Honor is Worth the Effort
Good Afternoon, class of 2008.
I was in your place only three years ago, and although it seems like yesterday, I realize that I've changed a lot. Fortunately, aside from being a few pounds heavier and many thousands of dollars poorer, there's not much I'd do differently. Even though I don't yet have an answer to that one annoying question all seniors hate - "So, what are you doing next year?" - I have friends I'd do anything for, the knowledge I've gained with the help of amazing professors, and memories of what I know have been the best years of my life. I also have a real and intense appreciation for one of the most special and serious aspects of life at Middlebury. It is important enough to merit speeches, ceremonies, long discussions behind closed doors, and most importantly, your respect for the next four years. Honor - it's defined first in Webster's Dictionary as "good name or public esteem", but I want to discuss today a further, probably often missed pair of definitions, which are "a keen sense of ethical conduct, integrity" and "one's word given as a guarantee of performance."
The truth is, anyone can give their word as a guarantee of performance, and you will all be asked to do so in a couple of minutes and again every time you take a test or write a paper, presenting an argument as your own. But it means nothing without that gnawing, ever-present, sometimes inconvenient, and occasionally unpopular "sense of ethical conduct." I'm confident in saying that regardless of how you use it, every one of you has this sense - an acute awareness, both instinctive and instilled, of what is right and wrong. The point of the honor code is for you to take this sense and make it a living, breathing thing, by applying it to the general values Middlebury espouses: respect for others and for their physical and intellectual property. While some may argue, and perhaps accurately, that right and wrong comes in gradations, and that the line between what's acceptable and what's not is hazy and mutable, I for the most part disagree. Perhaps I have too much faith in Middlebury students, but I don't think anyone here can honestly tell themselves that cheating is OK, even once, or only because you were so desperate you had no other choice. Because there's always another choice - the right one - which is to take responsibility for your actions - whether you slept through one alarm or every alarm the whole semester. In other words, aided by that keen sense of ethical conduct that we all have, like it or not, there's no excuse not to put real effort into every piece of academic work you do, and take the grade you deserve if you don't.
As cliché as it sounds, only you can make the honor code work - and it's not by quietly assuring yourself that no matter what everyone else does, your own following of the rules is sufficient. You make honor itself mean something by refusing to sit in your room righteously stewing over the fact that you got a B on that take home test while the kid down the hall who cheated got an A. Voice your anger - for the maxim, as Sir Thomas Moore reminds us in Bolt's A Man For All Seasons, is "Qui tacet consentiret" - "Silence gives consent." Expect and demand that each and every one of your classmates and friends respects the code the same way you do. Don't forget it on your tests. Don't let your professors accept a paper without it. Don't allow your word and your guarantee to lose its significance. I believe that if everyone here takes a step back, pauses during that first unproctored mid-term, looks around and says to themselves, "this is worth it," we'll continue to strengthen our honor system, not let it weaken.
I spent last year abroad, and take my word for it - while studying at a school that doesn't even bother with the pretense of trusting its students, I looked back at Middlebury with a sense of both longing and amazement. After having a glaring exam proctor follow me to the bathroom and stand outside to make sure I wasn't somehow cheating using a cell phone or notes tucked into my underwear, I will never again take for granted an unproctored exam and the fact that my teachers believe that simple statement I sign on the last page. And I sure don't want you to either. That's why it's important for you to think, just for a minute, before you sign your name today, about what is it that you're doing. This ceremony is a relatively new tradition, but that doesn't make it any less important than other ones, and in asking you to take it seriously, to vocally and proactively support the honor code here, I'm asking you to change Middlebury for the better.
You are an incredible group of leaders, scholars, athletes, musicians, writers, outdoorsmen and women, and many other things, and you all did something to get here. You have never been coasters, followers, or free-riders, and Middlebury won't allow you to become any of those things. You will be made to work hard by your teachers, party hard by your friends, and I ask that you think hard about the honor code, if only because when you don't, you endanger it. So good luck, take my words to heart, and remember to sign your name for the next four years with the same pride and excitement that you are right now, so that you never take for granted all the honor code can do for you and that you can do for it.