From the President's Desk

Is it cheating to falsely claim to have completed an assignment on time? What about falsely claiming to have attended a class? Students at Middlebury aren’t always reading notes off the bottom of their shoes or copying test answers: cheating goes beyond that. Passing on problem sets, falsifying lab data, asking for an unnecessary extension, citing a fake source, peeking at Wikipedia during take-home exams or having a not-so-innocuous chat with a classmate during a routine quiz are, in my view, all forms of academic dishonesty. Our community should not tolerate cheating, and I think we all envision a Middlebury where we have more integrity than that.

Orientation week is exciting. You meet your roommate and catch a glimpse of your potential spouse, square dance, explore Breadloaf and take part in convocation. I have fond memories of orientation, but in 10 years, I doubt that I’ll recall signing the Honor Code.

During this week’s open SGA Senate meeting, Associate Dean of Students for Judicial Affairs and Student Life Karen Guttentag and the two student co-chairs of the Academic Judicial Board, Amy Schlueter ’13 and Jackie Yordan ’13, came in to discuss what the Honor Code means to students today. The Honor Code is reviewed every four years by a committee comprised mainly of students, who make recommendations about the best way to carry this tradition forward.

Most of us don’t think about the Honor Code on a daily basis. Professors have varying interpretations of the Honor Code, which can be confusing or conflicting. We all know that cheating is bad, but oftentimes it’s not abundantly clear exactly what cheating is, or what we’re supposed to do if we observe our peers cheating. So we go on day to day, blindly writing, “I have neither given nor received any unauthorized aid on this assignment” (or sometimes “I didn’t cheat,” or sometimes nothing at all) on the tops of our papers and take-home exams. But cheating still happens, and it seems to me like most of us aren’t ready to do anything about it.

Maybe this apathy stems from the lack of dialogue on the Honor Code after orientation. If the Honor Code is so important to culture at Middlebury, why aren’t we talking about it with the frequency it deserves? Based on a recommendation from the Honor Code Review Committee, the SGA will establish a group that will look at the critical question of what the Honor Code really means for students. In my vision, one of the key functions of this committee will be to force this conversation to continue not just beyond orientation but throughout the Middlebury experience as a key component of Middlebury’s culture. We need to be talking about the value of academic integrity. Ultimately, if students aren’t willing to hold up their end of the bargain when it comes to the Honor Code, it’s not unrealistic that it could someday disappear.

As a first step toward reigniting this dialogue on campus, SGA, Community Council and the Office of the Dean of the College will be hosting a Community Forum on March 11 at 7:30 p.m. to talk about the Honor Code. So come with your stories, your views and your personal experiences that you’d like to share with other members of the Middlebury Community. Let’s get this conversation started, and let’s not let it stop.