The Honor Committee voted yesterday to endorse the referendum that would increase the number of seats for College representatives on the Committee and discussed the possible creation of an Honor Committee onboard the Semester at Sea program.
The proposal, which the Committee voted onto the spring election ballot last week, would add two seats for students in the College to the Committee, reallocating the makeup of the Committee to reflect more accurately current College enrollment. The decision to endorse the proposal was passed by a vote of eight to six, despite concerns that the reallocation was unnecessary.
Vice Chair for Education Kendall Fox dismissed these concerns.
"The biggest concern that's been raised is that we're solving a problem that doesn't exist, but I think there is a problem," Fox said.
A-J Aronstein, vice chair for community relations, discussed the potential results of the proposal, agreeing that it would improve relations among faculty and Committee members.
"It's difficult to say exactly how we would deploy new Committee members out into the battlefield, but there is work they will be able to do," he said.
Additionally, Committee members discussed the role of Honor in the University's new Semester at Sea program.
Third-Year Honor Counsel Dionna Lewis came before the Committee to discuss her experiences with honor on the University's first fall voyage.
"On a grand scale honor wasn't well-received because a lot of students expressed dissatisfaction with the structure of honor," she said. "A lot of students felt like it was a lot of administrators and adults looking down on them."
Under the current system, students onboard the ship are held to the same honor code as students at the University, though administrators, not students, are responsible for enforcing the code.
"I think they had a misconception of what honor is, how it was run," she said. "While I was there I was trying to explain that the point of a trial is to find the truth."
The Committee debated possible solutions to the problem, including the implementation of a student-run committee to be elected during each voyage and full integration of honor into the coursework by introducing honor and ethics classes.
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