The Honor Code: A Set Of Rules

Although Greenburg’s article and Morton’s speech have opposing points-of-view on the impact honor-codes have towards students, both authors provide insightful background and beliefs about the honor-code practices in college campuses.

Honor codes and systems are proudly displayed by high schools and colleges alike. These collections of rules are proposed with the hope of achieving the ideal of education: producing productive citizens with integrity. While these systems do provide incentive to follow the clearly stated rules and assist in lessening the effects of favoritism on student punishment for violating rules, they are also open to interpretation as they do not qualify situations based on the severity of the infringement or take into consideration the he-said-she-said aspect of reporting cheating. At my school, Union High School, we do not have an official honor code which leads to extreme crackdowns of authority at the first glimpse of a broken rule in some classrooms and a near absence of rules in others. Because of these disparities in punishment by teachers, a system of increased punishment severity should be created by each teacher and approved by the principle to help promote equitable treatment and provide incentives to follow school guidelines.

The increasing prevalence of honor codes in schools has changed the way students approach academic integrity. Honor codes are sets of regulations that require students to refrain from any sort of cheating and hold their peers accountable. Schools should continue to uphold their current system of honor codes in order to ensure academic integrity within the school while still respecting student privacy. The key to maintaining school honor codes is to involve the students in participating in the decision making aspect of honor codes, as well as enforcing them.

Bring your books, notes, and note card from today. The meeting is part of an investigation of a suspected honor code violation (see pp. 49-50 and pp. 65-78 of the Student Handbook for more information). Please be advised that any information or evidence gathered during this informal meeting or investigation may and will be used if a formal investigation or hearing on academic misconduct appears to be warranted.

To me, the primary reason Charlotte Country Day has an honor code is to keep students equal. The honor code keeps students equal, disallowing students to help each other during tests and before and after tests. By this, I mean one student sharing information about a test to a student who has not taken it yet. The honor code and council also keep students equal because there is a set of standards everyone must abide to. The honor council then assesses these standards and applies them to all students equally when in an hearing. The honor code and honor council is also important to keep students honest. While these standards are not upheld 100% of the time, the vast majority of students try their best to abide by the code.

The honor code is a system that many schools use to establish trust with teachers and students by having students report each other for cheating, plagiarizing, stealing, and getting consequences for violating those codes. I argue that it could be improved. I believe that giving students that much power to control each other isn’t a great idea. It may work in some schools but it could easily be corrupted. If you think about it, many students are broke, a student could easily pay the other student to allow them to cheat or copy. It’s an easy bribe and I'm sure it’s been done. I know people would attempt to counter my argument with “that’s why the honor code is there for,” but not everyone goes by their word, there’s always someone to

One of the things that really stand out in my tour of Davidson is the Honor Code. I think this is a great discipline that everybody should follow, and it really can benefit the students and faculty.

Honest. Disciplined. Hardworking. These words or a variation of these words are most commonly used by schools to describe their students. But to have such students, schools have needed guidelines to follow so students could be considered for the values put in place. Anonymous High School is no different. Currently the school possesses no such honor code system but some students do not notice. The rules put out by the school seem to accomplish their goal quite well and there seems to be no reason for establishing any kind of honor code system. No honor code system should be put into place because the school is functioning fine without it and adding it would only complicate things.

Honor codes are a set of rules or ethical principles governing a community based on ideals that define what constitutes honorable behavior within that community. The use of an honor code depends on the belief that people can be trusted. Those who are violating the honor code can be subject to punishment, including being expelled from the school. Schools should maintain the use of honor codes so that dishonesty is deterred from.

The conflict of whether or not honor codes should be established has been brought up again due to an increase in cheating and collaborating on tests and school work. Recently, a surplus of students have been caught cheating in unexpected places, like Harvard and the University of Virginia. Those colleges are considering using honor codes to counteract the surge of cheating that has arisen. Although there is currently a cheating problem that needs to be dealt with, incorporating honor codes into high schools and colleges is not the most effective way to solve the cheating problem, and will not solve the cheating problem indefinitely. It is very difficult to change a person’s personality and their morals, no matter what paper they sign, but there are ways to make people’s convictions stronger. One of which is student interaction. Like many people, students have a “follow the herd” nature and want to fit in with the crowd. If many students discourage cheating, the “crowd” may choose to not cheat in fear of being shunned. Student interaction is much more effective than honor codes, and is a much less drastic change.

Many schools tend to have problems with cheating and trust between students and teachers. Many schools have introduced honor codes which have either significantly improve these issues or have had no effect. Honor codes, if effectively integrated and properly interpreted, can help my high school minimize serious cheating, increase student morality, and improve trust. Honor codes can help students become more honest and make the classroom less vulnerable to dishonesty. An online article from the perspective of Alyssa Vangelli, a senator, establishes the way she perceived honor codes by illustrating the idea that “reminders of these moral values [give the student] a responsibility to perform honestly in the school environment” (Source B).

In the short four and a half years I have spent as a part of the Marist student body, learning their habits, celebrating their triumphs and considering their concerns, I have noticed a problem requiring immediate action, a silent plague sweeping our school that needs to be addressed to avoid imminent catastrophe. Across all subjects, from middle school theology classes to Advanced Placement arithmetic courses, the practice of cheating runs rampant and unchecked at our school. Popular cheating tactics include plagiarizing, using unauthorized outside sources and outright copying another student’s answers during a test, but exceptionally creative Marist students have explored less conventional strategies, such as the creation of secret codes to discretely convey messages.

The existence of honor codes has had basis in helping students learn since their inception, but there are still those who object to their very definition. Nearly every institution centered around the education of children has some sort of code of conduct or set of rules in place for the betterment of the students. However, the term ‘honor’ in the title ‘honor code’ is what people can occasionally take issue with, as the term often implies a much more respectful idea. This issue leads one to question the purpose of honor codes. Although honor codes, like that of the school in Tobias Wolff’s Old School, exist for the purpose of bettering the students by ensuring that they all have an equal chance and that they all do their own work, Mr. Ramsey objects to his school’s honor code because he believes in a much more personal and valuable meaning of the word ‘honor’.

     Throughout my years at Xavier and beyond I intend to follow the Xavier Honor Code so I can become a cooperative and responsible person. By being a student at Xavier I notice I will have to take responsibility of my actions and faults. In order for Xavier to trust me and to allow me to continue attending their school, I will have to follow their rules and be respectful. Not only should I do these things, but also I have to respect myself in order to respect others. In following the Honor Code at Xavier I will learn more about others, the school, and myself. The Honor Code will impact my academic and campus life because it will lead my way to the

Honor codes have been a strong subject of dispute over the last few years. Whether to hold students accountable for their own actions, and allow them to control the cheating in a school is, in all regards, a major decision that could potentially be detrimental to a school’s society and reputation. However, the rewards for a successful honor code are exponentially higher than the cost. Schools should always have some form of honor code in place, whether it be something like a signed contract at the beginning of each semester paired with an honor court to hold violators accountable, or something as simple as a statement of trust on a worksheet.