The Honor Committee held a forum Wednesday night to discuss honor and academic ethics within the University community. This discussion stemmed from a heated accusation made by Physics Prof. Blaine Norum, who, after analyzing changes of test scores between two of his class sections, concluded that "at the University of Virginia the majority of students have little regard for the integrity of the academic enterprise." Whether the majority of students have little regard for honor is up for debate, but the Committee's move to open this broad discourse on honor at the University is commendable.
The claim that the majority of University students disregard the honor system may seem somewhat extreme; however, after an in-depth statistical analysis, Norum believes this statement is fully justified. After he administered a physics test in 2008, he inferred that more than 60 percent of students who took the exam on the second day had received unauthorized information that boosted their scores and thereby broke the honor code. Norum had recycled 15 questions from that semester's midterm and deduced that this improvement in grades only could have been the result of restricted information being passed from students who took this first test to those who had not yet taken it. He emphasized that there were explicit instructions on the front of the exam forbidding students from discussing the exam with anyone who would be tested on a later date.
It seems plausible that most students regard statements, "I wish I had studied more of the midterm," or, "that exam was really hard," as innocent and permissible. What they do not realize is that when a professor mandates students not to speak a word about the exam - and most do - they cannot comment about any facet of the test-taking experience.
The forum Wednesday aptly was titled, "Was That Wrong?" In the community of trust, students walk the fine line between trying to help friends prepare for exams and remaining faithful to the honor code. They often do not realize the implications of their actions. And although it admittedly is tough to refrain from divulging even a little information about graded assignments, students need to shuffle their priorities to ensure they maintain the spirit of the community of trust.
The discussion resulting from this particular cheating scandal has been more productive than most in the past. Hot-button issues like the single sanction often detract from meaningful conversations about the role of honor in the University community; the engineering forum was refreshing because it focused on the principles of honor, not the sanctioning methods. Simply put, to preserve the community of trust, the honor code must be in sync with the values of current students. That can be done only when students are informed about and engaged with the fundamental concepts at play.\nOf course, there is more work to be done. Norum alleges that his analysis can be applied to the rest of the University. If this claim has any merit, it signals a profound mismatch of ideals between students and the honor system.
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