High school students often hear from chagrined teachers, “When you go to college, _____________ won’t fly!”. What fits in that blank? All manner of executive functions (e.g., showing up on time, turning in work in a timely manner, attention to detail, self-sufficiency) fit the bill, as do other academic activities, such as “open note tests”, “extra credit”, and plagiarism.

The last one example is potentially the most serious and far-reaching in terms of consequences for your scholars. In this series of posts, I am going to explore the role and purpose of honor committees in higher education from the perspective of a former K12 teacher and university professor who has served on these committees. You can provide these articles to your scholars for important background information about potential consequences of academic misconduct in higher education. 

What is an Honor Committee, Anyways?

An Honor Committee is a formal, organized group of professors, full-time faculty, staff, and/or graduate and undergraduate representatives that convene regularly to evaluate, discuss, and adjudicate honor code violations.

Honor code violations are determined by each institution and outlined specifically in a handbook. Usually this is the Student Handbook, but Honor Code handbooks can be detailed separately. These handbooks are readily available from each institution, and provided to students in their admission paperwork. If you would like to learn more about your institution’s Student or Honor Code handbook you can search your institution’s website. Student or Academic Affairs are places where you would likely be able to find such information.

The folks who serve on Honor Committees do so on a voluntary basis. Serving on such a committee meets the service requirements for many faculty members in higher education. Depending on the institution, faculty and staff members are required to serve on a number of campus-wide committees. Graduate students and undergraduate students act as representatives on behalf of their peers on these committees. This may seem counterintuitive to students from the outside. However, serving on these committees provides these representatives familiarity with the processes and procedures of committees, and helps engender trust in outcomes of the committee from the student body. The subject matter expertise of the committee is varied, which allows for richer discussion; for example, it is common for committees to include faculty from STEM, the humanities, and professional programs. Each field has unique standards for what constitutes academic misconduct, and this specialized knowledge is helpful for the committee to evaluate academic misconduct.

Thank you for joining the discussion! In the next post I will answer the question, “What goes on in an Honor Committee Meeting?”  Share your honor code experiences, wonderments, and questions below!