In an effort to create a dialogue about the single sanction, students and Honor Committee members discussed some of the pros and cons of the policy during an open forum hosted by the Single Sanction Ad-hoc Committee last night.
Sam Leven, member of the ad-hoc committee and president of Hoos Against Single Sanction, said the single sanction creates a black-and-white distinction between right and wrong. Students may be expelled when they have simply committed an honest academic mistake, he said.
“It pretends there are no shades of gray when there are,” Leven said.
Some students also noted that the single sanction does not decrease cheating at the University. One student, who wished to remain anonymous, said students used their iPhones to cheat during a final exam last semester, and no one reported them.
“I don’t think it decreases the amount of cheating here at the University in any way,” she said. “Because there’s no middle ground, people don’t turn people in.”
Josh Hess, former vice chair for community relations, said, however, that he believes the University has a lower rate of cheating because of the single sanction compared to other large public universities. He added that the single sanction has an educational value that a multisanction system could not have.
“It helps communicate a message of high expectations,” Hess said. “It makes people take seriously the honor code who might well have otherwise not done so.”
Hess acknowledged that the honor system is not perfect but said he believes there is no other system that has the same level of benefits as the single sanction while creating fewer problems.
“There are some schools where the honor system is not punitive but rehabilitative; instead of getting sanctioned, you take some academic integrity class,” Hess said. “I’m skeptical in a large public university people would take an honor system like that seriously.”
Within the University’s setting, some students raised concerns about the difficulty of transferring to another school after being expelled. Committee members, however, said University faculty members work with expelled students to help them enroll in other colleges and universities. Ad-hoc Committee member Will Derry, who is also a Medical representative, said some students who are expelled are offered admission into universities just as good as or better than the University.
Leven added that the issue of transferring is not a reason to call the single sanction into question.
“Even speaking as an opponent of the single sanction, fear of your ability to transfer is not a reason to oppose the single sanction,” he said.
Honor Advisor Nadia Islam also said she doubts that a student would be willing to return to the University after a one- or two-year suspension under a multisanction system.
“I’ve heard of instances where people really do strongly believe that the system works fairly and thoroughly and they do learn from their mistakes having been dismissed from the University,” Islam also noted.
About eight Committee members and 10 to 12 other students attended last night’s discussion. The forum was supposed to last from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. but ended early because the Chemistry Building auditorium was apparently double-booked, Committee Chair Adam Trusner said. Leven originally had planned to present a detailed proposal as an alternative to the single sanction system but was unable to do so because of the time constraint.
Trusner said he was satisfied with the discussion the forum generated, despite having to end the meeting earlier than expected.
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