Is it an alumni or a faculty advisor now? When I was there it was a faculty member, usually someone very senior and respected with some legal knowledge. The advisor when I was there was not an alumnus.
Since when was the composition based on rank? We elected guys no matter what their rank and the Chairman my senior year was just a C/CPT, and many members were just PVT's. They were not promoted to any rank either, it was an entirely separate function than anything else. It was one of the most egalitarian and fair things at the school when I was there.
That caused some controversy when VADM Stockdale was there. He was going to overturn several rulings when the faculty advisor confronted him. The faculty advisor was relieved of his duties as an advisor but VADM Stockdale left shortly after that. He also abolished the fourth class system. A great man but not a good fit for the Citadel, very controversial.
Yes, it can be a flawed system, but like the US justice system nothing can be perfect. Some notable flaws that I know of: The only guy who was 'pardoned' by the President when I was there was a guy who said he was a junior instead of a sophomore at a football game (juniors could sit with dates, sophomores could not). He was a member of the junior class but was an academic sophomore. The Honor Court found him guilty, but the President overturned it. Talk about splitting hairs......
An even more infamous incident was around 1989/90/91 when about 1/4 of the Corps was caught making free, unauthorized phone calls by dialing out on a special number (long distance, overseas, etc). It was stealing, plain and simple. The Honor Court, those that had not done it, were ready to kick people out but the Board of Visitors overruled them and no one was ever kicked out. The Board correctly assumed that the school could not afford the loss of that many students. It was debated seriously though by the school and the Board, to kick everyone out. I knew a member of the honor court for that year and he described the episode in detail.
I hope you are joking, some of the biggest tools I knew were Cadre........
There were plenty of good guys, and I am assuming you are one of them, but they defintely picked a few of their buddies/screamers/dumbasses to do that duty. Granted, I was never offered the privilege, I 'rocketed' out of there as a PVT all four years (broken by one semester as a CPL and two weeks as a 2/LT). For some strange reason, grades and fun were my priorities. 
arty_125 You know what they called the Navy contract C/LTC the day we graduated? Ensign, just like me. The funny thing, I out rank him now, he reset his clock when he went JAG. If I remember correctly you could attend the trial if you were a cadet, if the accused agreed to an open trial. A bare outline of the case was also published in a weekly posting of punishments after the decision, but you usually knew the details of it anyways. When someone was acquitted, it only took one vote out of the 10 cadets sitting on that case to acquit, the tapes were destroyed if there was an acquittal. If an accusation was made the case usually went to trial, I knew a few guys who were acquitted. Some were relatively weak cases but the trial was done to make sure that it was fair and was not swept under the rug.
They actually used to actually have the cadet present when they drummed them out, the way they got them to take part is that they would not transfer credits if they did not. They stopped many years ago though, so it has changed a bit.
The Citadel never drummed anyone out as far as I know, that was one of the few things that Conroy used in Lords of Discipline that was not from the Citadel but from VMI. I don’t agree with it but that is VMI’s thing, they can have it.
The same attitude existed at the Citadel, if there was an honor violation and you reported it you were not ‘bilging’ your fellow cadet. I only saw one case were that became an issue and it revolved around an ‘improper question’. Fortunately, it was not an honor case but a standard disciplinary action.
Surprisingly, I heard very bitter complaints from all of my good buddies who went to VMI about the honor system. I won’t go into details, but their class’s system was a bit flawed.
