it’s important that we are transparent and people know where to see our policies and procedures,” said Liz Diers, chair of accounting, information systems and finance.

Additionally, there was a concern to make sure that there was transparency with the community.

People have a right to confidentiality during the Title IX process, but the community has a right to know after things are over, what has happened, according to Mahoney. However, Mahoney said she didn’t believe that names needed to be shared.

“I think people need closure on everything,” Mahoney said. “If we don’t do this announcement with a final decision, no one’s ever going to feel like there’s closure to it.

So, my personal opinion is that we need to have that final decision.”

Another concern was that students might take to social media about Title IX and confidential issues, before the university could finish their procedure.

“Possibly, if something does come out in social media, (it would be best) to formally have the university announce that there is a correct procedure for these things and we will follow the correct procedure and ask however it got started to go back through what the procedure is,” said Marshal Sundberg, professor of biological sciences. “We have a procedure. Let’s use the procedure.”

Gilmore said she agreed that having the university reaching out to explain, educated and redirect people to procedure would be best.

“Usually when we see the unfortunate circumstances of private, confidential matters coming out on social media, it’s usually in response to when a person feels that the system or the procedure has failed them in some way,” Gilmore said. “At the end of the day, we can’t control the feelings of either party involved…but what we can hold strong to is our standard as a university and having faith in the process.”

Diers said she recommended putting a time expectation on the procedures so the people involved could be told how long they would need to wait for the procedure to be finished and to hear results.

“I think timing is the big issue here,” Diers said. “Students expect immediate responses on everything, so social media is out there before they’ve given time for any of these procedures processed through.”

The committee will meet at 9 a.m. next Wednesday in the President’s Office, room 202.