I find it really sad, but it looks like Amherst is a good candidate for a written honor code. Why is it sad? Because of the message the College would be sending to its students: We cannot be trusted. I came to Amherst partly for the liberty that the administration affords us. In a manner of speaking, they seem to trust us to pick our own classes, to drink as we please, to take time off and to come back whenever we want. The list goes on and on. Implicit in these choices was the trust that I would make the right decisions. While it occurred to me that some people would always exploit this kind of trust, I failed to realize how many students would take advantage of this atmosphere.

Last week's news article ("Survey confirms fears of cheating") was not the first to comment on the presence of cheating at the College. News articles discussing cheating over the past few years have noted that some cheating has arisen from an ignorance of what actually constitutes cheating. This notion is ridiculous. Concerning a student who has cheated, I see two plausible scenarios: The student has willingly cheated and should suffer the consequences of that action, or the student has never learned that submitting work that is not one's own or looking off of a peer's test is not okay. The second case is highly unlikely-what reasonable 18-year-old does not understand this concept? None of us can plead the Fifth here-we know what cheating is and we know it is wrong.

But even if we know it is wrong, some students need a guiding force to tell them exactly how wrong it is, a force imposing consequences. This aspect of the issue logically confuses some because the consequences are indeed unclear. It is understandable that a majority of professors want the matter left up to their own discretion-if I were a professor perhaps I would feel the same way. But the result of this ambiguity creates an environment akin to one where parents send mixed messages in response to a child's behavior; it is absent of concrete punishments. Thus, the child will think that in the end, getting away with his actions might not be very hard. Especially when the potential consequences of cheating are weighed against the dishonesty itself, students must be aware of a clear penalty as they make their decision.

At the very least, cheating or plagiarizing should incur a failing grade on the assignment in question. The prospect that I could walk into a test not knowing any of the material, cheat and have my grade docked to a C, for instance, rather than the failing grade I would have earned, appalls me. Even in this situation, 54 percent of professors who caught a student cheating failed him or her for the assignment but not for the class-which would leave the student with the same grade had he taken the test honestly. For some, it prompts the question, "what do I have to lose (other than some respect) by cheating?" In many cases, I believe a failing grade in the course is warranted, but the point is that it should be a matter of the dean of students' office, rather than individual discretion. Above all, the punishment should be made crystal clear. Morals aside, if someone wants to cheat, at least let him or her make an informed decision.

The idea that maybe "getting away with it" is not too difficult is one of the major problems, and likely some students' motivation for dishonesty. A major problem that fosters this image is the publicity given to incidents such as the many students who cheated in Professor Sanderson's Introduction to Psychology class, which was mentioned in last week's article. While I understand the importance of accurate news reporting, simply seeing that so many other students are apparently cheating creates the false perception that "Wow, everyone is cheating, so I had better cheat in order to keep up!" This situation is clearly undesirable; an ideal environment would be one in which all students believe that no one ever cheats, and that if anyone ever did, the ramifications would be grave.

Our mere discussion of the cheating statistics and the percentage of students whose grades suffer sends us the following messages: We have a certain chance that our grade in a class might not even be affected if we are caught, everyone is doing it and even though most people know about the cheating, it is nonetheless acceptable because other students won't tell (95 percent of students surveyed didn't). I intensely value the liberty that we are given here, but this has simply gotten out of control.

Any student who sees evidence of cheating has a moral responsibility to make it known to the professor. However, I agree that the balance between doing what is right and the desire to simply stay out of other people's business may be blurry. For this reason, I support an honor code which dictates that students, when they see incidents of cheating (as 168 of 444 students claimed they had), vow to speak up (discreetly, of course). While I agree that an academic environment in which we feel as though our peers were spying on us is certainly not ideal, I think it can be achieved in a way in which it is viewed in a different light. It seems clear to me that the only people who would be genuinely concerned about being spied upon would be the cheaters themselves, in which case I have a right not to be all that concerned. I truly do not think that this exaggeration would result, but if someone spying on me would help combat the problem of academic dishonesty, I have no basis for concern because I, like most of us, submit authentic work.

Since I have been at the College, cheating has been a major problem. Every year it is discussed, as is the potential for a written honor code. What's holding us back? If someone would write it, I would sign it, and then perhaps we could stop talking about it.