Academic honor codes are simply an easy way for lazy people to get through post-secondary institutions. These honor codes discourage students from actually putting in the full effort in their education, which can seep over to their careers. In addition, students see that they really do not need to do all of the work in order to get good grades, and can skate through college, but they are not retaining the education they are paying thousands of dollars for. Honor codes address cheating, plagiarism, fabrication, multiple submissions, misrepresentation, and unfair advantages within colleges and universities.
When a student is enrolled into one of these institutions, they are required to pledge to adhere to this honor code. This pledge states that, in addition to the student not violating the code, they must also turn in any other students that are in violation. In addition to these academic guidelines, students must also respect all other students, faculty, staff, and other peoples’ property (“Honor Codes Across the Country”). This honor code is very respectable and sounds great in theory, but the flaws enter when students decide to abuse this code.
Whether it is from pressure, stress, laziness, or any other excuse, there will always be a number of students that decide to violate the honor code. There are, of course, benefits of having these codes in place, but the costs outweigh those benefits. All in all, these honor codes end up hurting these students more than helping them. Traditional honor codes can be found at highly renowned institutions such as Princeton University, Stanford University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, and Johns Hopkins University.
These colleges and universities have these honor codes to maintain and encourage integrity and pride within the student body. While these characteristics are key to academic success and while most students may abide by the honor code, many students will abuse its privileges. For whatever reason, it is proven that quite a lot of students have broken the honor code. In one survey taken in an economics course, thirty-five percent of the three hundred seventy-seven students surveyed admitted to having violated the honor code (Cheung).
During the 2014-15 academic year, the University of Georgia had a severe problem with academic dishonesty. A whopping six hundred three students had been accused of breaking the honor code set in place by the university. The four hundred nine students that had admitted guilt were punished, mostly by receiving zeroes on assessments (Williams). These admissions of guilt have now forced professors and other administrators to assume that this lack of integrity is constant and widespread throughout their institutions.
With this recent decline in honesty and honor amongst students, it has been put upon the heads of colleges and universities to better instill the principles of academic integrity within the student body and course curriculums. With an academic honor code in place, students will take advantage of this and use other’s work as their own. Postsecondary institutions are not easy, and they are not meant to be so. A large problem is that a lot of kids are pressured into going to college by their families, society, or their school.
Not everybody is cut out for college, and it really just is not the right path in life for some people, which means that these “unfit” students are going to be more likely to cheat in order to satisfy themselves or anybody else. On the other hand, students that are completely prepared for college and maybe have done well their whole academic careers, still hold the possibility to break the honor code. Students are pushed within their own minds to cheat and share work so they do not have to try as hard, but still receive high grades.
What they do not realize is that cheating really is not helping them in the long run. Of course, some students do have their time very well-managed, and can handle the stress, but others get stressed and break down very easily. College is known to have a rough transition from high school as far as the workload, increased pressure to do well, and the unfamiliar environment. These aspects of college can make it very stressful, and make some of the best students at least contemplate cheating, and breaking their institution’s honor code if there is one.
If students get into the bad habit of cheating and dishonesty during their school years, this is going to carry over to their professional lives. In the high-stress, high risk environment that is today’s world, people just want to be able to make a good life for themselves and their family. Because most members of society strive for this “good life,” national and international competition has drastically increased in both the college and job worlds. Stress can make people take drastic measures just to get through the tough time.
With an honor code in place, students have an easy way out of the stress. When someone gets stressed out about grades and assignments that are due, they can just cheat. This cheating does not actually help them, but in that moment, they may believe that is the best, and definitely easiest, way out. By just having an honor code, and making it easier for students to cheat, they might give in and put aside their pride. When these students graduate and enter their careers, they will still have that bad habit of cheating and dishonoring themselves, which will hurt them in the “real world.
A post-secondary institution is supposed to prepare you for life as an adult, and teach you the responsibilities of having a career in your desired field. This academic honor code is not truly preparing you for post-school life because it offers some students an easy way through college, while they really do not retain the education they are paying thousands of dollars for. Colleges and universities are constantly in the headlines for the cases of academic dishonesty, and the students breaking the honor code.
At the College of William of Mary, during the 2014-15 school year, there were 61 reports of honor code violations, and 46 of those students were found to be guilty. The most violated offense was unauthorized assistance or collaboration which is considered to be everything from using a cheat sheet on a cellphone, to working with a classmate during an exam. Dave Gilbert, the Associate Dean of Students at the college said the following in an email “Last year we experienced the highest number of reports in my ten years here.
We are currently studying the results to determine what we can learn and where we will target our preventative efforts. ” Clearly the college does realize that there are flaws that have gotten even worse over the years within the honor code that need fixing. Audrey Scruggs, who is the Vice Chair of the Undergraduate Honor Council, acknowledged that the honor code almost makes it difficult to study without breaking it in the following quote from an email: “Most of our casework involves academic integrity.
Our Council finds that when students seek resources on campus, such as the Tribe Tutor Zone or the Writing Resource Center, and reach out to their professors for clarification regarding citations and rules surrounding collaboration, they avoid potential honor code violations. In addition, increased use of technology (specifically smart phones) has played into a number of our cases. ” (Wahrenberger). Another example of cheating can be found at Dartmouth College, a top-tier institution in the United States.
Here sixtyfour students were charged with violating the honor code with “unauthorized collaboration and giving and receiving assistance during an examination or quiz” (Richards). The professor of this particular course has acknowledged the immature behavior in their classroom, and is going to be changing up the ways he monitors this behavior (Richards). More and more, colleges and universities are acknowledging the problems with the honor code, and are visibly trying to fix it in order to make students’ post-secondary education both enjoyable and worthwhile, but many do not realize that it may be time to abolish the whole code.
