There isn’t a University-wide Honor Code at my current institution, as there was at my previous one, and I realized the first semester after I moved that it was something I missed. So, I wrote one myself which I have students read and sign in the first week of classes.
For what it’s worth, I think there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of honor codes, especially given the aristocratic and patriarchal history of their use. (I think there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the virtue “honor” for the same reasons.) I also don’t think honor codes are particularly useful for combating the plagiarism epidemic, which I think is mostly a consequence of poor secondary training or laziness, and very rarely evidence of students’ dishonesty. What honor codes are useful for, in my experience, is disrupting several of the the default dispositions that most students have toward a class.
The contemporary University structure, as we all know, inclines students to think of themselves as more or less passive consumers of their education. That’s a very difficult attitude to dislodge, in part because it is constantly reinforced. Having students sign an Honor Code at the beginning of the term forces them to be active from the get-go. They must pledge to me and to their classmates that they will abide by a very particular set of principles that will govern our shared endeavor over the next several months.
Here’s the Honor Code my students sign (also downloadable here):
a member of this class, I pledge that I will not lie, cheat, or engage in
intellectual laziness.
pledge that I have read the syllabus in its entirety and that I am aware of the
demands that this course will place on me. I pledge to take full responsibility
for my performance.
pledge to understand my role in this class as not only a RECIPIENT of
knowledge, but also a PRODUCER of knowledge.
pledge to be prepared, attentive, and engaged in each class session.
pledge to read and to listen carefully, to afford others the most generous
interpretation of their viewpoints, to seriously consider criticism of my own
positions without taking offense, and to remind myself and my classmates that
disagreement does not, all by itself, constitute disrespect.
pledge to do my part to create and maintain an environment in which diversity
of PERSONS and IDEAS are both valued and protected.
pledge to neither engage in nor tolerate discrimination or harassment based on
race, gender, age, socio-economic status, religious affiliation, sexual
orientation, ability, or national/ethnic origin.
pledge to actively encourage
personal, intellectual, and academic integrity in my peers. As I am able, I
pledge to intervene when it becomes evident to me that the principles of this
class are being violated.
pledge to read more, write more, think more, and be more.
I think that having students sign the Honor Code gives them pause and allows them to reflect, even if only for a moment, on what exactly it is that they’re doing in my class. It also gives me an opportunity to make explicit my expectations of them and my understanding of how the class will work. They’re not just there to passively watch me perform a dog-and-pony show for three hours every week, I tell them. They’re expected to be more than a warm body in a seat. The Honor Code articulates a set of implicit (and explicit) principles that will govern the class. It’s not just anything goes up in here.
Or, in the immortal words of Omar Little,