UNLESS you've been under a rock lately, you know that University elections are going on; the fliers make it hard to miss. Just as important, however, are the historic referenda submitted by the Honor Committee on four proposed changes to the honor system. Probably the two most controversial are the removal of the seriousness clause from cheating cases and changing the role of counsel.
Some opponents argue that these proposals exist just to make it easier to dismiss more students from the University. Yet such an attitude refuses to look at the imperfections of our system and ways that it must be improved. Passing these proposals is important to preserve the viability of the honor system in a school that relies heavily on teaching assistants on a daily basis.
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In analyzing the different components of these referenda, the arguments presented often speak about the rights of students and the problems professors encounter. Such arguments ignore the unique experience of graduate teaching assistants, who approach the honor system both as teachers and students.
Patrick McGuinn, president of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Council, said the Council endorsed all referenda because "most graduate students felt that the system was pretty broken" and the changes reflected their concerns in both roles, particularly in the areas of cheating and the role of counsel. The support of graduate students, who would obviously not want to imperil their own rights, speaks volumes about the ability of these proposed changes to balance the concerns of both students and professors.
The proposal to eliminate application of the seriousness clause to cheating cases has produced a firestorm of criticism. But the original rationale, as stated in the Honor System Review Commission report, is that "cheating arguably affects the entire community" and therefore cannot be tolerated.
Some students feel that suffering a moment of weakness on a test or not following the rules on a pledged homework assignment should not be dealt with on the same level as plagiarizing an entire term paper. This point of view trivializes the importance of a test or homework assignment, and ignores the point of view of the people who grade these assignments.
Most classes with pledged problem sets or objective exams are graded by TAs, who need to be able to trust students on assignments across the board. Amy Campbell, a graduate representative on the Honor Committee and a Review Commission member, said that "most TAs find the idea of nonserious cheating offensive." This suggests to such TAs that somehow if a person can't be trusted on an assignment or test, that their paper should somehow be assumed to be their own work.
The role of counsel also affects graduate students' experiences with the honor system. The Commission felt the current system has become too adversarial, and the counsel students chose showed "a tendency towards gamesmanship." The Commission recommended eliminating the concept of a counsel who delivered opening and closing arguments. Students would be assigned an advisor from honor support officers to make sure students were given all the information needed, but students would defend themselves.
This proposal would affect graduate students greatly. In classes where TAs are responsible for grading most assignments, often including papers, they assume as much responsibility as seminar professors for initiating cases, and so their experiences with counsel affect their views of the system.
McGuinn argues TAs are generally the people who observe honor offenses, and thus have the greatest stake in a positive experience for initiators. Both McGuinn and Campbell agreed that the adversarial attitude often exhibited by counsel has created a negative attitude among graduate students about initiating cases.
Changing this attitude is crucial to the health of the honor system. If case initiators are not treated with respect, then they will take the attitude that there is no good way to enforce the system, and no reason to use it. Disillusionment of TAs has the potential to affect professors' trust as well. In fact, most of these proposals, especially the proposal to eliminate the seriousness clause for cheating, are meant to increase professors' faith in the system.
When looked at from a graduate student perspective, the need for the proposed changes becomes obvious. Teaching assistants clearly feel any benefit they may receive as students from the status quo is not enough to justify the problems they encounter teaching undergraduates. Such a perspective is the fairest possible endorsement of the proposed changes, and should be taken with the greatest weight.
(Elizabeth Managan's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at emanagan@cavalierdaily.com.)
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