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Explanation: Several students who took
their exams in the classrooms copied answers from their neighbors or friends.
They subsequently submitted those exams as pledged work and thus violated
the Honor Code. To discourage future misbehavior of this sort, I make
the exam packets as visually different as possible and introduce proctors
into the classrooms to help students stay focused on their own work alone.
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Explanation:
Several students who took their exam booklets out of the classrooms prior
to this change then proceeded to obtain aid from other students. They subsequently
submitted their exam booklets as pledged work, thereby violating the UVa
Honor Code. In recognition of this repeated misbehavior and of the inability
of some small segment of the student body to avoid such problems, I have
been forced to limit exam-taking to the classrooms themselves.
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Explanation: Several students who took
their final exams late, after the rest of the class had completed the
exam and, in some cases, after solutions had been posted, submitted as
their own pledged work answers that had been obtained from other students,
friends, or the posted solutions. These actions constituted a violation
of the UVa Honor Code. To ensure fairness within the class and to avoid
such misbehavior in the future, the written final exam is given only once—during
the officially designated final exam period. Late final exams are conducted
as one-hour oral interviews.
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Explanation: A number of students who
completed exams were later found to have submitted, as
their own pledged work, material that was actually done by someone else.
Because such unethical submissions violate the Honor Code, they are inconsistent
with the Community of Trust and make it more difficult to take UVa students
at their word. To discourage such misbehavior, I now make a thorough check
of all pledged work, both during the semester itself and on a continuing
basis thereafter.
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Explanation: The Honor Committee's policy
is to wait until the last possible moment before notifying a student of
an honor investigation. That policy stems from a desire not to foreclose
the possibility of a conscientious retraction until the moment a student
is interviewed and from a hope that keeping the interview secret until it
begins will prevent investigated students from fabricating testimony. Unfortunately,
the main effect of delayed notification (often lasting for months) is to
allow the investigated student to learn of the investigation via leaks and
subsequently tender a coerced conscientious retraction of questionable validity.
To eliminate the possibility of these problematic conscientious retractions,
I notify investigated students myself immediately after initiating the investigations.
