Honor Council: Integrating integrity
Issue date: 2/4/10 Section: Columns
If you found a twenty dollar bill on the ground outside of the Student Union building, would you take it to the front desk in case someone came to ask for it? What if it was a one-hundred dollar bill? Or, what if the money was wrapped around a fellow student's ID card? Would you give the card and the money back?
Have you ever downloaded music from a friend's CD onto your computer? Have you done so even if the CD specifically mentions that the work contained within is copyrighted and should not be shared in any manner? Have you ever downloaded a movie from the web, one that also carried restrictions against such actions?
Questions such as these speak to our understanding of honor and integrity. We can offer our reactions to the hypothetical situations and begin to weigh how we feel about our responsibility to ourselves and others. Certainly for some people there will be clear-cut answers to all the situations above, while others might claim shades of grey.
At Wittenberg, and at schools in general, such questions of honor often revolve around academics. It's not quite a question of someone finding a paper outside of a dorm and turning it in, but there are questions about what does and does not belong to us and about how we use such material in course work.
Do you ask a roommate about a single math problem, even if the course syllabus requests that all work turned in be your own? If you have a paper written for one class that also satisfies the assignment for another course, do you turn in the paper for both classes?
When questions such as these arise, when students and faculty have concerns about academic integrity, the Wittenberg Honor Council attempts to answer them. The Honor Council hears all cases of academic misconduct, and it attempts to inform students and faculty about their responsibilities while in an academic environment.
In the coming months, the Honor Council wants to use this space in The Torch to help inform the Wittenberg community about matters of academic integrity. We want to pose some questions and offer some answers. We want you to consider what is important about academic integrity, and we want you to be aware of how the Honor Council can work with you as you do.
Please visit our web site-www4.wittenberg.edu/academics/academicintegrity/index.html-for more information, and watch for future editions of this column.
Wittenberg Honor Council
Have you ever downloaded music from a friend's CD onto your computer? Have you done so even if the CD specifically mentions that the work contained within is copyrighted and should not be shared in any manner? Have you ever downloaded a movie from the web, one that also carried restrictions against such actions?
Questions such as these speak to our understanding of honor and integrity. We can offer our reactions to the hypothetical situations and begin to weigh how we feel about our responsibility to ourselves and others. Certainly for some people there will be clear-cut answers to all the situations above, while others might claim shades of grey.
At Wittenberg, and at schools in general, such questions of honor often revolve around academics. It's not quite a question of someone finding a paper outside of a dorm and turning it in, but there are questions about what does and does not belong to us and about how we use such material in course work.
Do you ask a roommate about a single math problem, even if the course syllabus requests that all work turned in be your own? If you have a paper written for one class that also satisfies the assignment for another course, do you turn in the paper for both classes?
When questions such as these arise, when students and faculty have concerns about academic integrity, the Wittenberg Honor Council attempts to answer them. The Honor Council hears all cases of academic misconduct, and it attempts to inform students and faculty about their responsibilities while in an academic environment.
In the coming months, the Honor Council wants to use this space in The Torch to help inform the Wittenberg community about matters of academic integrity. We want to pose some questions and offer some answers. We want you to consider what is important about academic integrity, and we want you to be aware of how the Honor Council can work with you as you do.
Please visit our web site-www4.wittenberg.edu/academics/academicintegrity/index.html-for more information, and watch for future editions of this column.
Wittenberg Honor Council
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