Intellectual Maturity
First off, I would like to welcome you, the class of 2010, to Middlebury. I hope that your orientation has been going well and that you are excited for the beginning of the fall semester. I was asked to speak to you today about the Honor Code, and in thinking about what I wanted to say for this speech, I asked a number of students what they thought college was all about; why were they here and what was Middlebury’s purpose for them? I got answers ranging everywhere from “to party!” to “to learn how to make money” to “to learn how to learn”. The most common and frequent answer I received, though, was a variant on the theme, “to get to know myself” or to “learn about what interests me”. No matter my own personal opinions about both why I decided to matriculate to Middlebury and all that I have gained from the community, thus far, I think that almost every student here understands that part of the purpose of college is to develop oneself personally and intellectually.
It is probably about right now that you’re asking yourselves what self-development, as one of college’s purposes, has to do with the honor code, as that is what the focus of this gathering is. The message that I would like to convey to you is that the purpose of the honor code here at Middlebury, among other things, is to facilitate students’, your, personal development.
Starting today, and especially on Monday when classes begin, you are going to be continually academically challenged for the next four years. Some courses you take will be extremely difficult while others will be a little less difficult. With each course, class discussion, paper assignment or exam, you will be asked to first, learn about a new topic, and then to interpret these new ideas and make them part of your own knowledge base. In this way, with the passing of each semester, you will have intellectually matured and progressed. Fortunately or unfortunately, this process is not always easy, and it does not always receive the attention and time it deserves. Middlebury and Vermont have a lot to offer: theater productions, sports games, unlimited outdoor activities and much more. All of us here at Middlebury-faculty, staff and students-often find ourselves wishing we had more time. This desire for more time, though, is not a justification for downloading a paper off the Internet, or copying your neighbor’s answers while in an exam.
However, I’m not here to tell you what you should or should not do; rather, I would like to further convince you of why you should respect and follow the Honor Code. This tradition of Honor Code Speeches has been around for quite some time, and the person who gave the speech to my incoming class, 3 years ago, was Aliza Hapgood Watters. In her speech, she talked about a trend in college students and young professionals of our generation in which they claim that they can bend the rules now in order to gain power and be successful in the future. Aliza provided us with research, published in the New York Times, which showed that these study participants did know right from wrong; they claimed that once they were successful, they would start acting with integrity and adhere to their own proper moral beliefs.
As I listened to her speech, I had a question: if people aren’t strong enough or proud enough of themselves to act with integrity and take responsibility for their actions at the get go, what makes them so sure that they will be able to once they’re successful? When does the “bending”, as they said, but really breaking, of the rules stop? Once a person gets an A on a paper? Once the person has made his/her first thousand? Or maybe once they are caught?
I care deeply about academic integrity and honesty. I have taken classes at schools where teachers make you empty your pockets before a test and follow you to the bathroom during an exam. Middlebury is a special place; however, its uniqueness rests on the fact that students don’t bend the rules. In comparison to other schools that I’ve attended, the professors here work with you in the classroom rather than police you.
The honor code at Middlebury is about intellectual integrity but its concepts apply to all parts of life. Just like Aliza pointed out in her speech to my class three years ago, if one can’t act responsibly now, from this day forward, it is unreasonable to assume that he/she can instantaneously gain this skill later on. On top of all the negative outcomes of cheating, plagiarizing, and social misconduct, such as disrespecting your peers, your professors, and the college’s staff, you also disrespect yourself. In acting this way, you have made a blaringly obvious statement to the entire community that you do not care enough about them, your school, your family, friends and least of all your own person, to take responsibility and be true to yourself.
Worst of all, although goals like “learning to make money”, “learning to learn” and even “partying” might be accomplished by not adhering to the Honor Code, “personal development” and “learning about oneself” never can be. It is impossible to learn about who you really are or what really interests you if you do not challenge yourself to do all of your own problem sets, write all of your own papers and take all of your own tests. Your high school experiences were not that long ago, the anxiety of junior year and the terribleness of senior fall are recent history; you worked so hard to get here, make the most of the next four years and get the most out of Middlebury that you personally can. When you sign the Honor Code today, understand that you are making a promise not only to rest of the community, but also to yourself that the person you are now and will become here at Middlebury is someone that all can and should be proud of. Have fun and good luck.