There are 490 students in Professor Jeffrey Hart's English 68 course. But the 30-year veteran professor who is retiring after this term said only about 15 of them cheated on the midterm examination.
The numerous allegations of cheating in the course on T.S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway have raised questions about the effectiveness of the College's Academic Honor Principle and the extent to which professors are responsible for enforcing it.
The midterm examination, administered last week, consisted of 100 multiple choice questions. Since then, many students have made allegations of honor code violations to Hart but he said yesterday that he would not take any official action against the students who he thought cheated.
"There was definitely cheating on the exam," Hart said. "You can figure it out by reading the exams. If you know A and B, then you should know C and D. But some students who knew A and B did not know C and D."
"The profile of the cheater leaps off the page of the completed exam," he said.
Hart said he does not plan to file charges with the Committee on Standards, which adjudicates cases of academic misconduct. He also said he will not personally question students whom he thinks might have cheated.
"The only penalty will be in the awarding of the final grade," Hart said. "Even the cheaters got some questions right."
The "Faculty Guidelines for the Academic Honor Principle" written out in the Student Handbook state, "If the instructor believes that the suspicion [of impropriety] is valid, the instructor should immediately bring the matter to the attention of the COS and should inform the department/program chair. Under no circumstances should the instructor who suspects a violation of the Academic Honor Principle attempt to resolve the matter independently or with the student in question."
But Hart said he cannot prove students actually cheated.
"That's my opinion," Hart said. "I can justify it because I am giving the grade."
"I believe there was cheating, but I can't prove it, so therefore the guidelines don't apply," he said.
While Hart estimated that about 15 students cheated on the examination, one student in the class who asked to remain anonymous said she thought at least 60 students had cheated on the midterm.
"I could actually name five people I know were cheating," she said. "There were people in the back row who were talking to each other and telling each other which answers to put down," she said.
The students who complained did not give names of cheaters, Hart said.
Some students and faculty members said Hart has a responsibility to report the cheaters to College authorities.
"I thought we were required to report cheating," English Professor Bill Cook said. "You have no choice."
English department chair Louis Renza could not be reached for comment and vice-chair David Wykes declined to comment.
"I don't think it is fair" that the cheaters are not brought before COS, said the student who asked to remain anonymous. "I got my grade because I sat in Green Key weekend reading and some students will get the same grade because they cheated."
A second midterm will not be given in English 68.
Hart questioned the current Academic Honor Principle and said College examinations should be monitored by a proctor, although he did not monitor the midterm.
Currently, instructors are required to stay for the first 15 minutes of an examination and then may leave the room. "I don't think the current honor system is viable," he said. "I would like to go back to the old proctor system and have exams thoroughly proctored."
"But until the rules are changed, I'm obliged to operate under the rules," he added.
Cook said the honor code should remain intact and that proctors should not be introduced. "What we purport to be as an institution, the kind of people here, will militate against proctored examinations," he said.
Hart said he was not disappointed in the students who cheated.
"I believe in Original Sin," Hart said. "A student who fails to read the assigned work and cheats is the only person really hurt," he said.
"Students who did not cheat are better for it," Hart added. "Someone who paid tuition, cheated and got a B is a jerk."
Hart said he thought it was relatively easy to cheat in the class because of its size.
English 68 is usually a seminar of 30 students that focuses on a special topic selected by the professor.
Hart said he decided to remove the limit on his course because of the demand. "I don't believe in putting limits on class size," Hart said. "If you pay the tuition, you should be able to take any class you want."
Registrar Thomas Bickel said English 68 is the largest course in recent memory.
The average class size at Dartmouth is 22 students, he said.
Members of the English department said they thought the class was too large.
"You get frustrated by the absence of opportunity to talk to students," Cook said. "A lecture course is predicated on the fact that all students learn the same way. Some people need to talk and chew it out."
Cook limited his English 52 class to 85 students this term despite a long waiting list.
Hart said he will personally grade all 490 final exams in the course.
The final examination will consist of a take-home essay that must compare one work by Eliot to one work by Hemingway.
Even if it takes Hart 15 minutes to grade each final essay, he will have to do 122.5 hours of grading during the week between finals and the deadline for professors to submit grades.
"I have a full week of hard work ahead of me," Hart said. "But I won't have to pull any all-nighters."