2006 Honor Code Fails to Pass

Colleges and Universities A-Z Haverford College
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<p>I agree that the honor Code responsibilities are parallell. What I was more nearly refering to is the pre-eminence the school places on it in its explanation of itself to new applicants:</p>

<p>1) Compare Fiske, Princeton Review, etc. While W&L mentions it...it is not front and center like it is for Haverford. (And maybe W&L more nearly capture's a true reflection of its place in the "real" institution)
2) Compare the brochure's from both places
3) There is a major essay which apparently counts a lot on the Haverford application...regarding "what you think the Haverford Honor Code will mean to you..."
4) Its the biggest part of any tour of the school...
While I never heard "Haverford is unique this way" as a direct quote, all institutions get their message out...Haverford's message is loud and clearly wrapped around the Honor Code as a way of life that is unique and a big deal in a way that W&L's (perhaps more balanced) presentation does not communicate. For that matter Davidson and quite a few others seem to take their honor code seriously...they just do not make it a/the value proposition and rationale for going there.
And while I'm sure it may not be a big deal...and ratification a few days off...the post at the top of this thread is the only one from within the current community...as a result it literally reads as it reads....the rest of us are commentators....and the seriousness with which the current students take the code is of great interest if you had a choice of colleges and bought into Haverford as your ED choice and took a lesser financial offer because of what now may sound a little like either propaganda...or instability...or both.
While every college is different than it appears...it would be an honor violation to misrepresent the Honor Code's centrality to an ED applicant to Haverford. I do not think a discrepancy in the honor codes importance to the student body is quite the same sized violation as it would be from another school. (from what I can see at other comprable LAC's)</p>

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<p>woc2:</p>

<p>I don't think the Honor Code is what truly makes Haverford unique. After all, there are lots of schools that emphasize their Honor Codes. For example, Davidson makes every applicant submit an essay on what Davidson's Honor Code means with their application (talk about a silly essay!)</p>

<p>I think what makes Haverford unique is the Quaker-style concensus student governance. Abstaining from ratifying a change to the Honor Code is a perfect example of that consensus goverment in action. When Quakers can't reach concensus, they keep talking about it until they come up with something that everyone can endorse. Seems to me that is exactly what is happening with regard to the proposed changes to the Honor Code.</p>

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<p>So... it sounds like the initial alarm sparked by the first post isn't necessarily dispositive of anything... it sounds like Haverford students are struggling with the Honor Code in a serious way (a GOOD thing!!)
Trying to make sense of it, shape it, define it for themselves.</p>

<p>Question: At Haverford, the students have to re-ratify it EVERY spring... and it can evolve in time... is this how other Honor Codes are?
Or is this a Quaker consensus thing? My impression was that other schools with Honor Codes, the codes themselves are etched in stone, a matter of tradition... and that students have no say in changing it, re-adopting it, etc. At Haverford, the students are put in the driver's seat with the Honor Code... it is a living, breathing ideal that students much actively engage. Again... this is all good, I think.</p>

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<p>What traditions are admin at Colgate and Denison attempting to change?
Is it working?</p>

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<p>Our emails were mistimed...see my comments regarding Davidson and for that matter the Haverford application. Here is why this is an interesting development to our household:
1) My son had choices
2) He applied ED with the lesser financial package potential that can imply and forgoing other places were we are sure he would have recieved a better package.
3) Central to his decision was the central place the Honor Code supposedly has in Haverford life. He has good reasons and seriously useful things he hopes to learn and apply in life from the "experience"
4) We are all sophisticated enough to know that you can excise the offending clauses to gain technical "consensus" . Witness the ****e consensus we will eventually see with the Kurds or the Sunni. What is of note..like smoke signals on the horizon, is even the need to get to such an extreme position betrays the existense of a group/cause which is large enough to get the language in and "deaf" or "dumb" enough to need such a threat before retreating...such extremes do not make for a real consensus anytime soon...a patch? Yes. "I'm going to take my marbles home and stop playing " is taking hostages with/over/about something my son and others invested in...that's worth a lot of attention in this household. Sounds like "somethings rotten in denmark" until we know more.</p>

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<p>woc2,</p>

<p>I wouldn't jump to any conclusions yet... this might be a not too frequent thing...</p>

<p>Question (I asked before but was never answered): How many times in the past was the code not ratified the first time in the spring?</p>

