Editorial To make a moral choice

Author: [no author name found]

While the College's Honor Code has always been a somewhat amorphous concept, its existence is undeniably crucial to our Middlebury experience. By forcing students' collective honesty to triumph over greed and self-consciousness, the Code is a learning tool that transcends university politics. The qualities of trust and integrity it hopes to instill in students have value that reaches far beyond the borders of our quiet Vermont campus.

Still, we cannot fault professors for feeling uneasy leaving students unattended during exams, nor can we protest the proposed changes to the Honor Code (to be voted upon by the student body this coming week). The purpose of the Code, as we understand it, is to promote academic integrity among students and to foster a trusting relationship between professor and pupil. Those who resent the faculty for questioning the Code need only glance at the College's alarming statistics about cheating to recognize the system is deeply fl awed. In addition, certain academic subjects seem to facilitate cheating more than others, leaving the integrity of some departments in question.

While those of us who abide by the Honor Code appreciate the College's trust, some of our peers find it all too easy to exploit it. Ironically, the Code does more now to enable than prevent the very violations for which the system was created. As it stands, the Code still promotes personal integrity - the idea that we, as a collective, can uphold the College's values and standards without adult intervention. But the cold, hard evidence forces us to confront a disappointing reality: not only are we dishonest about academic dishonesty, we are also too unwilling to defend those standards and values we profess to hold so dear.

When the concept of an Honor Code diverges from its purpose, reevaluation is not only acceptable, it is imperative. In a community such as ours, we would all prefer to believe the best about our peers. Few would accept that the unassuming student in the back of the classroom would look over our shoulders during an exam, or that our favorite professor is secretly suspicious of our work. But in the high-pressure culture of college life, such unfortunate behavior can become unavoidable truth.

The Honor Code has become a vehicle promoting collective integrity at the expense of personal integrity. Now, it is up to this community to decide which it finds more valuable.