KERNELS of growing faculty cynicism constitute one of the more worrisome trends facing the University's honor system. I cannot offer any empirical evidence to say that faculty alienation from honor is worse today than it was 10 or 20 years ago. But in my experience as a counsel for the system, I've come across several instances in which it seems almost entire departments appear to be hesitant to engage the system.
This trend is problematic for two reasons. On the one hand, faculty are responsible for reporting the preponderance of cases to the honor system. Even if the rate of student reporting were to be improved, there is no question that faculty are in a position to discover evidence of a strong majority of honor offenses that take place at the University. Diminished faculty support means lax enforcement of the honor code.
On the other hand, apathy or cynicism among faculty members with respect to honor risks being contagious.The department at the University which I sense is the most enthusiastic about supporting the honor system is the Commerce School. McIntire professors like Lucien Bass are strong friends of the system, and the department is unique in that it imposes a non-toleration clause for failure to report honor offenses on its students. In my experience, the Commerce school sees very few cases brought to the honor system. Other departments which I perceive as being less tuned in to honor frequently see more of their students facing honor charges. Correlation does not prove causation, of course. But the correlation should give us pause.
One imagines that the chief reasons for faculty disaffection about honor are twofold. First is the growing faculty misperception that the system's single sanction and exclusive control by students result in a paucity of accused students actually being held accountable by the honor system. Many faculty who have had bad experience with honor trials understandably become disillusioned with the entire system and share their frustration with their colleagues.
The second source of the problem is the fact that the system places significant burdens on reporting witnesses. Currently cases can take months to be cycled all the way through honor. What is more, the system is essentially designed such that witnesses who bring evidence of honor offenses are treated more like the students accused of dishonesty than other people asked to offer supporting testimony in a given case. Reporting witnesses -- faculty and student alike -- provide testimony for an investigation log, appear at an investigation panel which examines the log to decide whether the evidence merits accusation, work intimately with trial counsel in preparation for a trial and usually sit through the entire duration of the final trial. Like accused students, reporting witnesses are assigned honor advisors. And like accused students, reporting witnesses are compelled to stay involved in cases after they provide evidence to the Honor Committee.
This setup is burdensome not only because of the time commitment it requires of people who did nothing wrong. It also places emotional burdens on reporting witnesses. The formality of their role and the degree to which it mirrors the experience of accused students make reporting witnesses feel responsible for the fate of that student, almost as if they are the ones who did something wrong.
Other things contribute to faculty alienation as well. There was a time when many believed that the honor system was disorganized and unprofessional. This has been turned around completely, but it is entirely possible that this impression still lingers with some. And many professors are frustrated that students appear to have abandoned responsibility for reporting cases. This concern has merit and is an issue of enormous significance too complex to discuss here.
Given that we know the major sources of faculty alienation, the solutions seem clear. To address the misperception about the degree to which honor holds guilty students accountable, the honor system needs to offer professors a frank assessment of its success in this regard. First of all, there is a great myth that few cases result in students being held accountable. Most years -- with the exception of 2004 to 2005 -- a strong majority (around 50-60 percent) of honor trials end with guilty verdicts. And many more students hold themselves accountable either by filing conscientious retractions or leaving after being accused without requesting a trial.
Admittedly, the system does not specialize in punishing every offender. The single sanction is more an educative tool or symbol than an efficient penal mechanism. But faculty should realize that this is the system the students have said they wanted for over a century. The system, by depressing cheating rates, provides student and professor alike tangible benefits. And even if the honor system itself does not offer professors an avenue to ensure that every single cheater is punished, the faculty grading option does. The faculty grading option provides faculty with a tool for punishing cheaters on par with what the overwhelming majority of their peers utilize at other schools -- with and without honor codes.
Beyond this, the system must be streamlined in a way which diminishes the undue burden it places on reporting witnesses. There is no reason to assign the formality to them as currently done, and reducing the number of honor personnel involved in the adjudication of each case would do wonders to streamline the process.
Faculty are a critical part of the honor system. In a sense, the whole thing began as an agreement between students and faculty. There is no question that professors, like students, enjoy tangible benefits from the existence of a system which reduces cheating. They should therefore feel obligated to participate in it. But the system itself should do everything it can to make that participation less painful.
Josh Hess is a Cavalier Daily contributor. He is a first-year Law student and a College graduate.
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