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<p>I'm not following thses schools closely any more, but both are examples of heavy party/fraternity/drinking disasters that led the administrations to make "change the Culture" and the rules efforts. In both cases, many alumni withheld donations, transfers were up and the results not yet in. Another example is Bowdoin, which went to residential colleges as an alternative to the fraterity culture they felt was not serving them well in the recruitment of top and coed students. If you read posts from each of these schools they reveal the time and dangers ( and in soem cases necessities) of rebalancing a school's value proposition to its traditional market. Note, I'm not against fraternities here, I'm just saying that each "product" has its market niches and segment attractions...so does Haverford. Amongst its value propositions it places a heavy emphasis, even a brand identity on reaching people who want to live under a true consensus, Quaker style community ( Hey remember the Quakers ran Pennsylvannia to the point where it was the most desirable colony....for about one hundred years..then greed and land distribution policies left it a prime collaborator in the French and Indian War....and the ones committed to true consensus culture could not stem the tide). Schools, like corporations, take great risks when they play with their brand identities...especially given the demographic declines in applications they will see after next year.</p>

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<p>This is the third time since 2000 that the students failed to ratify the Honor Code.</p>

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<p>Good input, good research. Thanks</p>

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<p>interesteddad...
thanx for looking that up...
so this is NOT a rare occurence... just a sign that the students are actively engaged in defining the honor code... again, this is a good thing, i think... right?</p>

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<p>Hard to say.</p>

<p>As I read the procedure, there is an all-campus "Plenary" meeting that requires a 40% quorum to pass resolutions and approve the Honor Code. Assuming this quorum is achieved (they had to close the library and computer labs to force students to attend in 2000), then students must return their vote cards by a certain date to ratify the Honor Code. An insufficient number of vote cards were returned in 2000, 2002, and now this year.</p>

<p>From the articles, it sounds like this Plenary meeting is not much fun. Four hours of sitting in the field house on a Sunday night listening to a few dozen super gung-ho students debate resolutions ad infinitum before voting on the Honor Code sometime after midnight. I don't find it terribly surprising that the student body as a whole has disengaged from the process and expresses that disengagement by not returning the vote cards the following week.</p>

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<p>"just a note though, as a current sophomore science student, i have to say the work is a lot and i usually spend 6+ hours on homework a night alone, not to mention staying in and doing homework on weekend nights (as i just finished my work now)." written by 'Mazzo' yesterday (saturday) @ 9PM</p>

<p>1) I'm glad someone noticed that no current students are engaged with this discussion on CC and like to request that readers don't jump to conclusions regarding why that is. Students have academic loads, extra-curricular activities, work study responsibilities and also have many formal and informal campus forums in which to discuss the code without having to go to an internet site.</p>

<p>2) When I write "HC distinguishes itself from the others", I'm unfortunately revealing my north east elitist tendencies and am refering to particular colleges as a comparison. Among those colleges, yes, the honor code, HC's sense of community, trust and non competitive modesty are unique.</p>

<p>3) Someone posted a link to W&L's honor code and I checked it out. I was surprised by the formality of it (please bear in mind, I have no experience how it is enacted) but statements like "...students are allowed to write and revise the White Book..." and "...reporting directly to the Board of Trustees on the administration of the Honor System..." seem somewhat rigid and not approachable to me. </p>

<p>HC's code, while a central part of the HC experience, is taken by many students "casually" and "naturally"... that's why I was taken a back by the "beaten over the head" comment earlier. Plenery for example, which used to be held in Marshall auditorium used to be accompanied by beach balls, HC trivial pursuit, paper airplanes with the warning to "blunt your tips" and the antics of the "Quaker Terrorists"... whose name has subsequently been changed (they put 500 plastic lawn ornaments once on Founders Green to promote Plenary and once dropped a couple 100 ping pong balls over the Honor Council during plenary).</p>

<p>4) There are # reasons why students don't come to Plenary and not cast their votes... but that doesn't mean that those people don't value the principles of the honor code and would cheat, steal and be disrespectful of others. I went to about 1/2 of the plenaries myself. Am I 1/2 as "honorable?- don't think so- Most plenaries barely reach quorum. Many people believe strongly in the code but not necessarily in the formalities of it, and may assume that someone else will take the responsibility for it. Is this right? no. Does this reflect American society and the culture we bring to HC? yes.</p>

<p>I can't speak for the student who initially placed this post, but I can understand that sometimes when you care about an ideal passionately, you may demand to see it perfectly executed or not at all... look at the "Nader" vote for example... an all or nothing idealism. </p>

<p>Like I said before, one of the greatest experiences in college and HC is that students are confronted to think about important issues such as, "what does honor mean?", "can honor be codified?", "what is my capacity to trust others?" and "what are my limits to respect cultural and political difference?". A Haverford where you not question such things, a Haverford where you are not forced to stake a claim to what the code means to you and a Haverford without discord, really, is a Haverford not worth having. Students will change their conclusions and assumptions several times during their college years cause that's what college is for. Stability doesn't do anything for students except to perpetuate the idea that pillars can't be challenged and changed. I'd be upset if students always passed the honor code easily because that means they are not thinking hard enough about the issues. </p>

