notes from the desk I did not plagiarize these notes

Author: Livingston Burgess

Before I get too invested here, I just want to let readers know - and remind myself - that I really have no real stake in whether or not the faculty decision to proctor exams sticks. I have never actively cheated in my time here at Middlebury, I would never consider it my business to turn in a cheater and I'm not deranged enough to worry about the effects that cheaters' curve-breaking might have on my GPA.

Still, I can't imagine a much more compelling lens in which to examine the collective psyche of the Middlebury "community," or a much more telling example of the ways in which the academy as a whole categorically fails to get the point. The issue lies at the confluence of material interests intrinsic and extrinsic fulfillment, power and pleasure. Since I find the distressingly persistent connection between financial success and academia distasteful, I want to speak to the ways in which our fulfillment and pleasure - different things - play out in the context of cheating.

By equating the proctoring of exams with a reduction in cheating, the faculty neglects the fundamental draw of cheating. I broke rules in high school, in a few rare instances - sold answers, goats on roofs (don't ask) - not because I wanted to bolster my grades, but because it is a pleasurable activity, and it is only pleasurable if it is illicit. In Orgo this spring, a problem has been posted from each test on which students could collaborate. Though nice - and appreciated, Professor Byers - it makes collaboration just another facet of studying.

With the threat of being caught, though, the student takes on power over the instructor. He is gaming the system, making for himself intrinsic meaning masked with the extrinsic motivation of a grade, of money, of whatever. The material gain is not the object, which is what the faculty fail to appreciate.

Interestingly, the same is true of the hazing "incident" that recently took place. I was not pleased, but a little satisfied to see punishment doled out. It reassured me that the oppositional contract between administrator and violator remained in place. I don't mean to condone true, harmful hazing, but victimless crimes like SIM's are empowered by the threat of repercussion, and I like that power.

Why, then, don't I cheat here? Surely the power afforded by the threat of expulsion would be significant, heady even. First, though, I cheated in high school partly because I was not challenged. Now that I am academically challenged, I would feel compromised breaking the rules at the expense of my self-betterment. I have a contractual obligation to myself, and to my parents for funding my education, that inhibits me. This may seem to many like a very hazy line, but it is the one I draw.

Additionally, though, I do not cheat because there is no real threat to accompany it. With the honor code, Middlebury lays upon me trust rather than suspicion, robbing me of the power that cheating would provide, just as Professor Byers did when he turned secretive collaboration into sanctioned, productive work - more beneficial, but markedly less pleasurable. I am convinced, too, that in doing so, those problems we were given to discuss stuck with us far more deeply than any others. Are we at Middlebury to be instructed by pedagogues or evaluated by meat inspectors? The faculty have a chance to guide the direction of the answer to this question, and if they want to base their decision off a genuine understanding of their subjects, rather than a cursory stereotype, they will at least give more thought to their resolution.

Livingston Burgess '10 is an assistant Sports editor from Walla Walla, Wash.