Professor debates honor’s fragility in address to freshmen
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| Dr. Tim Gaines delivers the 2009 matriculation address. |
One of the most articulate pleas for honor was made on Aug. 20 at Presbyterian College.
Dr. Tim Gaines, Dana Professor of Psychology and a longtime participant in the college’s honor system, spoke to freshmen and transfers during PC’s annual Matriculation Ceremony, during which the new students and new faculty are asked to sign a pledge to uphold the Code Of Honor.
Gaines told students, in the presence of their parents, that while he counts students who serve on the Honor Council as “among the finest people you will ever meet,” he also finds cases that are brought before the group “deflating and heart-breaking.”
“Every year some of us on the faculty are compelled to notify the provost or the chair of the Honor Council about suspicions of cheating or academic dishonesty, plagiarism, and so on,” he said. “Each year some students are suspended from PC – some for a semester, but our usual suspension is for two semesters.”
Gaines asked to students to think about their parents.
“You may not know it but these poor people sitting here are going through one of the most emotional days of their lives,” he said. “They are simultaneously ecstatic that you are here but they are also sad because they’re leaving you here. They are proud of you but they are worried about you.”
Imagine then, the pain they might feel if they are told their child is being sent home for cheating or dishonesty, Gaines said. Sadly, it happens every year, he noted.
“That’s something that happens to a group of PC students every year,” he said. “Our Honor Code is demanding. We are proud of it and we recognize that it is fragile. It depends on all of us – students, faculty, and staff – doing our utmost to uphold it. But frankly, right now, you freshmen are the biggest threat to our Honor Code.”
National surveys, he said, reveal that approximately 75 percent of all high school students admit to cheating and that dishonesty is “trivial, if not inevitable.”
Even though students are taught not to cheat by their parents and schools, still they fall prey to their own impulses to cheat.
“Sometimes there are powerful forces working against you,” Gaines said. “The same parents who taught you to value honesty also value achievement. They made sacrifices for you to come here. They have great expectation for your future. And you are no doubt keenly aware of this.”
Gaines spoke of his own first year in college, when he entered the University of Maryland the product of a broken home and a father suffering deep emotional pain.
“Seeing my father’s pain, I promised him that I would make a 4.0 in college,” he revealed. “He didn’t ask me for any such thing. … But I thought it would help him. I thought it would lift him out of his depression.”
But after receiving a “C” on his first English essay and a poor grade on his first test in vector geometry, Gaines said he felt the pressure of putting his “heartfelt pledge” in jeopardy. Similar circumstances – stress, depression, fear – lead students to test their honor when they believe “there is too much to lose by being honest.”
Either way, there are consequences, Gaines said.
“What might happen after you make a bad decision at PC? One possibility is that your violation of the Honor Code is discovered,” he said. “At that point, you have to take your rationalizations out of the darkness and view them by the light of day. Imagine how those reasons will be received by your parents’ ears. Imagine your parents’ faces when they hear your excuses and it’s too late to undo anything. I think it will be painfully clear to you that your reasons are inadequate, unpersuasive, and even pathetic.”
In some cases, students attempt to hide their dishonor with another act of dishonor – lying about an infraction. On the other hand, cheaters might never be discovered.
“This outcome isn’t so improbable,” Gains said. “An Honor Code like ours provides opportunities for dishonor. We, the faculty, have the luxury of trusting that you will behave honorably. You have the luxury of giving your word and having it accepted as the truth. However, if your word is given casually, without honor as its foundation, you may fool us. In short, you may be able to take advantage of the Honor Code. That is the fragility I referred to earlier. If we as a community believe that our Honor Code is being violated with regularity, we lose confidence in it. When we lose that confidence, we lose our honor. Our code is dead.”
Students may graduate, become successful, and raise families. They may someday have children of their own who will have questions about college.
“When you are older, you may very well tell them about your time at PC – all the fun you had and the friends you made,” he said. “But I suspect, in a very real way, you will know that you were never fully engaged as a member of this community.”
Gaines said he recently visited his 86-year-old father and found an opportunity to thank him for the life lessons that lead him to take an “honorable ‘B’” in English and an “honorable ‘C’” in vector geometry.
“He would have forgiven me (if I had cheated),” he said. “That’s what parents do. They sometimes forgive so thoroughly that they wipe their memories clean. My dad now doesn’t remember a single time in my life that I ever let him down. … Forgiveness is a wonderful thing. It’s a wonderful gift. But it’s good not to rely on that gift all the time.”
By signing the Roll of Honor, students are saying they want to adopt the Code of Honor for their own, Gaines said. But it isn’t a given that all signers are honorable.
“Whether you made mistakes in the past or not, there will be occasions in the future when you will feel some measure of desperation and you may feel that there is too much at stake to be honorable – too much to lose,” he said. “That will be your true test.”
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posted by Hal Milam
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