<p>The student body turns-over every 4 years so these issues cycle as well... and it's important for each entering class to figure these issues out for themselves.</p>

<p>5) The purpose of the honor code essay with admissions is NOT to reject people who don't understand the code but rather is intended to be used by applicants to decide if HC is an experience for them or not. If applicants don't enjoy thinking about the code, they won't like their time at Hc because they will be suurounded by people discussing some of the issues in #4 (please see my prior post in "Honor code essay").</p>

<p>6) woc2- please tell your son to not worry too much with these events. If he would like to contact me to discuss anything about haverford, please ask him to drop me a private message. He can find out what I did in college and afterwards from my prior posts to see if I can answer any questions of interest.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
woc2- please tell your son to not worry too much with these events.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I whole-heartedly agree with that.</p>

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<p>When I was a Haverford applicant and visitor, the HC in general was appealing to me, but I had deep reservations about the "Gestapo provision" (the only provision Bryn Mawr's code did not share) holding that it was a serious honor code violation to fail to turn in a classmate. I wrote the essay and all that, but I privately knew that when push came to shove, there were circumstances in which I would not turn someone in for cheating.</p>

<p>As for the honor code in practice...in the late 90's at Haverford, there was virtually no cheating, but people did steal. I had more than one possession stolen because the HC gives a false sense of security. (Doors unlocked; people left their backpacks piled in the entranceway of the dining hall during dinner, etc.) An expensive designer dress I treasured was stolen off a clothesline in a laundry room at Bryn Mawr, too.</p>

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<p>as an anxious applicant, i was temped to 1st write something negative about this whole deal to turn other applicnats off to haverford, but i'm no longer in that crazy place :)
i've been reading these posts in the last few days and talking to my parents and friends about the honor code not being ratified 1st pass and i've realized just how superficially i understood the honor code when i 1st applied. i agree with hc alum that the code benefits students in many ways one of which is in its imperfection and the debates that that causes both campus wide and with yourself. the world is imperfect and if the code were 100% perfect, haverford would not prepare its student for the outside world like it does so well. i still don't know what i'd do if i saw a violation. if it was a social violation, i'd proably speak to the person and if bad enough, would probably ask them to speak wth honor counsel or i'd do it myself. if it was an academic violation, ??? regardless of what i'd do, the fact that there's this "code" in the back of my head, would cause me to take some time to consider my actions and why i chose those paths, and as a result, i'd be more aware of my capacities and expectations which is valuable in itself. i realize now that the code is more than not cheating and not stealing- and those things wouldn't surprise me if they occured at haverford- but those things are really tangential to what i now percieve as the true significance of the honor code... that it is a tool for you to learn about yourself and your relationship to others rather than as a policing policy for others. </p>

<p>it seems the students now are rallying to ratify the code. if they didn't succeed, then, the class of 2010 will take care of it!</p>

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<p>I think it's time for the Honor Code to go. Permanently. The Code is treated as a joke by many students. Its function is similar to that of the appendix -- vestigial. In olden days, the Code may have been important to campus life, but not any more. Now the Code is a useless system of rules that only becomes important to many when it's about to disappear. </p>

<p>If the student body votes "no", then why continue to have plenaries? Because Tom Tritton, not to mention the Honor Council, doesn't believe in the democratic process. He keeps claiming that students can vote as they choose. But when the campus votes against his wishes, he can't take no for an answer. Tritton doesn't want to be remembered as the president who "lost" the Honor Code. But by being subverting the (apathetic?) will of the students to his own selfish needs, Tritton has shown that he is the one who truly lacks honor.</p>

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<p>We're not going to protest! We're not going to protest! We're not going to protest!</p>

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<p>do all the students feel as prominigolf36?? does anybody know how many times the honor code has failed a second time?</p>

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<p>I hope you do not mind my writing to ask your thoughts about the extent that the honor code is a "living aspect" in the students lives. My point is that while the manifestation of an honor code can be artificially maintainned by a minority, or sort of jammed into being during a "campaign" but not, (or perhaps it is...that's why this is a question) followed in spirit. This being reality I am sure that some people pay no attention to it whatsoever. Others probably do not get overly involved in its drafting, but do care to live in a place that does care about its honor code. The range, or percentiles who live along the continium of caring to out right defiance of the code interests me greatly. I am aware that reactions such as "why have a code?" can be the result of either "why are you bothering me?" or they could be the result of great exasperation (failed idealism?)
What is your guess?</p>

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<p>just to let u know that out of 1180 students in haverford, only 16 students voted "no".....</p>