Officials at the University of California at Berkeley have created a new board to mediate grievances on sexual harassment, designed to provide students with an informal alternative to filing complaints directly with the administration.

The nine-member committee, composed of three student advisors, three faculty members and three staff members, will function mainly as a source of information for the complainants. But if individual grievances are not resolved informally, the board will help forward complaints to an established university committee.

Board members can only mediate informally since they have in official investigatory power. Formal complaints that require investigation will continue to be handled through the campus Tittle IX office.

The full board will address "general university conditions" that may be allowing harassment to occur on campus, Carol Christ, faculty assistant to the chancellor, said.

"Our concern in establishing this procedure was that not enough people know about establishment university grievance producers. This procedure is to encourage people to report complaints to people who are more widely diffused on campus," Christ said. --The Daily Californian