Even though students are reminded about their commitment to academic integrity each time they sign the honor pledge, the Honor Committee devoted this past week to honor awareness to bring the ideal to the forefront of students' minds.
Honor Committee Chair Carey Mignerey said the purpose of Honor Awareness Week is to spread the word about honor.
"The basic goal is to get people thinking about the concept of honor and to make the Committee as visible as possible," Mignerey said.
Vice Chair for Education Sarah Snider said an additional goal was to clear up a common misconception about the honor system.
"Our goal is to promote honor awareness not necessarily on a system basis, but so people begin to see that honor isn't just about kicking people out of school," she said.
While Honor Awareness Week is put on annually, Mignerey said the committee stepped up its efforts this year.
"I think we're much more organized and systematic in how we're making honor visible around Grounds," he said.
Snider said committee members and educators tabled the Lawn and distributed short surveys with questions pertaining to the meaning of the word honor, the value of honor in a friendship and what it means to be an honorable person.
"Honor doesn't have to solely relate to academics," Snider said.
About 1,000 surveys were collected and Snider said she plans to post the results on the Honor Web site in the next two weeks.
Honor educators and other committee members also sent out mass e-mails to their respective schools and distributed hundreds of flyers.
Roundtables were held in Newcomb Hall throughout the week to initiate discussions among students and faculty about honor-related topics. Several roundtables were held with various athletic teams, including softball, women's lacrosse and the University dance team.
Milton Adams, University vice provost of academic programs, attended one of the roundtables yesterday.
"It was good to have that sort of interchange between faculty and students," he said.
The committee also held a mock trial last night that was open to all students. With only 13 students in attendance, Snider acknowledged how difficult it was to encourage people to come.
"As soon as people are faced with dealing with honor charges or something along those lines, they want to know about honor, but it's hard to get people interested in it and appreciate it before then," Snider said.
The week drew to a close yesterday with a lecture by Donald L. McCabe, a Rutgers University professor who is widely known as the authority on cheating in college, according to University's honor Web site. McCabe presented his research on academic integrity, including his findings from two surveys he performed at the University.
Third-year Commerce student Chat Razdan, an Honor educator, said he thinks the committee has been successful in achieving its goal of raising awareness.
"I've heard people talking a little about honor, which is always a good thing," he said.
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