With a fourth of the cases investigated, the Honor Committee is making progress sorting through the staggering 122 honor charges brought by Physics Prof. Louis Bloomfield against some of his students for allegedly cheating on their term papers in Physics 105 and 106.
Honor Committee Chairman Thomas Hall said the Committee investigated 30 accused students who were degree candidates or were connected to degree candidates' cases before graduation in May.
The Committee has decided to accuse 10 of these people of cheating, which means they will have an honor trial. Most of them will be tried this fall. One student's degree was held by the administration pending his or her trial, but the other accused degree candidates received their degrees.
The Committee has determined that there is not enough evidence to convict 20 of the 30 investigated, so their cases have been dropped.
Hall said the Committee will continue to investigate 30-50 of the cases this summer, and all of the cases hopefully will be wrapped up by Winter Break.
"We don't want to drag this on," Hall said. "The trial docket is going to be full this fall, but we're still hoping to get the majority done by Christmas Break."
Christopher Scott, Committee vice-chairman for trials, agreed that the investigations have been busy, especially since the influx of Committee members for summer school.
The people involved in the cases have been generally cooperative, Scott said.
The honor cases have attracted international media attention with newspaper articles and editorials published in journals as far away as London and Tokyo. Bloomfield's system for catching the honor violations - a computer program that searches five semesters worth of term papers students submitted online - has sparked debate about the honor code, and how the Internet has aided and caught cheaters.
Bloomfield said he did not want to comment because of the ongoing investigation.
Hall said he has spent a lot of time talking to the media.
"The initial wave of coverage made it look like a negative story," Hall said. But more recent media attention such as an editorial in The Philadelphia Inquirer have been more positive, praising the University for taking a firm stand on cheating, he said.
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