Each term, usually around the time professors get nicknames straight and summarize the syllabus, we are reminded of Dartmouth’s Academic Honor Principle. For our purposes, it is the dogmatic, underlying recognition of every student: do not cheat. “Cheating” here encompasses perhaps a larger realm than in high school, but the notion is the same. However, accepted within that code is the understanding that it is reciprocal — a departure from our more elementary understanding of academic honor, which consists solely in our duty to educational institutions. This reciprocity does much to lay the foundation for a mutually respectful professor-student relationship, a bond in some ways unique to Dartmouth. If we build further on these principles, however, the honor principle could facilitate an atmosphere in which honor is not only obeyed but respected. The understanding should be made explicit: professors must treat students like adults.
As it currently stands, the onus on professors is to forbid the proctoring of exams. While professors may appear intermittently, so as to answer any questions, they cannot remain with the sole purpose of policing exam activity. In this way, the honor principle acknowledges that we are all adults capable and trustworthy enough to take an unmonitored test. Though this may not seem substantial, I always find myself considering this small nod of respect while taking exams, even through the stress-haze of finals. This is the only explicit limitation imposed on professors.
Admittedly, some semblance of an honor code applies to professors in their own fields, and Dartmouth’s honor principle aims at upholding the academic integrity of the College, yet the phrasing of the code suggests the College’s code could be broadened from simply a student-focused understanding. “The Faculty of Dartmouth College,” it reads, “in recognizing the responsibility of students for their own education, assumes intellectual honesty and integrity in the performance of academic assignments, both in the classroom and outside” (emphasis my own). If professors are to assume intellectual honesty, would this preclude the use of paper-checking software?
Though this possibility has only been referenced (and quite possibly not employed) only once in my four years here, the mere suggestion seemed to violate the implicit essence of a mutual code. I am not suggesting that this transgressed the code per se, or that such action was out of bounds, but it did make me think about the principle’s implications. As first-year students, all of us sign a form stating that we will adhere to the honor principle, which forbids plagiarism. To then run our essays through a plagiarism program aimed at identifying stolen phrases from other electronically submitted works undermines the integrity of our contractual promise.
The honor principle maintains that its requirements are “fundamental to the education process,” and I wholeheartedly agree. Along with the definitions of plagiarism and work-sharing explicated in the honor principle, though, it founds itself on the underlying ethics of academic exchange. Just as much as it proffers a guideline for emerging scholars, it also gestures toward the mutual respect necessary to form a dialogue with professors and to facilitate the close professor-student relations that the College so heavily advertises. This is why I believe the code should explicitly articulate professors’ duties to their students. Memorializing such an understanding in what are Dartmouth’s arguably most important principles would better effectuate a mature interrelation between students and faculty. Though these relationships usually develop naturally over the course of a class, an implicit showing can only go so far, especially with regard to newer students.
Doing so would require adding clauses to the honor principle that pertain to the professors and other faculty that go beyond a prohibition on proctored examinations. To respect us as academics and our commitment to the honor principle, the College should insert a ban on using plagiarism software as well. Furthermore, professors, under the guidelines of the honor principle, should assume a student is truthful when requesting an extension or when explaining a missed class. The honor principle imposes responsibilities on students under the guise of treating us as mature, adult academics. Following these principles, any non-contradictory code would require professors to treat students like adults, which proscribes paternalistic distrust of intentions.
