When the president's task force set out three years ago to evaluate the quality of the Tufts undergraduate experience, one of the pressing issues raised was the need to strengthen the Tufts community. At the time, scandal had emerged over missing Primary Sources and a liberal-conservative skirmish beside the cannon. Tufts seemed to be lacking elements of respect, trust, and an overarching feeling of community. Perhaps, I thought, Tufts needs an honor code?
An honor code is basically an institutional moral code that governs academic and social behavior. At the U.S. Military Academy, for example, cadets pledge to "not cheat, lie, steal or tolerate those who do." Honor codes vary from school to school but are generally characterized by the following features: 1) A written pledge 2) a significant degree of student self-government 3) a responsibility clause that obligates students to report cases of cheating they witness, and 4) privileges, benefits or incentives, such as unproctored exams.
Most people think that honor codes are only meant to reduce cheating and plagiarism. While research shows that cheating at honor code-schools is typically 1/3 to 1/2 lower than at non-code schools (www.academicintegrity.org/cai_research.asp), honor codes can be designed to achieve two more important goals.
First, for the individual, an honor code serves as a tool for moral education. By actually making it easier to cheat, the honor code invites serious moral reflection. Taking the final exam alone in his room with his feet propped up on the books that contain all the test answers, a student is faced with a real moral choice. In a police state with vigilant professors looking over your shoulder, theoretically there is no choice.
Of course, the responsibility clause of the traditional honor code creates the same police state with other students constantly looking over your shoulder. This is a bad feature of the honor code, and one that should be rethought. Students should not refrain from cheating simply because of fear of punishment. The ideal honor code would equip students with a positive moral vocabulary and encourage academic integrity out of respect towards oneself and the other members of the community.
Second, for the group, an honor code serves to strengthen community by fostering an atmosphere of trust among the student body, faculty and administration. By taking responsibility for their own actions, students earn trust and respect from their professors. The code also brings people together by encouraging dialogue about the meaning of honor and the character of the community.
An honor code that reduces cheating, encourages dialogue, fosters community, and provides students with moral education might be a good solution to many of the problems at Tufts. Anyone who denies a serious cheating epidemic on campus is kidding no one but him or herself. And the lack of moral education would be answered by a solution that is inextricably linked to the problems of community identified by the task force.
Before we jump headlong into drafting an honor code, we should consider the following questions:
First, is there even a role for moral
education within the University? Shouldn't the University be a value-neutral institution where free speech reigns and students gain the tools to rationally assess and choose among competing conceptions of the good? As appealing as this sounds, the University can never be entirely value-neutral. Behind every choice and action lies a value judgment, even in the way we teach math and physics. Nor does the University claim to be value-neutral. Tufts aims to educate global leaders for the next generation who value, among other things, citizenship and public service.
Second, is honor the appropriate value upon which to found our community? Honor seems to have grown up in the culture of the white, aristocratic, southern gentleman where honor was demonstrated by facing an opponent in a duel. Back in the day, women couldn't have honor. Black slaves certainly couldn't have honor. Honor was elitist and exclusive. If everyone has honor, honor effectively loses all meaning. Today, honor seems like an antiquated, hierarchical virtue that is hostile to the liberal democratic values of equality and freedom.
On the other hand, honor inspires strength, courage and daring, militaristic virtues that are not without their benefits. While the value of honor may be well suited to West Point, it may be less relevant to the undergrad liberal arts agenda. Perhaps instead of an honor code, Tufts should design its own virtue system, integrity code, or set community standards.
While I do not think that a traditional honor code is the turn-key solution to all of the problems at Tufts, the idea of an honor code provides the framework for discussion from which the community should think creatively and color outside the lines. We should seriously consider whether any sort of moral code is right for the Tufts community and, if so, what form that code should take.
An honor code will only work if all groups within the community support it. Values, standards and rules must be embraced by the community from the bottom-up, not imposed from the top-down. The question of community is still relevant today.
Now is the time to engage in dialogue with our neighbors to actively shape the nature of our own community. The question of an honor code might be a good place to begin.
