Four members of the Honor Committee attended the Virginia Integrity Conference to learn how other Virginia schools apply their honor policies.
Support officers Katie Deal and Sarah Wyckoff, third-year College students, Soleil Reed, a first-year College student, and Committee member Victoria Tran, a fourth-year Batten student, presented the ideas at the previous honor meeting.
The conference involved assessing the credibility of testimonies, involving respective faculties effectively, training and recruiting members, working to create an inclusive environment for international students and student outreach.
The presenters said assessing credibility is key in determining the truth when two or more testimonies conflict with each other.
Despite this, Reed said, “It’s not [honor members’] job to say ‘no, this is invalid.’”
Another problem presented was the lack of faculty involvement.
“A lot of schools that we talked with had systems where the faculty involvement isn’t tangential, but they were participating,” Tran said.
The presenters suggested potentially having faculty representatives for each individual school, as well as gathering satisfaction data from reporters.
The presenters also discussed how to recruit more members.
Reed said a lot of members at different universities “didn’t feel very connected,” so the group suggested having more social events for the members as well as increasing recognition of honor as student organizations.
This problem also extended to international students, the presenters noted.
“‘Honor’ can be a very morally charged word,” Tran said. “A lot of students carry connotations about the word that are different from ours.”
The students suggested having “more culturally aware honor training,” as well as increasing international students’ ownership of the system.
Another suggestion for increasing student outreach included increasing having the University Guides Service talk more about the honor system.
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