By Steve Babcock
Andres Vargas, the Student Government Association’s vice president for academic affairs, announced Thursday that he had confirmation from the deans of three colleges that they would sign documentation supporting a new university honor code policy. SGA has been trying to push through university administration since late last year.
Deans from the College of Arts and Sciences, the Bouve College of Health Sciences and the College of Engineering have all expressed their willingness to sign a statement that would eventually be delivered to upper administration, according to Vargas.
“It makes me very optimistic how far they’re willing to go,” Vargas said of the support he has now gained.
Vargas also said that he and SGA Vice President for Student Affairs Michael Romano are “in discussion” with the colleges of Criminal Justice and Computer Science, respectively, about their agreement to sign the same documentation that the three others have agreed to.
The only holdout currently is Dean Ira Weiss of the College of Business Administartion, who Vargas said had not contacted him in the “timely” manner the other colleges had.
“I am very disappointed and bothered when the student government attempts to gain the support of any college on such an important issue and receives such an untimely response,” Vargas said. “It is disturbing that the five other colleges on campus respond so quickly and yet Business could not.”
At press time, Dean Weiss was away and could not be reached for comment by either Vargas or The News.
Currently, Northeastern’s honor code is determined by individual colleges, leaving requirements such as a written pledge or requiring professors to review standards for issues such as cheating on tests at the time the syllabus is handed out up to the six colleges that make up the university. The colleges also decide the penalty for such infractions under the current system.
Vargas, Romano and Chairman of the University Academic Honesty and Integrity Commitee William Fischer argue that a uniform policy leaves too much room for leniency by the colleges.
The new policy they are advocating, which was passed by the SGA Senate almost a year ago, calls for all instances of what they call “academic dishonesty” to be reported directly to the Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution (OSSCR). OSSCR would then set up a fair trial for the student and professor, where each would get to tell his side of the incident, and a penalty would then be determined.
In a proposed regulation that Vargas said was important to the new code, a record would then be kept of all infractions by students. Currently, such a policy is not required.
The new standards would leave the professor the option of deciding the student’s standing in the class. The offending student, then, would effectively be subject to two penalties: one determined by OSSCR, and the other determined by his/her professor.
Fischer, who has been SGA’s administrative link to accomplishing the implementation of the new code that they say the “students want,” said that he is “making progress” with the committee that he chairs in terms of showing the need for a new code to the university.
“We’re in the final stages of being able to conduct a university-wide survey to show the campus’ opinion for a new [honor] code,” he said.
Fischer’s committee, which was organized by the Provost’s office to officially gauge the need and desire for a uniform honor code on campus, plans to conduct the survey “in the near future.”
While SGA officials, including President Richard Schwabacher, feel that the work done in association with the honor code legislation is adequate to show the need for a university-wide honor code, SGA continues to support Fischer and his committee’s work
Fischer, who is also the director of OSSCR and has been published on the need for uniform honor codes, said that the new honor code is important due to its campus-wide uniformity.
“It’s what the students want,” he said of the policy.
