THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 8, 1994 TAG: 9412080439
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
Old Dominion University's Board of Visitors will decide today whether to adopt a proposal to revamp the campus honor system to clamp down on cheating.
The plan, which has divided student leaders, has gone through nearly a dozen drafts in the last six months. But still at issue is this question: Can a strong honor code be built if students are not in control of the campus judicial system?
The main sticking point in the campus debate is the role of the student Honor Council.
The administration's proposal would shift the power to investigate cases and determine verdicts from the council to a ``university hearing officer,'' who is an administrator. Students, however, could appeal the verdict to a joint student-faculty board that would include members of the Honor Council.
The change will expedite the process, Vice President Dana D. Burnett said. Cases that now draw on for six months would take only six weeks, he said.
``We think that in order to provide a sufficient deterrent, a person who contemplates cheating needs to understand that justice will be fair and justice will be swift,'' Burnett said.
But Ted Arminio, vice chairman of the Honor Council, said: ``As the proposal now stands, we feel that students' rights are really unprotected. I see why the administration wants to do this, but it seems to me a little Draconian.''
Arminio is a graduate student in the history department. ``One person hired by the administration will investigate and try the cases and pass judgment,'' he said. ``This really gives the student very little options. To be honest, who is an administrator going to believe: a faculty member or a student?''
Donald McCabe, a business professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey who has studied cheating and honor codes, also questioned the proposal. ``I agree with the students,'' he said Wednesday. ``In my opinion, they should play the major role (in the honor system). The more students are involved, the better.''
Generally, universities with the least amount of cheating are ones with honor systems that grant students the greatest responsibility, he said.
But Angela East, the student body president, said she would support the final draft: ``I'm comfortable with the fact that student concerns have been taken into consideration in this compromise. It takes care of the points that students most care about.''
For instance, under the current proposal, any student could appeal a decision of the hearing officer, she said. In a previous version,appeals would have been allowed only in certain circumstances, such as failing to follow proper procedures or imposing a sanction deemed ``overly harsh.''
In addition, Burnett said, the latest plan would allow students to offer more evidence during the appeal.
Old Dominion is the second Virginia school that recently has debated students' role in the honor system. At the University of Virginia, students have accused administrators of pressuring the independent student honor panel to hold a retrial of a student, convicted of cheating, who threatened to sue U.Va.
Burnett said the revamping of ODU'shonor system was not meant as a critique of the Honor Council. The trouble, which goes beyond ODU, is simply that too many students are cheating, he said.
When McCabe surveyed 6,000 students nationwide in 1991, 67 percent said they had cheated at least once. In small-group discussions at ODU this year, several students said they thought all their peers had cheated.
``Our student body is not taking the responsibility to police academic integrity,'' Burnett said.
To help tighten the reins, he said, the proposal will involve faculty more in the system. Now, either a student or professor can formally initiate a complaint, but the new plan would require all complaints on cheating or plagiarism to go through faculty members. The Faculty Senate last month endorsed the plan, with minor proposed revisions.
Burnett said he didn't think the changes would diminish the Honor Council's influence. It will just be transformed into an educational group, drumming up the message - through workshops and fliers - that honesty is the best policy.
``There is no substitute for peers teaching peers the importance of academic integrity,'' he said.
East, the student body president, said she liked that idea: ``I think it's important for the Honor Council to serve as a strong educational body, and if they serve that purpose, they will retain a large part of the honor system.''
But McCabe said the university was sending ``a conflicting message to students'' by boosting their role as honor educators but reducing their role as judges of their peers.
Last week's issue of the campus paper, the Mace and Crown, printed an editorial attacking the proposed changes. ``The honor code will become another bureaucratic maze through which accused students must wander until their cases are decided upon by a stranger who may or may not be in touch with students,'' it said.
Burnett, however, said: ``I see it as a middle point between the students' proposal and what we were looking for. . . . This is revision 11. It really is a compromise document.''
KEYWORDS: HONOR CODE OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY ODU HONOR SYSTEM by CNB