Students feel professors need to take the first step

Students feel professors need to take the first step
A Question of Honor - Conclusion of a multi-part series

By Huda Kazi
News Editor
ATLANTA
November 6, 1998

You need a high 'B' on the final to make an A in a five-hour class. You've studied all night, and you walk into the final confident you can handle any question the professor gives you. And then you see number six. You remember knowing how to do it at one point in time. All you need to do is jog your memory, and your neighbor's paper is tantalizingly within view. Do you look?

"Using someone else to jump-start you would be cheating," says Textile Management senior Maggie Brown.

But how many students agree with her? And how many would resist the temptation to look?

"I would say 75 to 85 percent of students would cheat if necessary, whether it be looking on another student's test to jog memory, collaborating on homework when told not to, or using Word when told not to," said an IE major who asked to remain anonymous.

She does not believe the Honor Code is working, largely due to the still-nebulous definition of legal Word files and the availability of sample tests to the student body as a whole.

"I was under the impression the whole Honor Code policy was set forth to protect and equalize the rights of students-to, in theory, remove the so-called cheating of using Word that only some people could get access to," she says.

"Professors who don't provide sample exams are violating their end of the Honor Code. Nothing a professor or the school policy or any such thing is doing is going to destroy the Word files collected by the fraternities, sororities, and other organizations."

She feels increased enforcement on the part of professors-especially by making sample tests available on the Web and clarifying the importance of the Honor Code at the beginning of the quarter-would do a good deal to improve the honor situation on campus.

Brown agrees. She believes professors need to take a more active role in the honor process and that students will begin following through with their end if professors take the first step.

"Some professors are more interested in their research than in making sure people aren't cheating on their tests," she says.

"Going over the Honor Code is a good idea because a lot of times people feel like the professors don't care-they're just giving lectures and tests because they have to. When I've had professors who specifically say in lecture and on the syllabus that they won't tolerate it, then people think taking the lower letter grade because they didn't cheat is going to prevent them from getting the 'F' because they did cheat."

Brown believes another problem is the high level of competitiveness on campus.

"The pressure to cheat is greater here than at other schools because of the academic pressures. Professors are a big problem because they don't do their end of the job. You shouldn't cheat to compensate, but sometimes you feel you have to do what you have to do," a Biology major, who asked to remain anonymous, concurred.

Still, Brown is optimistic about the future of the Honor Code. "There could be a true sense of honor on campus because the Honor Code's real new, so people do not know exactly how to apply it or enforce it."

Copyright © 1998 by Gregory S. Scherrer, Editor and by the Student Publications Board

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