ELECTION week, the annual exercise in the much-cherished and highly-touted act of student self-governance,” comes to an end for most of us on Sunday. This year, most of the excitement has focused on the Honor Committee and a referendum on the ballot seeking to integrate tiered punishments for “trivial” offenses (hereafter referred to as the sanction reform referendum).
While I do not feel qualified to comment adequately on the intricacies of the honor system or the proposed changes to it, the special prominence that the amendment has received this year can give us insight into other trends at the University. One of these trends is negative, as the exceptional controversy generated by the sanction reform referendum fills a gap created by a lack of interest in elections overall; the other is positive as the debate over the nature of the referendum shows that the student body still cares about the meaning of “honor” at our University.
The sanction reform referendum has achieved its prominence in part because of the efforts of both its proponents and opponents, who have papered Grounds and surrounding areas with fliers with catchy phrases for and against the referendum. The referendum creates excitement in some by promising an injection of progressivism into the Committee if passed, and elicits fear from others both because of uncertainty as to how effectively it would function and because it would change a time-honored tradition. According to Sam Leven, president of Hoos Against Single Sanction, the referendum excites the student body because unlike other elections, it has the the potential to change “167 years of history.” No matter how one feels about the issue of sanction reform — whether one feels passionately that it is necessary or whether one fears change to the existing system — it is undeniably the most exciting issue on the ballot.
The sanction reform referendum has dwarfed all other issues in the election season this year, in part for a unfortunate reason. Its prominence is due to the relative lack of interest in all other elections. A dearth of enthusiasm pervades this election season. As candidates come largely from within the organizations they seek to lead, outsiders generally perceive a congruency among candidates for a position. Take the contest for becoming an Honor Representative from the College of Arts and Sciences. Of the candidates (seven for five positions), all come from within the Committee, and nearly all have served in the same position — counsel. To the outsider, who has been unable to witness the inner workings of the Committee, this creates the feeling that the candidates are generic.
This is enhanced by the fact that most candidates mention the same issues in their candidate biographies on the University Board of Elections website. Nearly all speak of the need for dialogue with the wider student body and educational programs about the processes of the Committee. These issues, while important, create a sense of uniformity among the candidates. While there are exceptions, the relative similarity between candidates running for elected office and the lack of accountability they face once in office contribute to a basic lack of interest from the student body at large.
But there are other, more encouraging conclusions to be extracted from the controversy surrounding the sanction reform referendum. The most important is that the University community still values the concept of honor, is willing to work to defend it, and wants to dialogue in order to improve it.
The University community has a beautiful thing in that the concept of honor transcends the academic environment and instead inhabits the entirety of our experience. This has significant repercussions for student life, whether it is being able to leave possessions unattended in a public place or moving out into the real world. I once heard a professor from the School of Commerce deliver a lecture emphasizing the value of honesty and integrity in negotiations. He argued that in graduating from the University of Virginia, with its legacy of honor, we students have both an advantage in that we come from an institution recognized for the value it places on honesty and integrity. The value of living in a community that values integrity is self-evident, and we have a duty to ensure its continuance.
The debate over the sanction reform referendum is a good thing in this sense. Though they disagree over how best to do so, both the proponents of the referendum and its opponents place a great deal of importance on the bonds of honor that bind us together. They believe passionately enough in the vision of the community of trust to debate its finer points and to devote time and energy to repairing it. This commitment ought to encourage us and to inspire us to our own commitments to upholding the tenets of the community of trust in our own actions.
Robby Colby’s column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at r.colby@cavalierdaily.com.
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