Community: Calling Students To Be Accountable

Abstract

Inherent in the missions of colleges and universities with a Christian tradition is a goal of building a strong community. These campuses seek to foster a sense of belonging for their students, and they employ principled approaches to the development of effective policies for all aspects of student affairs. Simultaneously, they frequently face financial constraints and, therefore, often seek cost-effective means of operating. This research examines the efficacy of student discipline processes in light of their moral constructs, thereby providing meaningful insight for campus administrators as they refine their approaches on Christian-based campuses throughout the United States.

A random purposeful selection of 30 Catholic campuses comprised the sample from a population of 219 total campuses in the population. The sample was delimited to those that were coed, had housing on campus, used the three discipline/judicial processes, and had databases that allowed them to identify repeat offenders. Chi-Square Goodness-of-Fit was use to see if there was any difference among the three discipline/judicial processes average rates of recidivism; the process with the fewest repeat offenses was deemed most effective.

The experimental difference set apriori of from 5% to 8% was met showing a practical importance to the results. Chi-Squared Goodness of Fit indicated a p = .095 failing to meet the apriori alpha of .05 and failed to reject the null hypothesis.

Minority-peer processes emerged from the findings as the most effective. Campuses using this process could expect to experience 9 fewer repeat offenses per 100 students.