Do you see a future for student engagement with the Williamsburg community in the upcoming school year?

Williamsburg Mayor Clyde Haulman: I’ve been on campus for almost 12 years, and I think there’s been a constant effort to work with and improve both communication and interaction between the city, students and the College of William and Mary — the sort of triangle there. And I think the last few years have been some real strides forward. My hope is that this year continues that, and there’s every reason to expect it can, with many very positive things going on. … I think [regarding] the vote last week [to loosen rental regulations on owner-occupied homes] — I think there’s a lot of misinformation about what was really on the table.

On whose behalf? The residents? Students? Both?

I think everybody. Residents in particular were concerned that this was an increase in the number of roomers. In reality, what exists right now and what existed before the vote was that anyone could have a roomer by right. If you wanted to have a second, third or fourth roomer, you had to go to [the Board of Zoning Appeals] for approval. The proposal was that you could have one roomer by right, you could have two, three or four, but the second one would be done by administrative approval, where the third or fourth would be done by BZA approval. So that doesn’t change any numbers at all. The question is: Does doing it by administrative approval make it easier or encourage more or not? I think the idea was that it could. My concern was that as someone who owns a house, if someone has a roomer next door to me, that’s fine. But if they’re going to have two, three or four, I might want to know about it up front, and I might want to have an opportunity to say, “Yeah, I think it’s fine,” or “No, here’s what I think the problems are,” and have that discussion.… So that’s where I’m coming from on it. But the argument that neighbors were making that it would increase the numbers of roomers in neighborhoods is baloney. I mean, people can do it now. They were talking about it as if you were changing the numbers of roomers that people could have. And that wasn’t even part of it. So that was a very frustrating discussion for me personally.

What do you think led to the misinformation among students and residents at the [Williamsburg City Council] meeting? I think there were some residents who were very vocal and shaded their comments in particular ways. Because I talked to a number of people who said, “Don’t increase the number of students or roomers in neighborhoods!” It was primarily aimed at students, but the other thing is, students aren’t the only ones that are roomers in these homes. The people who work for Colonial Williamsburg or the College have done that, so again, what bothered me was the focus was as if students are the only ones who are roomers in these homes. And second, that this was changing the numbers. So I think it just got blown all out of proportion. And it’s unfortunate, but it’s part of the public discourse.

One Williamsburg resident at a recent city council meeting said, “The obvious reason most of the people are here today is because as soon as residents hear the idea of loosening the guidelines for student housing in residential areas, we all get concerned.”

What do you think that demonstrates about the state of town-gown relations right now?

The focus of the Neighborhood Relations Committee we created my second year was really to help cut through some of the preconceived misconceptions that are out there and really get down to a more reasonable discussion about what’s going on. I live in a neighborhood where two houses down there’s a group of students — they’re terrific, they’ve been there for a number of years, they’re great neighbors to have — and across the street is a two-story apartment building with law students and undergraduates who have been in there for as long as I’ve owned my house for almost 40 years. If you think about it, if you want a neighborhood that’s vibrant with people coming and going and just a mix of different ages and different people, that’s exactly what you want to have. I think the unfortunate timing here is that you have one neighborhood, Indian Springs, where in the last year three houses have been purchased by parents for students. And I think those neighbors are worried about that. And basically, everyone who spoke at that meeting — and probably 90 percent of the people who were there — were from two neighborhoods: Indian Springs and Burns Lane.

In tough economic times, is it possible that student-focused issues will be given less priority?

The false premise in that statement is that it’s as if [student housing issues are] all we’re doing. The city council’s doing a whole lot of stuff, not just that. We are capable of keeping more than one ball in the air at a time. So I don’t buy that argument at all.

Do you think that city council decisions would be implemented differently if there were more student representation at public meetings? Would it change the dynamic in the room?

I think it would change the dynamic of the public discussion. I think all of us try to put ourselves in different constituencies’ shoes as we look at an issue, so I don’t think — I talked to students, I thought about it from lots of perspectives — so I’m not sure having a group of students there talking would have made my decision different. But I think it would have changed the tenor of the discussion. That could be important.

