Penn State's Center for Student Engagement plans to create a new committee to handle discipline and policy violation issues for student organizations.

The new group, called the Student Organization Conduct Committee, will take over functions that until recently were handled by the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Supreme Court.

The change follows last year's reorganization of the judicial process for fraternity and sorority life, said Deb Dworsky, assistant director of the Center for Student Engagement.

The Center for Student Engagement will hold information sessions both today and tomorrow to give students the opportunity to learn about the new committee. Applications and information for the positions are also available in 209 HUB-Robeson Center.

Dworsky said the new committee was modeled after similar groups that were in the office of judicial affairs and the office of fraternity and sorority life.

"We decided to restructure the judicial process to make it something that was modeled after the other judicial processes at the university," Dworsky said.

The organization would be composed of students and staff members, but there are not a definite number of students, Dworsky said.

She added that the committee would like to have enough student members so that any possible scheduling conflicts would not restrict meeting times.

Dworsky said that she would select the members of the new committee, a member of the office of fraternity and sorority life, as well as a student who would probably be appointed by the University Park Undergraduate Association.

The current process in place for dealing with student organization issues is ambiguous right now, but violations should still be reported, Dworsky said.

"We would handle it as necessary," she said. "It would really depend on the violation."

Dworsky said she served as adviser to the USG Supreme Court when it handled the process, but the court handled very few cases.

"People didn't know how to go about reporting an incident," she said. "I don't think it was anything that had to do with the court."

Danielle Traister, USG Supreme Court chief justice, said that while she generally preferred less administrative control than student committees, she added that she thought it was good that the new process would be clearly defined.

"It's better than someone in Student Engagement just making up rules as they go along," she said.

Neither Traister nor Dworsky was sure when the USG Supreme Court lost the power to handle student organization issues.

Stephen Hulick, vice president of standards for the Interfraternity Council, said each greek council was in charge of administering its own system until the new process was created last year.

Hulick said that students were consulted during the changes and added that he did not think administrators had undue influence in the new system.

"It's still very much a student-run process," he said. "The main goal was just a fair process that everyone can understand."