Honor and Integrity

At this point in the semester, most students are well into their midterm exams. The pressure of countless tests and papers makes for a very stressful few weeks. To lighten the load, students occasionally turn to dishonest measures to get the grades they want with the most ease. While students know that such practices are wrong, there is often little incentive and reason not to cheat. In an effort to establish a culture that promotes academic integrity, Columbia should establish a board of peers, similar to Barnard's Honor Board, which will review cases of academic dishonesty. By making students more conscious of what constitutes cheating and also what the consequences are for doing so, Columbia can help to prevent academic dishonesty and also emphasize the importance of honesty and integrity at a school where students sometimes fixate on academic, career, and financial success.

Currently, Columbia deals with cases of academic dishonesty through the Dean's Discipline Process. A student who is accused of a crime must present himself to the board in order to have his case reviewed. The opaque process is under the jurisdiction of administrators only and includes no input from the student's peers. This is a mistake on the University's part—students offer insight on issues of academic integrity that administrators simply do not have and are more in tune with what other students do and what constitutes cheating in the eyes of their peers. The statistics bear this out—according to a study by a professor at Rutgers University, an honor code decreases instances of cheating between 23 percent and 45 percent.

An honor board that is represented by students relays the message that students care just as much about integrity as do administrators and professors. Setting the tone that students will not stand for academic dishonesty is a valuable opportunity to affect the culture at large—it shows that honesty can be promoted over dishonorable behavior throughout Columbia's community.

Columbia should look towards Barnard's established Honor Board for insight on how an honor code could be implemented. Barnard's Honor Board is comprised of students, two faculty members, and the dean of studies, all of whom meet once each month to review cases and discuss how to make students aware of issues pertaining to all aspects of academic integrity. Other Ivy League schools—such as Cornell, with its Academic Integrity Hearing Board on which students outnumber faculty members—actively promote student participation.

Although college does not technically exempt students from rules of the "real world," it is still an isolated four-year experience. By age 18 or 19, students should understand what constitutes basic wrongdoing, including in academic work. If students are fairly reprimanded when they do not make the right decisions, they will be less inclined to be dishonest in other outlets of their lives now and in their adult futures. Cheating on a statistics test is bad, but charging a game of golf to your company's credit card and losing your job over it is worse. In an effort to ensure that students are kept honest, a student-led Honor Board presents the best of both worlds: a forum for accountability and open discussion with peers.