While the dust still seems to be settling on the Sherman and Gloria H. Cohen Career Center, the building itself is already receiving recognition as a gold class building in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program.

In March 2000, the U.S. Green Building Council established a series of internationally standardized ideals for environmentally conscious construction. In order to be certified under one of four progressive standards, ascending from certified, silver, gold and platinum, a building project must have certain features, such as innovative wastewater technologies, maximized use of natural light and optimized energy performance. The Career Center met 60 to 79 separate criteria.

“I think [the LEED certification] makes a bold statement,” Director of the Career Center Mary Schilling said. “First of all, we did not want just to be certified. We did not even want just silver — we wanted gold … that is really important for parents, prospective students, for alumni who come back. It just is a real feather in the cap of the project.”

Proponents of the LEED certification argue that while LEED buildings are prime examples of responsible construction, they may also serve as testaments to the benefits of long-term, strategic planning. LEED buildings may require greater initial investment, but their increased efficiency results in a reduction of operating costs over the lifespan of the building.

For some, this can be disenchanting at a time when state budgets are stretched paper-thin.

“There is a benefit to universities or colleges such as the College of William and Mary for having buildings that are going to stand the test of time over a long period,” Principle Architect of Cunningham and Quill Architects and designer of the Career Center Lee Quill said. “It makes sense for the universities and the state to take a longer view in buildings, which address the needs of the university and the environment over an extended period of time.”

As sustainable resources are becoming more economical in construction, they are being applied in a variety of ways. Fast growing wood products, alternatives. Heating and cooling systems are redesigned with maximum efficiency and minimal environmental impact in mind.

“We have an obligation when we construct new buildings to construct buildings that are sensitive to the environment, that take advantage of technologies, engineering and architectural trends that we know are available to us, and that we build as responsible and sustainable a building as possible,” Schilling said.

Other College personnel are taking notice of the growing trend, supporting a more active consideration of environmental issues in construction on campus.

“It is great to see William and Mary moving toward LEED certified, responsible buildings — especially now that the College is requiring all new buildings to be LEED silver or better,” Sustainability Fellow for the College Sarah Hanke said.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has assigned a full-time lawyer from his office to replace Virginia Senate Minority Leader Thomas K. Norment as a legal adviser to College of William and Mary President Taylor Reveley. The change, which Cuccinelli said is intended to fix an improper arrangement, has sparked concern that the controversial conservative figure is expanding his role at the College.

The Office of the Attorney General and the College jointly reached the move, which took place in June. Senior Assistant Attorney General Deborah Love, who had represented the College part-time in Richmond since at least 2003, now works on campus full-time in place of Norment, who provided legal counsel to the president, and two others, Dick Williams and Kiersten Boyce, who worked as Coordinators of Legal Affairs.

“Bringing Deb Love to campus full time represented a realignment in how William and Mary handles its legal affairs on campus,” Reveley said. “For many years, we had a Coordinator of Legal Affairs who helped the College navigate legal waters, working closely with the Office of the Attorney General, which has always represented the College in litigation and in matters involving an attorney-client relationship. We ultimately decided it would be more effective to have a full-time lawyer from the Office of the Attorney General on campus and to end the job of on-campus Coordinator of Legal Affairs.”

As a state university, the Office of the Attorney General has always represented the College. However, Cuccinelli said that the state senator’s counsel to Reveley was not an authorized arrangement, a claim Norment denies.

In addition to providing legal advice, Norment taught classes part-time at the Marshall-Wythe School of Law to undergraduates, receiving an annual salary of $160,000. Now that Norment no longer provides legal counsel to Reveley, his salary for the current fiscal year has been reduced to $60,000.

“I think [the change] takes Senator Norment off the hot seat,” Cuccinelli said. “It cleaned up what I think was a very messy system. It wasn’t consistent with the Virginia legal structure, and the Attorney General’s office is the legal representative of these agencies and universities. And we’re pretty happy to have Deb Love full time.”

