By: Sarah Madden, Senior Writer
In May 2016, faculty approved several changes to Wofford’s Honor Code. According to Dr. Matthew Cathey, associate professor of mathematics, most changes fixed typos and improved clarity. There are four major changes students should know:
- Potential first offenses will now be handled between the professor and student through adjudication meetings instead of formal hearings. In that case, the sanction does not have to be as harsh as withdraw-fail.
- Going forward, the student body will be able to veto substantial changes to the Code.
- Misrepresentation of personal circumstances to gain an advantage in registration (e.g., lying about one’s schedule to get an override) is now an explicit violation of the Code.
- Standard of evidence in hearings is now “preponderance of evidence” instead of “beyond reasonable doubt.”
“It’s important that students review the Honor Code regularly to make sure they are aware of any changes made,” says Cathey. The Code is reviewed at least once a year, and Cathey says that students will be even more involved in this process in the future.
“Now that students have the right to vote on any changes, we’ll hope to have changes ready to go in time for Campus Union elections in the spring; that way, students can vote for both at the same time.”
There are several reasons that inspired the change from first offense hearings to adjudication meetings.
“Ultimately, we wanted to make sure the process is fair,” says Cathey. “Under the old code, professors were asked to decide if potential cases of academic dishonesty were the result of ‘careless or inadequate work.’ Such violations could be handled by the professor in whatever way he or she saw fit.”
He points to two problems with the old system: “One is the inherent problem in asking a professor to make that judgment call; the enforcement was inconsistent from department to department and professor to professor,” he says. “The other is that students had no say in that process; if a student was accused by a professor who wanted to handle the case himself or herself, the student had no right to have his or her side of the story explained nor any recourse of appeal.”
With the new system, professors may no longer “just decide to impose a penalty” instead of going through the proper channels. He says the new system also allows professors to report violations without over-punishing students: “Some faculty… wouldn’t report violations of the Code because they felt that the minimum sanction of withdrawal-fail was too harsh. The sanctions that come out of these adjudication meetings can be lower than withdrawal-fail.”
The updated honor code can be found at http://www.wofford.edu/uploadedfiles/studentlife/honor%20code_rightsresp.pdf
