Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 4, 1994 TAG: 9403040222
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RENEE SHAFER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
At Hollins College, a lie like that is a violation of the honor code. And if your roommates know you lied, they have to turn you in. If they don't, they've violated the honor code, too.
Have you ever asked a friend to double-check your calculations?
If you were in a science class at Roanoke College, that would be a violation of the academic integrity policy. You and your friend would be in trouble.
They may seem like minor violations, but on college and university campuses across the nation, academic integrity is serious business. With most systems, a student found guilty of a violation will find a permanent mention of it on his or her transcript for graduate schools and employers to see.
At the University of Virginia, one violation gets you expelled.
According to a survey released in 1990 by a professor at Rutgers University, about 45 percent of the 232 college students he surveyed said they cheated occasionally, and another 33 percent said they cheated regularly. The most common type of cheating occurred on tests and exams where students - knowingly or not - share their answers. Students also commonly share test files, old tests and quizzes collected from students and alumni. Students bank on the fact that few professors rewrite exams from year to year.
At Roanoke College, the most common violations occur in science labs where, even if students see an error in their data, they are not allowed to change it.
An average of 14 students a year are charged with academic integrity violations at Roanoke, a liberal-arts college of 1,700 men and women. Of them, approximately 12 are found guilty, estimated Janice Saunders, associate dean of academic affairs.
A survey done by the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that cheating was less common at schools with detailed and well-publicized honor codes that require students to sign pledges that they will not cheat.
Hollins College, a liberal-arts college with 842 undergraduate women and 188 male and female graduate students, has such an honor code. Students at Hollins sign a pledge their freshman year that they will not lie, steal or cheat. Professors at Hollins are so confident that the students will honor that pledge, they've adopted a system of independent examinations.
Students have five days in which to take final exams. During the week, students pick up exams and go to one of the monitored examination rooms on campus. The student monitor on duty enforces the time limits and collects the exams. Before leaving the room, students sign a pledge that they will not discuss the contents of the exam.
The Honor Court at Hollins handles 10 to 15 violations a year; 75 percent of those cases involve academic integrity violations. Eighty percent of students who appear before the court are found guilty, according to Linda Steele, director of college relations.
"Honor is an integral part of a person's character," said Jeanie Bliss, student chairwoman of the Hollins Honor Court and a senior English and political science major. "We cannot instill the values of honor in students, but we can represent on campus what is expected of an honorable person."
Virginia Tech and Radford University also have honor codes. Tech, with a student body of 23,865 graduate and undergraduate students, reviewed 74 cases of honor code violations last year. The Judicial Panel found 23 students guilty.
Radford University, with 9,418 students, handled 53 cases of cheating last year. Nineteen students were suspended or dismissed for violating the honor code or the student conduct code.
The system at Roanoke College is considered a policy and not an honor code, because there still is active policing by the faculty.
"A couple of years ago, we asked the students in our honors program if they wanted to be placed under a strict honor code, a system separate from the school's," said Bobbye Au, professor of English and director of the honors program. "The students unanimously said no.
"I think the biggest problem they had in supporting it was that they did not want to turn in their peers. They said that they were not aware of any violations, and if they were, they wouldn't turn [the violators] in.
"It didn't surprise me; it's a larger societal value. A typical person faced with that dilemma would answer in the same way."
Bliss does not believe that Hollins' honor code puts students under any extra pressure. "I think there is more pressure on people that cannot live up to the code," said Bliss. "I wouldn't expect [students] to forget the code once they left Hollins. Honor is a part of your personality; it's something you take into the real world."
Until this year, Roanoke College had only one penalty for honor violations, although it was not as severe as UVa's one-strike-you're-out policy.
Students found guilty of violating the honor policy were withdrawn immediately from the courses with a failing grade, and the cheating incidents were reported on their transcripts. Two strikes at Roanoke College and you were out.
Over the summer, the faculty reviewed the policy and created various sanctions they believed would better suit violations of varying severity.
Under the new policy, penalties range from a written reprimand placed in the student's file to community service and academic probation. Two serious violations still call for expulsion.
Greg Terrill, president of the Student Government Association, didn't like the new policy at first. "Some thought the system was too severe. Some people, like me, thought it wasn't severe enough.
"Under the old system, the punishment was so severe that some professors didn't report violations that probably should have been reported."
But Terrill realized that "with the new gradation of penalties, professors will be more likely to report everything and get it all out in the open."
by CNB