AS MEMBERS of the University community, we sometimes forget just how unusual our honor code actually is. Yet while many University students take the honor code for granted, I, having spent my undergraduate years at a different institution, find it to be quite fascinating.
The challenge at many schools is to articulate a core set of shared values. If one were to ask students at many undergraduate schools whether they are honorable, the answer surely would be "yes." Yet it is not intuitively obvious that these students could identify what this sense of honor means. Do we know honorable behavior when we see it? Is honorable behavior limited to the academic sphere or does it include behavior relating to the non-academic aspects of campus life?
At the University, to be honorable means one does not lie, cheat or steal. Yet even such a clear and concise definition raises certain troubling questions. Would we consider a student who does not lie, cheat or steal, but who behaves in a racially offensive manner, to be honorable?
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