Can We Talk?

EVERY EXAM PERIOD AT Harvard, the scene is repeated dozens of times: Student takes seat, proctor distributes exam and blue book, proctor paces to and fro, keeps time, escorts student to bathroom, collects test from student.

Now, imagine the scenario without the proctor.

You may never have thought about it, but exams sans supervision are the way it's done at dozens of schools nation-wide. At some colleges, students are responsible for watching over themselves and each other: Princeton undergraduates, for example, are obliged to snitch on classmates they see cheating. Codes of conduct at other schools cover the range of activities beyond academic honesty, mandating penalties for everything from check-bouncing to public insobriety.

Now, some people are wondering whether Harvard should establish an honor code.

This past summer, while most of us were thinking about anything other than school, a researcher compiled the results of a Harvard-initiated survey of conduct and honor codes at 100 schools across the country. The study was done at the request of Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences A. Michael Spence, who says only that his curiosity arose after several faculty members urged him to consider whether Harvard should have a code.

Should it? The question is one we hope will not be debated entirely behind the closed door meetings of Spence and his advisers. Students, whose lives stand to be affected profoundly by changes in academic and other rules, deserve the right to understand what Spence and other faculty are thinking. Is the number of discipline problems increasing? Has cheating gotten out of hand? Are the current rules too loose? Is the Ad Board having problems of enforcement?

There's a legitimate debate to be had. No matter what form a Harvard honor code might take, no matter how broad or narrow it might be, we wonder what concerns might have prompted Spence and others to explore the honor code issue. The first step should be for the dean to make public the lengthy report and survey results now sitting in his desk drawer. That would allow informed discussion to proceed, a process we expect would include at the least open hearings and a campus-wide referendum.

Some critics are irked by the mere suggestion of an honor code. Others believe it would give us the responsibility we deserve to fend for ourselves and guard against infractions that might sour our collective Harvard experience. In any case, whichever side you're on, there's something to be said for getting on with it. Let the debate begin.