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Sullivan visits Honor Committee, talks Strategic Investment Fund

Honor considers changing plaque wording

<p>Honor Chair Matt West.</p>

Honor Chair Matt West.

The Strategic Investment Fund — a controversial topic among students, Virginians and state legislators — was a key topic at this week’s Honor Committee meeting. University President Teresa Sullivan, who rarely comes to speak to the committee, gave a statement during the community input period and took questions about the fund.

“We have no relationship with the Strategic Investment Fund,” Honor Committe Chair Matt West, a fourth-year College student, said. “I believe President Sullivan took the opportunity to come to the committee tonight just to further clarify the purposes of SIF and the reasons why it was created in the first place.”

Although the fund, dubbed a “slush fund” by former Board of Visitors Rector Helen Dragas, came to light this past July, many of the Honor Committee representatives were still uncertain about where the money for the fund came from. Third-year Engineering representative William Rainey asked Sullivan about the specific breakdown about the fund’s financial sources.

“Some of it is the portion of the endowment that was unrestricted, so a donor did not say, ‘You have to spend my money on this or that,’” Sullivan said. “Some of it was earnings on the endowment that had not been spent. A quarter of it came from the Health System, then about a quarter of it comes from reserves in what’s called the academic division.”

Another topic discussed at the meeting was the possibility for a change in the wording of the Honor plaque, which appears in every classroom around the University. This was brought up by Vice Chair for Education Ariana Zetlin, a fourth-year Curry student.

The current honor pledge, as stated on the plaques, reads “I have neither given nor received aid on this assignment.” An alteration has been proposed to rephrase the pledge to read as “I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid in this assignment,” a change in language which already appears in the 2014 Honor Handbook for Faculty Members and Teaching Assistants.

“The current plaques we have now don't promote collaboration,” Zetlin said. “We want to change that wording to make sure that people know that they can help each other and work together in our community as long as it's allowed by the professor.”

This process is still underway and is in the beginnings of a conversation between the committee and its members. The committee will continue to look at it as an option and will continue to have a discussion.

Lastly, the committee heard a report by second-year College student Soleil Reed about the recent history of Honor outreach. This report highlighted the outreach numbers that the committee had achieved with regards to minority students and groups.

“This past spring, we created a program that allowed three of our support officers for Honor to apply for the opportunity to complete a summer project,” West said. “[Soleil’s] project pertained to the past outreach initiatives to diverse and minority students.”

The Honor Committee will meet after fall break for an open session Oct. 9 in Newcomb Hall.

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