A new ad hoc committee of the Honor Committee met for the first time last night with a mission to take a hard look at the controversial issue of the single sanction -- and ultimately propose an alternative sanctioning method.
The Sanction Reform Committee is chaired by Sara Page, who also heads the Honor Committee's Diversity Advisory Board.
"The goal is to take a deep look at the single sanction, the goals of the honor system and the real-life effects of the single sanction," said Page, also an elected member of the full Committee. "There seems to be significant evidence that the single-sanction policy actually leaves the honor system weakened, so this committee will move quickly to develop an alternative policy."
The sanction committee is composed of Honor Committee members and support officers, professors and other students interested in the debate over the single sanction.
Sanction committee members voiced a variety of opinions on the issue.
Page said she personally is opposed to the single sanction and instead favors a sanction with a rehabilitative mechanism that does not strip students of their credits or degrees.
Astronomy Prof. Charles Tolbert, who was involved in an open honor trial in October 2002, also said he is against the single sanction.
"The single sanction is probably too strong a sanction to have mainly because it does not allow for redemption," he said. "The problem is finding an alternative."
Psychology Prof. Jon Haidt said the single sanction is an enormous cause of injustice and undermines the "community of trust." He said he is in favor of modifying the sanctioning system to allow alternate penalties or at least readmission.
Other sanction committee members said they were in favor of the single sanction but were concerned with certain aspects of it.
Fourth-year College student Kassia Omohundro, who is not directly involved with the Honor Committee, said she is concerned with "the narrowness of the sanction and lack of consideration about the circumstances leading up to an offense."
Third-year College student Zach Williams, an honor counselor, said he "has no problem" with the single sanction but has participated in honor trials where jury members are hesitant to deliver a guilty verdict because of the penalty.
Vice Chair of Investigations David Hobbs said while he strongly supports the single sanction, he would like to see if the sanction committee is able to come up with a sanction that is capable of providing the same benefit -- a high expectation of academic integrity -- that the single sanction does.
Page proposed using a "negotiation strategy" to guide the sanction committee's discussions and help them consider both sides of the issue.
Several members emphasized the need for the sanction committee to be mindful of the honor system's history. Support for an alternative sanctioning system, they said, will have to come from alumni and administrators in addition to current students.
Page said the sanction committee will look to members of all of those groups, as well as experts on academic integrity and the sanctioning systems at other colleges and universities, when coming up with alternatives.
As of now, the sanction committee will meet once a week in an effort to devise a proposal that could be voted on in the spring. To prevent the proposal from being lost in the shuffle of other referenda that appear on the spring ballot, Page said the sanction committee may consider pre-empting the spring election period, posing a potential referendum on a separate ballot.
Page said while the single sanction has long been a hotly debated issue, her staunch opposition to it drove her to spearhead a committee to reform it this year.
"I had the opportunity to make it a bigger issue," she said. "I think it's rare that a Committee member feels so strongly against it."
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