I believe that honor, honesty, integrity, and the desire to strengthen these values should be held in the highest regard. While I like the idea of an honor code in order to do so, especially one that promotes trust within the Harvard community and strives to keep students honest, I fear that the implementation of one will achieve little more than the College Board’s cursive “contract.”
Back in high school, it was a longstanding joke that the most difficult part of the College Board’s SAT was not remembering vocabulary or finishing the math section on time, but writing out one sentence in cursive:
“I hereby agree to the conditions set forth in the test regulations and certify that I am the person whose name, address and signature appear on this answer sheet.”
In the midst of trying to gauge whether it would be allowable to lift my pencil from the paper to cross my t’s, I recognized that the College Board was (not so subtly) reminding me to maintain my integrity.
Had I ever considered cheating on an exam before? No. (I would never want my stacks of flashcards to feel useless or, even worse, insufficient in terms of their ability to prepare me.)
Did putting down my promise not to cheat in writing provide me with any extra motivation to be honest? No. But it inspired me to go home and practice my cursive.
There are parts of the drafted code that I feel can bring about real change. The proposed inclusion of students as members of the Honor Board, for example, would provide us with the agency to speak on behalf of our peers and represent other members of the student body. But the rest of the code, as it stands, summarizes what students already know—namely “cheating on exams or problem sets … or any other instance of academic dishonesty violates the standards of our community” —and serves only to trivialize the problem, rather than solve it. Alternatively, giving students an opportunity to voice their own opinions on solving the issue would ensure higher student buy-in to the resulting policy change.
It is true that at other schools, Princeton and the California Institute of Technology included, honor codes have been proven to work. Tests are un-proctored, students are trusted to follow the rules, and the honor codes are embraced by campus culture. When new students set foot on their campuses, they accept as the status quo the existence of these honor codes as fair and serious institutions.
Meanwhile, the creation of an honor code at Harvard would be irrevocably tied to the Government 1310 cheating scandal, rather than exist as a longstanding and well-respected campus rule. Here at Harvard, it runs the risk of being categorized as a retroactive step, something meant only for the students who once broke the rules.
We need something more than a document we can file away as “not applicable” to us, something that can create a tangible change here on campus. Whether the proposed Honor Code can establish a shift in campus culture is a question worth asking, but only active discussion and careful consideration will provide the answer.
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