Honor-Code Conflict
Administration halts student-led changes, saying further faculty review is needed
Published Feb. 2, 2018
On the USG election ballots in December, students voted for USG officers, committee chairs, class senators, and something new: four Honor Code referenda. The referenda proposed a reduced standard penalty for violations; requiring two pieces of evidence for a case to be presented in a hearing; ensuring that students would not be found guilty if the course instructor states the student’s actions did not violate class policy; and requiring that the committee disclose, upon first contact, whether a student is a witness or accused of a violation.
All four referenda passed by a wide margin, but in January, administrators said the first three would not be enacted without further faculty review. Because it called only for procedural change, the fourth could be implemented.
Dean of the College Jill Dolan, Dean of the Faculty Sanjeev Kulkarni, and Vice President for Campus Life W. Rochelle Calhoun wrote in a Jan. 4 email to students that the proposed referenda would “fundamentally alter the University’s disciplinary penalties and standards for assessing violations of the Honor Code during in-class examinations.”
“These proposals represent a significant departure from prior practice and exceed the scope of the responsibility delegated to the student body by the faculty concerning the Honor System,” the administrators said.
Created in 1893 as an agreement between students and faculty to “uphold a high standard of academic integrity at Princeton,” the Honor Code has been amended several times. A 1921 change permitted leniency in exceptional cases, and the possibility of a one-year suspension was approved in 1974 (previously, students found guilty would be expelled).
The administrators’ email cited a lack of faculty input to the referenda. But Patrick Flanigan ’18, the outgoing USG academics committee chair who led the Honor Code reform effort, said he believed “conversations around amending the Honor System had to be undertaken by students.”
Students “should be outraged at this act of student disenfranchisement,” Micah Herskind ’19, a member of the USG academics subcommittee that proposed the referenda, wrote in The Daily Princetonian. “Princeton’s administration has communicated to its students that it will only play by the rules so long as those rules maintain the status quo.”
Dolan told The Tab online news site that “change simply has to be accomplished in the right way, with the appropriate voices involved in the process.”
The USG’s executive committee said it is “looking at the precedent of administration overriding a vote from the student body and actively pursuing other avenues of action available to us.”
While the Prince editorial board endorsed the December referenda, nine alumni who had chaired the Honor Committee wrote that it would be a “grave mistake” to reduce the standard penalty from a one-year suspension to academic probation for a first offense. That contrasts with cases before the Committee on Discipline, which deals with a broad range of academic infractions: “When the committee concludes that a student ought to have known that they had committed a violation, the penalty is separation from the University,” the group’s website says.
“The University really can’t be in the position where these penalties are so vastly out of line,” said Professor Clancy Rowley ’95. Rowley and Honor Committee chair Carolyn Liziewski ’18 are leading a faculty-student committee that will review the three referenda while taking a broader look at the procedures and policies of the Honor Committee.
This group will report its findings to the faculty Committee on Examinations and Standing. If that committee determines that changes to the Honor Code or the Committee on Discipline’s policies are warranted, it will offer a recommendation to the full faculty for a vote. The University hopes that these steps will be completed during the spring term.
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9 Responses
Hayley Gorenberg ’87
6 Years AgoAt a time when those in highest office proclaim that the most important thing is “winning,” with no emphasis on how, Princeton should not retrench on its Honor Code (On the Campus, Feb. 7). Maintaining the code — including standard consequences of suspension, expulsion, and censure — helps broadcast the vital value of integrity as Princeton’s students develop to serve the nation and humanity.
Laurence C. Day ’55
6 Years AgoWhy all the flap about the Honor Code? In my years, all of our exams in the various liberal-arts courses I took were statements incorporating questions with essay answers. As a matter of course we all signed the Honor Code at the exams’ end, but how could we have violated it even if one were so inclined with essay questions and answers?
Beyond this, I could have never imagined anyone violating the code. Every Princeton classmate I knew would never even have contemplated such an unseemly transgression. I assumed all who were admitted had the highest and best ethical standards. It is one aspect of Princeton that encouraged me to apply at the outset. They treated us like gentlemen.
Now there is a movement afoot to weaken the Honor Code? Anyone who violates the code as written has been dishonored. Undergraduates who disagree should have gone to another university. And if one violates the Honor Code, they should be shown the exit door from Princeton.
