The Proctor is In: When an Honor Code Isn't Trusted

Student Lounge College Life
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Only 100 or so colleges maintain honor codes, which are thought to bolster integrity and trust among professors and students by involving the latter in the creation and enforcement of academic standards . . . Most traditional honor codes allow for unproctored exams, where . . . students are expected to report any cheating they observe. But the system is not working out so well at Middlebury College, where faculty members in economics will proctor their exams this spring semester.

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<p>Apparently Haverford is having issues with the anti-snitching culture, too.</p>

<p>Read more: <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/02/25/economics-department-proctor-exams-adherence-honor-code-wanes#ixzz2uRmAkuzm"&gt;http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/02/25/economics-department-proctor-exams-adherence-honor-code-wanes#ixzz2uRmAkuzm&lt;/a>
Inside Higher Ed </p>

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<p>We program our kids to believe they have to be the very best…they have to over achieve…and then we wonder why they don’t have higher ethical standards than the ones they witnessed growing up. Now that notoriety is a gateway to success (at least financially), doing good and earning rewards is losing its hold. </p>

<p>When (or should I say if) the focus of testing returns to being about how much of what a student has learned can be applied to answer questions and not what that exam means to grad school chances…the honor code may return. Many of the LA schools keep fighting, but the sense of community required to override 15+ years of increasing pressure is rare.</p>