The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 6, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 13, 1979 Page: 13 of 20
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penalty. If a person pleads not
guilty and is found not gulty, the
ease is dropped.
punishments
can
What sort -
you mete out.'
To he specific, the Council
recommends penalties to the
Proctor, who then carries them
out. [he proctor, in general,
carries out what the Council
rec om mend s; he ca nnot carry out a
penalty more severe than the
Council, and in some rare
instances carries out a penalty
slightly more lax tha^what the
Council hands out.
Penalties can be anywhere from
reprimands to expulsion, and
anything inbetween.
As a matter of curiosity, back
when the Vietnam War was going
on, a student was found guilty of a
very serious violation under the
Honor System which could have
called for his expulsion. The
student expressed a strong interest
in not being expelled, in that he
would then immediately be
drafted. So the Council meted out
a penalty that required him to
return to school, take the identical
courses he had taken the previous
year. The Council required him to
make perfect grades and then
receive no credit for these courses.
So, essentially, the Council handed
out a penalty which cost the
student whatever the tuition was
that year, plus one whole year's
effort, for the privilege of staying
at Rice Univeristy and not going to
Vietnam. This illustrates the fact
that the Council can mete out any
penalty it so desires.
What's the most common
penalty for an Honor System
violation?
Although there are absolutely
no guidelines whatsoever the
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Council strives to go by its
precedent In general, when a
person pleads not gulty and is
found guilty by the Council, he is
considered to have committed a
very serious violation, and is not
suited to be a member of Rice
University. In general, the penalty
is at least suspension from the
Univeristy for one semester
In other cases, where a person
pleads guilty of violation, the
penalties are tentatively something
in the nature of loss of credit on an
assignment, on a course, restricted
lies with the student. The students
can make a big difference by the
fact that they encourage the
professor to tell them what's hoing
on. If they keep getting at the
professor to make sure that there's
adequate seating space and the
like, then it's going to work a lot
better.
Do you feel that the faculty on
the whole likes the Honor System
as it is now, or finds its
regulations on seating and the like
bothersome?
"We want to be a service to the faculty.
We want them to be able to teach
in a way that they can feel comfortable with,
using whatever freedon the Honor System
can provide them/7
grades—in which case he only
receives credit for 50 percent of the
assignment, for example, credit
only for the questions he did not
cheat on, something of this nature.
If a person demonstrates that he
has the integrity, the personal
pride, the personal honor, to admit
his fault, this will be taken into
account. The penalty will, in
general, be less severe.
I get the feeling that there
are a lot of professors who don't
make their personal expectations
under the Honor system too clear.
There are a lot of things a
professor can do or way as far as
making clear what he expects on
work under the Honor System, but
the majority of the responsibility
GRAD. dlhgERGRAC
(CIRCLE ONE)
MATRICULATION PtEOGE
The following pledge it In the spirit of o policy established by the Trustees and the Faculty of the
Rice Institute in June, 1922: While I remain a student at Rice University, I hereby agree (I) not to be
member of any social fraternity or sorority on the Rice campus and (2) not to participate in any
hazing.
(Signed)
HONOR SYSTEM PtEOGE
I, the undersigned, signify that I have read the Constitution of the Honor System and hereby pledge
my support to it. I understand what is expected of me as a student of Rice University and realize that a
plea of ignorance will not be accepted by the Honor Council.
As a whole, the faculty is, in my
opinion, glad to have an Honor
System in that the system makes
their job a little easier and
demonstrates the integrity of the
students.
As far as the way in which
individual faculty support the
system and the way the faculty feel
about specific details of the system,
there's a whole spectrum of
attitudes. Some will be very
meticulous about making sure
specific things like seating
arrangements and signing the
pledge are done correctly, whereas
other faculty members look upon
the system as something that's in
the background, something that
they're not actually using but
resting on. In other words, they do
not feel they have a direct
involvement in it.
There is a distinct problem with
respect to some faculty members in
that they feel approaching the
Honor Council is a draconian
measure, which does not need to be
done except in very severe cases, or
do ever really need to be
approached. This is something
&A hi
(Signed)
N ftOTH PLEDGES
— photos by Wayne Derrick
that I feel very strongly about, and
we will express this in our
approach with the faculty this
year. The Honor Council is not
something that should be used
merely in severe cases. We want to
be a service to the faculty. We want
them to be able to teach in a way
that they feel most comfortable
with, using whatever freedom the
Honor System can provide them
with. If they deny us the
opportunity to handle Honor
System-related problems, they
• have denied us the primary means
by which we keep the system going.
They have defeated the central
nature of the system, in that the
system is maintained and enforced
by the students. It is our
jurisdiction to handle these
problems. We feel very
sympathetic with faculty feelings
that we might be too severe, and we
want their input on that.
You seem to express yourself
pretty strongly about this point.
Could you explain the specific
problems between the faculty and
the Honor Council?
There have been a couple of
major problems. One is that the
Honor Council has in the past, in
my opinion, been ineffective in
communicating to the faculty at
the beginning of the year what
their responsibilities are, and in
cooperating with them on specific
problems. The only exposure
faculty members have had with
Honor Council is when there have
been severe problems, and this is a
drawback. Increased visibility and
accessibility will help immensely.
There's been a problem in that
the faculty members, like students,
take the system for granted. They
do not recognize that there are very
specific responsibilities that they
have, like making a very, very
sincere attempt within the
requirements given them by the
Registrar's Office to provide
adequate seating, to provide
students information on
requirements for take-home tests,
for computer projects in
particular, and for footnoting
procedures. Many faculty
members neglect to give students
as much information as they
should.
Do Council members have
trouble with the workload of ease
each year?
About eight percent of
accusations that are-brought to *V
Honor Council are brought to ■>-
around finals time and around
midterms. Council members ar
students just like everyone d:-.< .
They have problems with final:
also. Things pile up at one time and
though expediency will !■.
emphasized, the Council
recognizes the need for integrity in
the hearings and respects the rights
of the accused.
Do you consider the Honor
System an unqualified success at
Rice? Or is it a qualified success,
and if so, how? Or could it do a lot
better?
The system is in one sense an
unqualified success by its mere
existence.
Looking from the inside of the
system, rd want to qualify: there
are many things that in fact do
need to be improved, like the
council's effectiveness, the
faculties diligence, and the
student's awareness of the system.
Why do you suppose the Honor
System at Rice runs relatively
smoothly at the same time that a
cheating scandal has rocked West
Point, which also has an honor
system?
There's a big difference between
the Honor System at Rice and at
West Point. First, Rice covers only
academic matters, whereas the
system at West Point covers lying,
cheating and stealing. But the
major downfall of the West Point
system was that it had a single
sanction, expulsion, for any
violations. Here at Rice, one thing
we are trying to emphasize is that
we don't want the Honor Council
actions to be seen as severe as that.
We want the Honor Council to be
able to work with students on
minor problems to keep the system
going.
Freshman matriculation card: the system starts here.
F hr Kice S brei-her N(>nti>;v<b
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Muller, Matthew. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 6, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 13, 1979, newspaper, September 13, 1979; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245412/m1/13/: accessed July 2, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.