Faculty discuss Honor Council integrity

The Honor Council compromised the integrity of the Honor Code, members of the Faculty Senate said Wednesday.

The council’s refusal to press charges against 300 members of two sororities in possession of test banks has damaged student and faculty perceptions of the code, members said.

"Students don’t seem to think there’s any validity to the Honor Code," said Stephanie Chisolm, chair of the Student Concerns Committee, which will meet over the issue tomorrow. "And faculty will file a complaint, but they feel like the whole thing is a joke when they see the same student back in school next semester."

Nikitah Imani, a sociology and anthropology professor, presented the concern in a senate meeting last Thursday.

"With an honor code, the way people perceive it may be more important than the code itself," said Imani, who worked to rewrite the Honor Code several years ago. "You can’t have a code which you enforce on a by-convenience basis."

The senate’s discussion focused on the lack of information released about the investigation and the "‘appearance’ of non-enforcement" of the code, said Dietrich Maune, a media arts and design professor who is a member of the senate.

"This most recent occurrence of finding the test bank is troubling," Maune said. In mid-July, more than 50 years of archived tests were discovered in the Greek Row houses of two sororities.

Members of Alpha Sigma Alpha or Zeta Tau Alpha were not charged with academic violations due to a lack of evidence, said Maggie Burkhart Evans, honor council coordinator.

The council ordered the disposal of the tests before deciding not to press charges, advisers to the sororities said.

Evans also said only using, not possessing, tests was against the Honor Code.

This conclusion, Maune said, appears to be a "relaxed interpretation" of the code. "How can a organized process of sharing information be so easily dismissed?" Maune asked.

Some faculty said they suspected the investigation was dropped because of the inconvenience of investigating 300 students.

"With the Honor Code, difficulty isn’t really an excuse to disregard it," Imani said. "When an issue comes up with an individual, we find some way to enforce it. Why enforce the rules in ‘situation A’ and not ‘situation B’?"

In its meeting tomorrow, the senate committee will focus on determining current perceptions of the code rather than the specifics of the situation, Imani said.

"If you go to the University of Virginia or Virginia Tech, you know they take their code seriously," Imani said. "Their response is to take a very hard line to enforce their code. I don’t see that happening here."

Evans did not comment as to why the council’s integrity would be discussed by the senate, but added that discussion of academic integrity is routine.