"When I was fifteen, I couldn't believe how stupid my dad was. By the time I was twenty-five, I couldn't believe how much he had learned."
So, while older people eventually lose their grip on sense and sensibility, they just might have an inkling as to a few good ideas. Maybe. Also, when so many have a similar thought, the chance of the idea being good increases just a little.
But anyway, moving on from that crazy idea and onto another: changing the damn Honor Code. Yes, I'm extremely proud that it's been student run for years. Many have said to me that the system will never change, that things this profound never do. One, that's a classic fallacy. Two, I could name countless examples to counter, but I'll only employ a few here:
The University was President-less for nearly 100 years. The students took great pride in this fact about how wonderfully different they were and that they didn't want to change and be as boring as everyone else by actually having experienced adults handle the paperwork. I'm not sure when the epiphany hit, but clearly it must have, and so far the University has had seven Presidents.
The strong tradition at this school is both a blessing and a curse. In one hand, the richness and depth is beautiful; in the other, it's crippling. People would dying cling to the sinking ship of sameness than dare to seek difference and change. Change is not always bad. True, of late both UVa and the world have confused motion with progress, but let's not all fall into cynicism and sarcasm. UVa will not die from losing single sanction anymore than it did from gaining a president.
Now I return to the beginning point: are all older people mad lunatics out to undercut us, the damn frustrating, never understanding us bastards? Ummm, I'm thinking largely no. Actually, pretty much the only time the answer isn't no is when Murphy's Law bites, and a good intentioned plan falls terribly to Hell. I'm a loquacious type and so have often taken advantage of office hours as bullshit time. Honestly, no one wants to work anyways, so office hours often dissolve into chats about anything that allows for procrastination. The Honor Council has come up many a time, and every professor has without fail bashed it mercilessly. They would rather have cheating in their class than deal with the utter nonsense of a couple of drunk frat boys playing lawyer for a group of often bored, obnoxious jurors. Fair enough, not every Honor member is a fraternity/ sorority member, but the last thing I want to see is someone puking their brains out on Saturday and then trying someone else for an Honor offense on Monday. How about you explain this: why is having a fake I.D. a trivial offense, but lying about a 1 credit paper not? Either they both are, or they're both not. The former, I'll remind you, is a federal offense that (I forget the exact percentage, but it was over 50%) of UVa admits to having a fake I.D. They drink alcohol on the weekend, underaged, breaking federal laws and then go to trial and see themselves fit to judge other people. Please, the hypocrisy is killing me. I do not want someone hopped up on hormones deciding whether or not another person stays at the University.
Why are so many professors against this system? Well, a lot of it is that it's run by hypocrites. Another is that professors are given the run around. Even if they have a reasonable case, their case might be dismissed because the professor is unpopular, the kids are popular, or the case going through would look terrible on the University. If that wasn't enough, think about this: the point of college is to learn and to grow. Yes, everyone who comes here agrees not to lie, steal, cheat, etc. You as a student have very few absolute rules which you're asked not to break. But what if you (gasp!) aren't perfect, if you slip up. Should you lose everything here because of one bad call? Some would say yes. I try to shy from the "all heads roll" principle of the French Revolution and opt for a more mild approach. Make it two strikes normal with the option of single sanction maybe on call for a particularly heinous crime. Ha, this is starting to sound like a death penalty debate.
Many people have said that with the removal of single sanction, the amount of cheating will increase. I highly doubt that. The amount of reported cheating will increase, but people who aren't going to cheat anyways won't change into horrible monsters that cheat on every paper and lie at every chance, and people intending to cheat clearly aren't deterred by it, judging from the fact that the Court seems to process 1-3 cases a week. Others have said that the increased workload will grind the Court to a halt. Well basing solely on the time tables of how long it took to expel Jason Smith, the Court moves at a pace similar of the UN, and (to borrow a crude phrase of a friend) that's roughly the speed of a retarded snail.
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