David Fried receives at least one phone call or e-mail a day with a question regarding Ball State University's student code.
And the inquiries don't all come from students asking about the judicial process for alcohol-related violations - although they constitute a majority of student phone calls, said Fried, director of the Office of Student Rights and Community Standards. University policy regarding grade appeals and academic integrity draws most calls from faculty, and with several changes being made to parts of the student code during the past year, the questions are endless, he said.
"In a given year, we deal with probably every violation in the student code in one way or another, at least once," Fried said.
That's why the Office of Student Rights and Community Standards began an outreach campaign last month where officials present information from the student code to interested student groups, residence halls, academic departments and the administration. Fried has done similar presentations during the past four years for graduate students, he said.
"It's not unusual for us to do presentations like this," he said. "We just wanted to market it to a greater extent this semester."
After sending out letters to the various organizations, only an academic department in the Teachers College has scheduled a presentation, which will take place in early April. Fried said he expected other departments would soon be interested in the presentation and tailor it to their needs and time availability.
The presentations address one of four topics: the student code overall, the judicial process, grade appeals or the academic integrity policy. Included in the general student code presentation will be discussion of the university's policies on sexual misconduct, smoking, pets, bereavement, computer users and records, Fried said.
"We're hopeful, though, and maybe they won't want to do it this late in the year but maybe in the fall," Fried said. "But we will be available at any time from now on."
Sophomore Betsy Mills, chairwoman of the Student Rights, Ethics and Standards Committee, said she expected more students to eventually express interest.
"It's a book of rules, and it seems big and seems like it doesn't apply to [everyone]," Mills said. "But it can change the expectations Ball State students live up to."
Mills said she expected Student Government Association next year to take advantage of the office's presentation opportunities.
"This is a topic quite relevant to our lives, and I think advertisement is very important and getting the word out," Mills said. "But it comes with time."
When receiving inquiries about aspects of the student code, Fried said he received the least number of questions regarding the code's first section on general responsibilities and rights of students, which surprised him.
"You don't pay much attention to those sorts of things until you have a need for it," Fried said.
The biggest changes to the student policy last year include a more specific wording of the sexual assault policy, as well as the creation of a grade appeal committee instead of the University Review Board hearing formal grade appeals, which will both go into effect in May. The privacy policy that went into effect last fall also addresses photographing people using technologies, Fried said.
The office is also working toward revising the university's hazing policy to include teams, as well as its hate crime policy to better respond to last semester's multiple racial incidences, Fried said.
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