March 01, 2004
Bummed
The great thing about having an Honor Code here at Knox is that as a general rule I can just assume students aren't cheating. I don't have to worry about making it difficult for them to cheat, because they've pledged an oath not to.
The really frustrating thing about the Honor Code is that if something catches my eye as really suspicious, I'm required to turn it over to a board mostly comprised of students, who are really really harsh about their punishments and don't seem to make use of the spectrum of penalties available to them, instead preferring to assign the same harsh penalty in all cases.
And they wonder why the faculty is reluctant to turn over cases to them....
"They laughed at Newton. They laughed at Einstein. Of course, they
also laughed at Bozo the Clown." --Carl Sagan
Posted
by blahedo
at 11:20pm
on 1 Mar 2004
The crowd always seems to shout jump. It clamors for death, blod, or failing that the harshest punishment available. Not surprising, nothing changed in the last 2K or so. Also, people are lazy. They tend ot prefer to do the same thing every time as it is easier.
I don't think it's quite so mindless as you imply. The argument is that there is no such thing as "cheating a little bit", and that all cheating is therefore equivalent. What I'm seeing, though, is them telling kids that if they're going to cheat, they might as well cheat big.
Of course, it's certainly true that it also sends a "don't cheat at all" message. It's still frustrating, though.
Perhaps the faculty should discuss this as a group? Or a group of concerned students and faculty? There was an article in the last TKS expressing similar sentiments - I'm a bit concerned about the Honor Board simply because it's on a strictly vollunteer basis, attracting a certain set of people all the time.
