Honor Code Dbq

Across the nation, schools, colleges and universities have established honor codes in their campuses to discourage cheating and promote academic integrity. Whether or not their honor codes are effective is a topic well debated and both sides have merit. At my school, Brookwood High School, the honor code should be revised, for only in an environment where the students are involved, consequences for cheating are high, and a culture of honor and integrity are established, can such as system thrive and succeed.
In order for an honor code to be relevant, the student body must buy-in and be involved with the development and execution of the honor code. In Source B, Vangelli states, “I saw the revision to eliminate all formal penalties in the honor

code as a huge step in gaining approval, both inside and outside of the Senate.” At Lawrence Academy, the honor code was successful because the students were heavily involved with the development, allowing the buy-in of the student body and agreement throughout the school. Similarly, at the University of Virginia, the honor code is well established; however, it is because of the student’s involvement in the process that it stays successful. Cara Coolbaugh, a student on UVa’s Honor Committee, “spent countless hours determining the fate of her peers” (Source D). Because of the student body’s direct involvement with the development and execution of their respective honor codes, both Lawrence Academy and the University of Virginia have created an atmosphere where cheating is greatly discouraged and the disappointment of fellow classmates solidifies this culture. At Brookwood, the honor code is developed, enforced, and executed solely by the administration. In order for the honor code to be successful, Brookwood must revise its honor code to involve the students.
The consequences for cheating must also be high for an honor code to work. If the consequences are too lenient, the benefit for cheating outweighs the risk, creating the opportunity for cheating and plagiarism to occur. According to Source E, 88 percent of students believed that failure on an assignment was a reasonable punishment for a violation of the honor code. It is not surprising, then, that 40 percent of students surveyed admitted to violating the honor code but were not caught (Source E). This public university did not have strict consequences, and therefore, the honor code was not successful. On the other hand, when there are severe consequences for such actions, like those at the University of Virginia, an honor code can be very successful. At the University of Virginia, their Honor Committee went so far as to rescinding graduates’ diplomas for violating the honor code (Source D). This strict enforcement of the honor code is what makes it successful and effective at the University of Virginia. Brookwood only gives a student a zero and detention for cheating on an assignment. If these consequences were much stricter, Brookwood’s honor code would be much stronger and be effective.
A culture of honor and integrity must also be established in order for an honor code to thrive. As seen in Source C, a culture of integrity and honor “leads to a feedback loop, as more of a population behaves like ‘honest’ types than normally would, increasing the impression that everyone is honest and raising still higher the expectation of being caught.” Similarly, “if a student enters college with mostly ‘cheater’ types, not only are the costs of cheating very low, encouraging fellow ‘cheater’ types to cheat, but the benefits of cheating are very high, encouraging even ‘honest’ types to cheat” (Source C). The success of the honor code is determined by the environment it is enforced in. If the environment discourages cheating, though student involvement and strict consequences, the honor code will work, and vice versa. At Brookwood, these changes must be made in order for an ‘honest’ culture to be established, boosting the honor code and making it effective.