I think that many people at this school would be surprised to learn that WPI has no policy about it's honor groups. Every student group at this school must follow certain rules in order to be recognized of course, such as signing the anti-hazing form and having a constitution. To be recognized honor societies must do this as well, but there is no otherpolicy they must follow.
One thing that this means is that any group of students can call themselves an honor society if they want to. There are dozens of student groups at this school. If all of them wanted to call themselves honor groups then there's no way for the administration to stop them. I'm not trying to say that any of them would, but even if one group calls itself an honor society when it shouldn't then it would lessen the respect that people have for all of the other honor societies.
I've been working on a proposal to the administration for such a guideline. I realize that every honor group honors something different. However, I don't think that it would be unreasonable for a guideline that would say something such as all honor societies must: Be recognized student groups, have at least one specific thing that they honor and let people know all of the qualities they're looking for in new members even if it's something that can't be easily quantified like "commitment" or "integrity".
I think that speculation about the qualifications of some honor societies on this campus is detrimental for everyone. A set of guidelines defining what qualities honor societies should have would prevent skepticism about them and is long overdue. I think we have many good honor societies on this campus and I would hope that a basic set of guidelines wouldn't hurt any of them. I simply think that WPI needs a definition of what an honor society is that everyone can agree on.
Andrew Carruth
Class of '00