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Does the Honor System Work

Does the Honor System Work Almost everyone has cheated on something at least once, whether it was on a test or in a football game, everyone has cheated at least once. For the majority of us, it was only once and we felt guilty enough afterwards to quit, but there are some that continue to cheat at every opportunity. While most colleges and universities would like to think that this does not happen on their campuses, the fact is that it happens everywhere. People have tried solving the cheating problem with various methods, most of which don’t work. The most popular procedure seems to be to spread the students out and keep a close watch. This method is most widely used to make sure that students do not look on each others papers or use a “cheat sheet” to help them with the answers. Some professors have even started making more than one exam, with the same questions just in a different order. For an experienced cheater however, these methods do not stop them, and, in some cases, it makes the desire to cheat even stronger. Almost as if the student feels that they “beat the professor at their own game” when they succeed at cheating. To get rid of this thrill, some colleges and universities have implemented an honor system. With this system, total trust is placed in the student because they are allowed to take exams home and return them the next day. Of course some students will take advantage of this since it would be so easy to cheat but a surprisingly small number have at colleges that already use this system. I believe this is because once students are trusted, they will not want to let that person down. To lessen cheating on college campuses across the nation and produce better prepared adults, the honor system must be implemented. Many people ask what is wrong with traditional methods of catching cheaters. For one, there are so many new methods being thought up every day it would be impossible for any college, let alone professor, to keep up with them. Methods such as different exams, walking up and down the aisles during the exam, and using several proctors simply do not work any more. One student at the University of Arkansas confesses to cheating in almost every class. For example, in a Spanish computer lab the student was able to cheat on an exam by simply making a “cheat sheet” with all the answers on it and hiding behind his computer screen. He also describes how the student manages to cheat on the rest of their exams (Wein). The Internet is also fast becoming a major tool for the cheater. There are many websites that will give you the information you need to become a successful cheater. One well known site is called SchoolSucks.com which offers term papers to prospective cheaters. You can even get a customized paper written for you by a team of “experts”. The price ranges for papers being anywhere from free to $200 per paper (Brownstein). Not only can you find sites that will write your paper for you, you can also find sites that will tell you exactly how you can cheat using such items as a Coke bottle or a pack of gum, both things that most professors would not worry about (blurofinsanity). Many people wonder what the honor code is exactly. On the college level, it is a method of self-government. It operates on the principle that most students are honest and work best in situations where their honesty is not in question. It is there to prevent academic dishonesty, as well as to penalize those students that are dishonest. Several colleges around the country already have this code in place and have noticed a decrease in cheating. In these colleges, some of which include Haverford College, North Dakota State University and Kalamazoo College, students are responsible for signing an honor pledge. In the College of Agriculture at North Dakota State University their honor pledge states “On my honor I have neither given nor received aid in completing this assignment.” They also are responsible for taking any actions that will eliminate academic dishonesty and they may make suggestions to the Honor Commission that may improve the system. In these colleges, the system is totally student run. The Commission is a set number of students that is usually selected by the previous student Commission. In Haverford College, four students from each class are elected by their peers to serve on the Honor Council. The Honor Commission at North Dakota State University, however, is done a little differently. Under their system, the current commission selects three incoming freshman to start serving on the commission their sophomore year, which they will stay on until their fourth year. There is also one graduate student on the commission that is selected by the other members. The second method is likely to work better since the students are handpicked and there would be no election, which in schools usually ends up as popularity contest in the end. If the students are handpicked, they will probably take more pride in being on the committee and they will not be so easily corrupted by friends. They will also most likely have higher morals and less toleration of cheating than those that are selected by their peers. The honor system will also raise the maturity level of students at colleges and universities where the code is implemented. The trust that is placed in the students often rolls over into other parts of student life. In Kalamazoo College, the administration has even taken away Resident Advisors in dormitories, leaving students to work out all difficulties by themselves. This action will provide students with invaluable social skills that they would never learn in a classroom. Perhaps the administration of Hood College said it best when they stated that the basic aims of the honor system stems from principles of honor to encourage and promote a trusting relationship among the students. The honor system is also there to help students improve their own honor through self-discipline and to offer students the opportunity to exercise their responsibilities and democratic rule on campus. They also want to make the students more aware of their personal principles of honor (Hood). If every college and university in America adopted these principles, the students of today would be better prepared to deal with the adult world of tomorrow. In a sense, it would seem like the honor system promotes cheating since there are unproctored exams and unsupervised living quarters. However, the only way that this reasoning stands is if we have the assumption that college students have no morals and that the only reason they do not currently cheat is because they are afraid of getting caught and punished. In reality most students do not cheat because they know it is wrong and they know they will not get anywhere by cheating. Fortunately for us, most college students have realized that when they cheat, they are only hurting themselves. When students do cheat, it is usually because of a great deal of external pressure placed on them by parents and the work force. Students today have been raised in an environment where cheating is acceptable. Many parents even brag about cheating the Internal Revenue Service or about getting extra money back when making purchases. Whether parents realize this or not, that is a major factor in whether or not a person cheats in school. If a child sees their parents cheating in any sense of the word it merely reinforces the idea that cheating is not bad if they do not get caught. While the problem of cheating on college campuses will never go away, no matter how hard people try, it can be significantly reduced with the implementation of the honor system. It will take time to put into practice but once it is, the system will take a lot of strain off of professors and administration to catch and punish cheaters since they will be dealt with by other students. This is only one of the many benefits of the honor system. Some others include increased morality in students today and more responsible adults tomorrow. In the end, this system could eliminate almost all cheating at all levels in our society by producing more accountable adults and parents, who in turn would rear more honest children. Obviously cheating will probably always be a problem in our society, there is a way we can lessen the desire and the actual act by applying the honor system. Bibliography: Works Cited North Dakota State University College of Agriculture. Honor System Page. North Dakota State University. 1 November 2000 Haverford College. Honor System Page. Haverford College. 1 November 2000. Kalamazoo College. Honor System Page. Kalamazoo College. 1 November 2000. Hood College. Honor System Page. 25 September 1998. Hood College. 1 November 2000. Wein, Eric. “Cheating: risking it all for grades.” Arizona Daily Wildcat 2 December 1994. 3 November 2000. Brownstein, Andrew. “Beyond Cliff Notes: In college, on-line cheating is a grade-A problem.” Albany Times Union 9 September 1999. 3 November 2000. Blur of Insanity. Cheating Page. April 2000. Blur of Insanity. 3 November 2000.

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