What disturbed me most was how bold she was. She asked several people around her in a loud voice for answers, acting as if there wasn't anything wrong with what she was doing. Eventually, one of her friends capitulated and whispered an agitated answer, accompanied by a seething "Shut-up, we're going to get in trouble." The girl then proceeded to brazenly contort her neck in all directions to see the tests around her. Meanwhile, the professor was gone from the classroom, signifying a misplaced trust in the integrity of her students.
The worst part of this incident is that it made me think for a brief second that everyone else in the room must be cheating and that I was a big sucker for being left behind. As David Callahan mentioned at his speech last Thursday night, there are surveys everywhere that say cheating is endemic in our society. A recent survey of Who's Who Among American High School Students, indicated that 80 percent of high-achieving high school students admitted to having cheated at least once. The worst aspect of such widespread dishonesty is that honest kids actually end up being punished for being honest. They face a choice between cheating and being cheated by an unfair system.
I agree with Callahan in that most people not only want to be honest people, they consider themselves to be honest people. Thus, when presented with a fair choice, most people will choose the honest path. The hope is that our Honor Code will bring the issue of integrity to the forefront of the College's academic culture, encouraging us to abide by the moral standards that we intrinsically know to be right. Our Honor Code is relatively innocuous. All we ask is that students read, understand and sign the Code of Conduct that has governed student life at the College for decades. Hence, beyond a few paranoid cries of totalitarianism, most people critique the code for being naive and ineffectual. They argue that cheaters are going to cheat no matter what we try to do about it. To some extent, I agree with such voices; the Honor Code is limited in what it can do if it doesn't accompany a cultural shift in our institution.
That's why I believe that in addition to an Honor Code, the College must enact a set of policy measures aimed at increasing vigilance and ratcheting up punishments. For example, nearly 2,000 colleges and universities across the nation, including many of our respected peer institutions, are combating plagiarism with an online resource called 'turnitin.com'. Comparing papers with billions of potential sources, this program has proven to have a significant deterrent effect. The College Council discussed using this program at Amherst and the administration is currently in the process of considering its relative merits. If Amherst as an institution is serious about changing its own culture of cheating, it must give professors access to this program. I can see no reasonable arguments against it. Students who are honest have nothing to fear; faculty who are ideologically opposed to monitoring their students can simply choose not to use it.
The fact is Amherst cannot hope to reverse the nation's culture of cheating, but it can try to neutralize it. There are three steps I feel that the College should take to do so. The first step, to appeal to students' sense of decency, we have already taken. Although cynics scoff at Honor Codes, the numbers don't lie. Every study that's been conducted on this issue has shown that students at schools with an Honor Code cheat at significantly lower levels than students at schools lacking one. I agree that certain cheaters will cheat no matter what, but I also believe that many cheaters are genuinely conflicted about their actions and will be positively affected by an Honor Code.
Secondly, we need to ratchet up the penalties for cheating so that those who are caught are punished sufficiently. This question has also been discussed by the College Council and yesterday, the faculty deliberated on whether to adopt language stating that the recommended penalty for a first time incidence of cheating is failure in the course. I entreat the faculty to pass this resolution.
Finally, we need to destroy the mentality that cheaters aren't usually caught with increased vigilance through the use of programs like turnitin.com. These measures will not end cheating. Most likely nothing we do as a college could ever do so. What they will do, however, is give students a fair chance to honor their honest instincts and not submit to the cheating culture.
Editor's Note: Park based this article on a speech that he was unable to give Oct. 14 at David Callahan's lecture on cheating.