After months of deliberation and an extended voting period, over two-thirds of Middlebury students voted in favor of two of the three proposed changes to the Honor Code. The results, which Dean of Students Joe Russell announced on Jan. 14, removed the moral obligation to report Honor Code violations and implemented a sliding scale of penalties for violations, with 73.4% and 89.2% of voting students answering yes, respectively. The proposal to allow professors to proctor exams did not pass, receiving only 45.8% support.
In conducting the vote, the review committee — composed of faculty, Student Government Association (SGA) and administrators — told The Campus how ambitious of a task it was to reach a two-thirds vote threshold from the students.
“We knew that SGA [Student Government Association] elections typically see turnout under 50% and so that getting 66.7% was a significant challenge,” the committee members wrote to The Campus.
In the end, the effort of students distributing flyers to all student doors brought the vote to 68.7%, just surpassing the committee's goal. These results still must be ratified by the faculty to become official, which the HCRC hopes will happen during the spring semester. Certain changes, however, can be implemented more quickly, the committee members stated.
“Some of the recommendations we made, such as ‘1. Publicly and regularly define and affirm the meaning and importance of academic integrity’ and including AI in the definition of plagiarism do not involve changing the Constitution of the Undergraduate Honor System, and therefore do not require a student vote,” they wrote.
The proposal to allow proctoring of exams across all disciplines — currently the Economics department is the only one empowered to supervise test-taking due to rampant cheating — proved to be too controversial for the student body, despite the committee’s hope that it would pass.
“The moral obligation to report another for cheating, which is included in our current Honor Code, is generally understood to be unrealistic,” the review committee members wrote.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Kristina Shrestha raised some potential benefits of having professors proctor exams — the only item which the recent referendum rejected — that the student body might have overlooked.
“Having in-site is to provide support for students when they have questions or are not sure. An instructor’s single nod can boost their confidence,” Shrestha said.
She expressed how, although it might not be immediately noticeable, having certain rules such as proctoring exams can give students more accountability to learn.
“[The] Honor Code is a delicate topic that needs to be addressed as integrity and not a tool of advantage. The gravity of the Honor Code is sometimes a heavy burden for young adults,” she explained.
Still, Shrestha made it clear that such a change would only be effective with the consent of the students. Moving forward, the HCRC plans to conduct faculty votes on the proposed changes while it continues to assess the effectiveness of the Honor Code.
“We are also advocating for changes in current practices based on the recommendations in the report, such as reinstituting the Honor Code signing ceremony during orientation,” they wrote.
Though changes have not yet been implemented, students told The Campus that this outcome indicates a shifting academic culture at Middlebury.
“All the change in the Honor Code did was reflect reality,” said Dominick Hutchens ’28.
Having voted in favor of all three proposed changes, Hutchens explained that, while accountability is important, he feels empathy has become more of a priority in the Middlebury community.
Although most Middlebury students report having broken the Honor Code. For Zeitgeist 6.0 in 2024, students reported that they typically did not expect to face consequences for an Honor Code violation or feel the need to report a classmate.
Another student, Natalie Martinez ’28, shared her views on the mental burden that coursework places on students, adding that brief lapses in judgment do not mean that a student lacks the intrinsic motivation to learn.
“No one who wants to get a degree is going to cheat on everything,” Martinez said.
In discussing how the proposal to allow professors the ability to proctor exams did not pass, Sam Lueke ’28 emphasized the importance of trust within the Middlebury community. They felt the trust given to students by professors — knowing that they have learning at the forefront of their minds — benefits the academic culture at Middlebury. Having voted against professor exam proctoring, Lueke values this bond between faculty and students.
“It’s a positive thing that we feel like we can trust our students to be more interested in learning material than getting good grades,” Lueke said.
