As this Honor Committee’s term winds down, Committee members have raised concerns about garnering enough interest in the upcoming Honor Committee elections.
“Last year, we had a lag in filling spots,” Committee Chair Jess Huang said at Sunday’s meeting.
Last spring, the Architecture, Education, Nursing and Medical schools entered the Committee with only one representative instead of the two allotted to each school other than the College, which is constitutionally provided five representatives. Nine students sought election from the College, and four students each ran from the Engineering School and the Law School.
“Some of the smaller school elections aren’t ... as well advertised, and students don’t know that there are all these positions to run for,” Huang said.
After last spring’s elections, though, schools were able to fill all the remaining vacancies by using alternative processes to elect officials. To determine the second representative for the Medical School, for example, the Mulholland Society, the school’s student body association, decided to accept statements from students interested in serving as the Honor representative and then appointed Will Derry to fill the spot. Derry said he did not run for the position initially because he was not aware elections were being held.
“It wasn’t very well publicized,” Derry said.
To ensure enough students run this spring for the Honor representative positions, Derry and his co-representative Aaron Trimble plan to better advertise the elections within the Medical School community. Derry said they plan to e-mail first-year Medical students to garner more interest.
Poor advertisement, however, may not be the sole explanation for why so few people from some schools run for Committee positions. Derry said he believes the notion of honor is much more prevalent among undergraduate students in the College than it is with Medical students.
“All we have are multiple choice tests, so you can only cheat one way,” Derry said. “People in the [Medical] School know the honor system’s there, but it’s very cut and dry.”
He added that in the past 10 years, there have only been two honor cases in the Medical School.
In addition to raising awareness about the Committee and its elected positions, the Committee has also begun to form its transition committee, which serves to ensure the transfer of leadership to the next Committee runs smoothly, Huang explained.
The transition committee is responsible for planning the Committee’s retreat weekend in March, during which newly elected representatives undergo training. Executive Committee elections are also held during that weekend, Huang said.
Next week’s Committee meeting will be held at 3 p.m., rather than 8 p.m., because of Super Bowl Sunday.
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