Honor Council
Sorry about the small hiatus. The past two weeks have flown. Between midterms and spring break, I totally forgot to blog!
Over spring break, I got an email from my chemistry professor letting me know that I was going to be contacted by the honor council. Vanderbilt’s Undergraduate Honor Council “was formed to help enforce and protect the tradition of the Honor Code,” implemented by Dean Madison Sarratt in 1875 in order to protect the integrity of all Vanderbilt Students. The Honor Council is a group of elected students who rule, with the aid of Vanderbilt staff, on cases of Honor Code violations.In case you were wondering, I was not the accused student. I met with an adult representative from the Office of Student Conduct. I was listed as a ‘material witness,’ and he simply wanted to see if I knew anything about the situation. I knew nothing and will have no further involvement in the case.
The point of my little story is not to expose the cheaters at Vanderbilt, nor to scare anybody with the severity of Honor Code violations. I simply wanted to explain the Honor Code and the Honor Council, in order to show that integrity and honor are huge parts of the Vanderbilt experience. The professors here do their best to catch and stop cheating. The Honor Code, which is signed by all incoming freshman at an elaborate ceremony before classes begin, is taken extremely seriously.
Dean Sarratt summarized the Vanderbilt ideal best when she said, “Today I am going to give you two examinations, one in trigonometry and one in honesty. I hope you will pass them both, but if you must fail one, let it be trigonometry, for there are many good [people] in this world today who cannot pass an examination in trigonometry, but there are no good [people] in the world who cannot pass an examination in honesty.”
Click here to watch a video on the Vanderbilt Honor Code.