Frederick G. Brown ’63
6 Years AgoI find it saddening to have read that the University is considering weakening the penalties for violation of the Honor Code (On the Campus, Feb. 7). Living in a society where absolute standards are giving way to moral relativism in all spheres, I appreciate Dean Jill Dolan’s statements regarding her concerns about fundamentally altering the University’s disciplinary penalties. At the same time, I find the comments of students Flanigan and Herskind disrespectful of the administration and the Honor Code. I always felt it a privilege to conclude each and every examination at Princeton by writing, “I pledge my honor as a gentleman that during this examination I have neither given nor received assistance.” I do hope that the Honor Code and penalties for violation will remain unchanged in a changing (not always for the better) world. I fail to see how weakening the Code could possibly be a good or honorable change.
Rich Seitz ’75
6 Years AgoI interview applicants and always discuss the Honor Code, still reciting it from memory after 43 years. I note the importance of exams, their length, their stress, the ability of students to get up and walk out without permission (there being no proctors), the tension, the silence as no one wants to be accused and no one wants to have to report someone else. I honor the Honor Code.
I then talk about how into the tension sometimes comes the counterbalance: “Without warning my fellow student stood upon his desk, ripped his exam into pieces, and screamed gibberish about the prof as two fellows in white coats burst into the room, carrying a stretcher and a straitjacket.” Or the time the custodians were banging metal trash cans outside the exam door, only to have the doors burst open and two fencers battle up the stairs, across the balcony, down the stairs, across the stage and out the doors, to a standing ovation from the amazed audience.
I also note that papers need to be signed with the same oath and how plagiarism becomes scholarship by the use of quotes and footnotes, a lesson that few high schoolers really understand. I did not know the “death” penalty had been altered to one year; it’s probably good to have the option. Less than that requires extreme circumstances in my view. I was the person who had champagne delivered during an econ exam in ’74, but that’s another story. Any other exam memories would be appreciated.
Syed Hamde Ali ’62
6 Years AgoI recall having to appear as a witness in a student’s hearing, apparently for copying off another’s paper. It was conducted with great seriousness, and a lot of respect was given to those who testified. I remember feeling that I was a part of a great system that had been devised by very enlightened persons — a system whereby students were examined by other students whose recommendations were binding to the authorities.
I interview applicants to Princeton from Bangladesh as an ASC volunteer. The climate of the examination rooms in this country is so dramatically different that when I explain the Honor Code to these students they are totally amazed, if not perplexed.
Rich Seitz ’75
6 Years AgoI shared with about six others but couldn't provide for everyone. However, they all loved the delivery couple - both over 6 feet tall - one in tails and the other in French maid accoutre carrying silver tray, silver urn with dry ice, and of course the bottle and glasses. About that time Triangle did a show called "A titter ran through the audience," and it certainly did at the exam.
K.H. Norris ’86
6 Years AgoWas the champagne just for you or for the whole class? ;-)
Rich Seitz ’75
6 Years AgoThank you for the update on the Honor Code. I interview applicants and always discuss the Honor Code, still reciting it from memory after 43 years. I note the importance of exams, their length, their stress, the ability of students to get up and walk out without permission, there being no proctors, the tension, the silence as no one wants to be accused, and no one wants to have to report some one else. I honor the Honor Code. I then talk about how into the tension sometimes comes the counter-balance. " Without warning my fellow student stood upon his desk, ripped his exam into pieces, screamed gibberish about the prof, as two fellows in white coats burst into the room, carrying a stretcher and a straitjacket." Or the time the custodians were banging the metal trash cans outside the exam door, only to have the doors burst open and two fencers battled up the stairs, across the balcony, down the stairs, across the stage and out the doors, to a standing ovation from the amazed audience. I also note that papers need to be signed with the same oath and how plagiarism becomes scholarship by the use of quotes and footnotes, a lesson that few high schoolers really understand. I did not know the "death" penalty had been altered to one year; probably good to have the option. Less than that requires extreme circumstances in my view. Any other exam memories would be appreciated. I was the person who had champagne delivered during an Econ exam in '74, but that's another story.
Norman Ravitch *62
6 Years AgoGiven human nature, there is no way to prevent cheating. Those who have personal integrity and a sense of self worth would never cheat. Those who are normal ambitious unscrupulous types will always cheat, no matter the systems in place to prevent cheating.