During A-Term, Faculty Committees, the Student Government Association, and the Graduate Student Organization will be evaluating a recommendation made by the Ad Hoc Academic Honesty Committee that WPI adopt an Academic Honor Code. For several years I have served as the co-chair of this committee and would like to share some of my personal thoughts about this recommendation and about the type of honor code being proposed. (For research referred to below, see the Center for Academic Integrity, Duke University [http://www.academicintegrity.org].)
The distinguishing characteristic of all honor codes is that the burden of policing academic dishonesty shifts from the teacher-as-watchdog to the student-as-moral-citizen. Traditional honor codes, such as at the University of Virginia or Cal Tech, put extensive responsibility and trust upon the student for maintaining academic integrity, and can, as at the military academies, be quite severe in the penalties they impose for violation of the code. For instance, such codes may have a single sanction-expulsion-for any type of violation and a non-toleration clause, where a student is held in violation of the code if he or she witnesses an act of academic dishonesty and does not report it. These traditional codes also sometimes prohibit faculty from proctoring exams.
"Modified" codes are more forgiving of failings in human character and have a variety of different sanctions depending on the severity of the violation. Further, while they may call upon a student to take some sort of action upon witnessing what they believe to be a code violation, modified codes do not usually insist that the student "rat" on a fellow student. Professors are also given more discretion as to how they should monitor the classroom. It is a type of modified academic honor code that is being recommended to WPI students and faculty.
In my mind, dangers lie in creating either a code that is so severe that it is ignored by the community or so modified that it has no effect upon the moral climate. A code that is unrealistic in its demands about what people can be expected to do, e.g., asking a girlfriend to turn in a boyfriend for copying a homework assignment when he will be expelled from the school. On the other hand, a code that is modified to a point where the moral climate of the campus remains essentially the same, where it is business as usual in catching and punishing cheaters, will fail to generate the high-mindedness necessary for an effective honor code. Universities across the country are wrestling with these issues in an effort to stem widespread evidence of cheating throughout secondary and higher education.
A recent survey of some 3100 distinguished high school graduates listed in Who's Who Among American High School Students revealed that 80 percent admitted to cheating in school and over half asserted that it was "no big deal." Research done by Donald L. McCabe, the country's leading authority on issues of academic integrity, indicates that on campuses without honor codes, the self-reported incident of cheating at least once on tests was 45 percent and 56 percent on written work. Honor code campuses fare considerably better in reducing cheating although the statistics are still disturbing: In large public universities with honor codes the figures were respectively 33 and 50 percent and on private campuses with honor codes, 23 and 45 percent. These statistics raise serious concerns among students and faculty committed to defending academic integrity.
One thing needs to be made clear about honor codes from the start: Simply adopting an honor code would do little in itself to lessen violations of academic honesty. This fact is perhaps evident from the highly publicized scandal this year at Connecticut College where in spite of an honor code, unproctored student exams have apparently been an opportunity for students -as faculty might say-to get away with murder. Adoption of an honor code is only a first step. An honor code must be nurtured in a cultural environment that raises the moral awareness of the entire community in such a manner that a violation of the ethical bonds pledged student to student and student to teacher and teacher to student becomes unthinkable and intolerable. To be effective, an honor code requires that we publicly recognize these obligations. As McCabe states the issue, in successful honor code institutions, faculty "actively communicate to students that academic integrity is a core institutional value and that students have a major role to play in achieving this important institutional goal." We should have no illusions that making WPI into a true honor code campus will require much work in cultivating the necessary moral climate. Nothing could be worse, in my opinion, than for WPI to make a hollow pledge to an honor code that was a sham-on everyone's lips and on every piece of Institute propaganda but not truly believed by student or teacher.
On the other hand, there are good reasons to believe that WPI can successfully create an honor code campus. McCabe argues that small institutions where instruction is carried out by close interaction between student and teacher and where the responsibility for independent work and study is routinely placed upon the student, in brief, in institutions with pedagogical systems like at WPI, honor codes are usually very effective. As the Preamble to the honor code proposed by the Ad Hoc Committee states: "WPI is an institution that embraces and encourages highly interactive and collaborative learning among students and faculty. In such an environment, the bonds of academic trust among all members of the academic community are paramount."
Furthermore, given the abiding human concerns that underlie the WPI Plan, in brief, that technology has moral consequence, I believe, education at WPI should be conducted in the environment of high integrity that arises from and sustains honor codes. (Unfortunately, McCabe's research indicates engineering and business students self-report a higher incidence of cheating than students in other fields.) The ABET EC2000 Criterion, that is, the future evaluation standard of the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology, asks engineering universities if their students have "an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility." We must begin by asking students and professors to recognize their ethical responsibilities as students and professors.
An academic honor code is not a better way of catching cheaters; there are cheaters even at honor code institutions. An Orwellian police-state university might be able to eliminate all types of cheating, but it would create a very poor environment for education. In conclusion, the real value of an effective academic honor code is that it raises the moral awareness and high-mindedness of the entire learning community, not only reducing the incidence of cheating but elevating human interaction in the classroom. This is a worthy goal for this institution.
As these issues are debated in Faculty Committees and among students in coming weeks, I will be delighted to discuss any aspects of the proposed code with members of the community. If you are interested in seeing a copy of the Recommendation and Proposal for a WPI Honor Code drafted by the Ad Hoc Committee on Academic Honesty, please contact me by email (addison@wpi.edu).