Cuccinelli has stirred controversy on Virginia college campuses since the beginning of his tenure in January 2010. Two months into his term, he advised state universities that sexual orientation should not be included under anti-discrimination policies, which prompted thousands of students, including hundreds at the College, to hold campus rallies and create large Facebook groups in protest. Cuccinelli also took legal action against a professor at the University of Virginia whose research was related to the causes of climate change.

“It is well known that the Attorney General is having ongoing issues with higher education in Virginia,” Norment said.

But when asked about the perception that the attorney general’s office was taking on an activist role at the College in light of his other controversial decisions with Virginia universities, Cuccinelli said that he was simply following the state’s legal precedent.

“Really, it’s a separate perception,” Cuccinelli said. “I mean, the law is what it is, and the law says that legal representation comes from the attorney general’s office. I didn’t write that, but I’m certainly in the role of participating in it and I’m going to do that dutifully consistent with the law. And that’s all we’ve done. That’s not activist. That’s just obeying the law.”

Sept. 2., Cuccinelli released a 2008 opinion from his predecessor, current Gov. Bob McDonnell (R), which said that while it was not a conflict of interest for Norment to serve on the College faculty or to provide legal advice, Norment had intimated that there would be no attorney-client relationship.

“The administration of the College may consult with you on policy issues. You state that you and the College will not assume the relationship of attorney and client,” McDonnell wrote.

McDonnell also said that state law required certain legal consultations to be provided by the Office of the Attorney General.

“As you undertake your new duties, I ask that you rely on my staff for such legal services as you and the College may require,” McDonnell wrote.

Norment said that he had always acted within McDonnell’s parameters. And when Norment’s position was initially established, Reveley stressed at the time that it did not present a conflict of interests.

“No ‘quid pro quo’ was involved in Senator Norment’s and my conversations about the possibility of his joining William and Mary,” Reveley said in a 2009 memo to faculty and staff. “The Senator did not offer to do anything for William and Mary in return for employment. Nor did I premise the possibility of his employment here on his doing anything for the university in the future.”

However, Reveley noted that a perceived conflict of interests could contribute to any controversy surrounding Norment’s employment at the College.

“Senator Norment has been a friend of higher education in Virginia generally, and William and Mary in particular, for many years. I was confident, and remain confident, that his interest in higher education and the university will continue whether he works here or not,” Reveley wrote. “In addition to rules and regulations governing conflicts of interest, there is the matter of public perception of conflict even if, in fact, none exists. The Senator and I are very sensitive to the appearance of conflict as well as its reality.”

Reveley declined to elaborate on what legal counsel Norment had provided.

“As I’m sure you can understand, I don’t talk about the details of private, confidential discussions I have with anyone who provides me advice and counsel,” Reveley said. “If I started doing that, my capacity to get the sort of excellent advice and counsel I get from people like Senator Norment would come to a screeching halt. He continues to provide me with very important advice and counsel, but on much reduced basis. His primary responsibilities at William and Mary are now teaching.”

The Honors System Review Committee discussed changes to the current College of William and Mary Honor Code at its second meeting of the semester Sept. 17. The committee will continue to meet throughout the semester, dissecting the code and deciding what changes should be proposed to College President Taylor Reveley.

“The charge of the committee is to provide recommendations to the president on how the Honor Code should be changed, if at all,” Undersecretary for Student Rights and committee member Zann Isacson ’13 said. “[The code] governs what we prioritize and how we treat each other. Changes to this code will definitely affect the culture of our school to some degree or another.”

The committee, composed of students, administrators and professors, met last semester to discuss the Honor Code but did not finish all proposed changes before summer break. Its goals for this semester are to finish discussing the code, propose changes for public discussion, and propose changes to Reveley by the end of the semester with campus-wide input.

