The Honor Committee voted unanimously last night to move forward with a faculty survey regarding the honor system and appropriate up to $23,000 to complete it.
The survey will poll faculty members and teaching assistants on their knowledge, practice and opinion of the honor system as well as their thoughts on the effectiveness of the system.
At the advice of the Faculty Senate, the survey will be conducted by Center for Survey Research Director Tom Guterbock.
The vote also created an ad hoc committee to aid Guterbock in the creation of the survey. The standing committee will be required to report back to the full Honor Committee at every stage of its progress.
Although the survey was eventually approved, many committee members voiced reservations about its scope and intent.
"I feel very strongly that we should include the students on this," said David Perez, representative from the School of Continuing and Professional Studies. "I really don't think it's worthwhile if we don't find out what's going on in students' minds."
Special assistant to the Honor Committee Nicole Eramo said because a Rutgers professor, Don McCabe, will be conducting an independent survey on academic integrity at the University this fall, she doubted that the Honor Committee would draw another student sample since they will receive student data from the McCabe survey. The Honor Committee expects to have the opportunity to include three questions on that survey.
The resolution determined that the Honor Committee would raise money in order to fund the survey.
According to Hobbs, the cost of the survey would not be covered by the state funding appropriated to the Committee for its day-to-day activities, or the money in the Committee's endowment, which is intended for the purposes of education and increasing outreach.
"We would go to different sources around the University that have supported Honor in the past," Hobbs said.
Hobbs added that although the administration might not be able to fund the survey, he expects that it will help the Committee find funding for it.
"I feel like we'll be able to be directed to the sources of funds that we need," Hobbs said.
Vice Chair for Services Trevor McFadden expressed doubts about the results of the faculty survey.
"I still don't have a really good feeling about what we expect will come from this," McFadden said.
Many committee members' objections centered on the survey's $22,000 estimated price tag and $23,000 appropriation, merely for the purpose of finding out faculty opinions and knowledge of the honor system.
"I don't know if it's worth $22,000 to find that out," Vice Chair for Investigations Lauren Ross said.
In spite of these concerns, the committee members voted to proceed with the survey.
"I would assume that all these issues would be addressed once we move forward with the survey," Perez said.
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