“We will finish our first run through, our detailed examination of the code and all of the proposals we have received for modification of the code,” review committee head and professor Clay Clemens said. “After that we are going to move to a summary of the proposed changes, and a draft of the report will be made open for public discussion.”

The Honor Code has not been reviewed since 1997. Periodically throughout the history of the College, the code is reviewed to make sure it is still working effectively.

“It’s been a while and a lot has changed since the code was last reviewed,” Chairman of the Student Assembly Senate and committee member Noah ’13 said. “As far as violating the Honor Code, issues have come up and presented themselves since then and we are trying to address all of these things.”

The committee plans to finish discussing the code by fall break and then submit a document for public discussion. After the committee submits a proposal to the campus and gets feedback, it will submit a formal proposal to Reveley.

“Then we will take that feedback throughout the course of the semester, and hopefully, by the end of the semester, we will agree on our proposal to the president,” Clemens said.

While the committee has not officially decided what method it will use to get feedback from the public on its proposal, the goal is to start a conversation in the campus community.

“We will solicit feedback and then at some point have some public session where we discuss what is in there,” Clemens said.

As of the last meeting, the committee made it through eight sections of the Honor Code, which leaves one final section to review. Although the process is taking longer than planned, the committee is paying careful attention to all parts of the code.

“I am disappointed at the slow rate that the committee has gone through, but on the other hand I appreciate the amount of discussion and discourse from the committee,” Isacson said.

As the committee picked up where it left off last semester, three new student members were added.

“The committee is half students and half faculty and administration,” Clemens said. “We do have new members because several students graduated.”

Isacson reminded students that these meetings are open to the public.

“All students are welcome, and I believe it is in everyone’s best interest to know as much as possible about these debates and committee meetings,” he said.

Clemens agrees the time for public input and involvement will be soon.

“For those that haven’t been paying attention, it’s time to start paying attention, and we definitely will propose some changes,” Clemens said. “It has potentially an impact on all of the students. It should generate some discussion at the very least.”

When three female College of William and Mary students discovered similar disquieting patterns in their behavior after having partied the previous night, they decided to go the Williamsburg police.

The Williamsburg city police investigation into the suspected drugged drinks of the three students continues with little evidence.

“That’s the problem, why there are no details given because there’s no specific location that we can pinpoint … we know it happened in the course of one evening, but the when and where and even who are all elusive because, as you know, the girls were going from place to place, from residences to bars,” Police Major Greg Riley said.

The students did not come into the police office until approximately 24 hours after the suspected drugging occurred, making it more difficult to determine the validity of their allegations.

“Although we can speculate this is what happened, we have no evidence,” Senior Police Officer and investigator of the case Todd Iverson said. “We have no drug tests showing that anything was ingested.”

However, the girls found enough cause to alert the police.

“They went home and slept, but it wasn’t until later that evening that the girls all discovered they had the same symptoms, per se,” Iverson said.

Iverson noted that the girls’ full intention of going to the police was not to produce a conviction.

“I contacted Chief Challis, and he advised me he did have the report, I told him that the young ladies who had spoken to me were more interested in having a warning be put out to the student body, not necessarily don’t get here, don’t go there, but just be aware that this is something that could happen,” Iverson said.

Vice President for Student Affairs Ginger Ambler ’88, Ph.D ’06 sent out a campus-wide email Friday warning about the possible dangers of partying.

“I did want to take the opportunity to alert students to this particular danger,” Ambler said. “There is always a risk that someone either known or unknown to you could attempt to tamper with your drink.”

Ambler projected the date of the suspected drugging based on when William and Mary Police received the Williamsburg police report. All cases involving College students are automatically forwarded to the William and Mary Police.

“I would say this occurred several weekends ago,” Ambler said.

The police were not sure if the College Office of Student Affairs would continue to be updated on any developments in the investigation, if there were any.

“What we knew then is what we know now,” Riley said. “There is really no update to be made.”

The police did confirm that the students are in healthy condition and that the off-campus location where the students may have been drugged is in no way affiliated with the College.