Harvard Seeks Feedback on Honor Code Proposal

The Committee on Academic Integrity is soliciting feedback from undergraduates, faculty, and teaching fellows on a proposal to establish Harvard’s first-ever honor code.

In an email sent to the student body on Friday morning, Dean of Undergraduate Education Jay M. Harris wrote that students are invited to “post [their] thoughts on the committee’s recommendations” on an online discussion board.

The product of two and a half years of discussions, the proposed five-point “modified” honor code would establish a Student/Faculty Judicial Board populated by students and faculty to hear exclusively cases of academic dishonesty. Among other points, it also calls for students to write a “declaration of integrity” on major assignments and exams. Harris presented the Committee’s preliminary report at a faculty meeting earlier this month.

The College has looked to students for their opinions and ideas on academic integrity issues before. In 2011, the Office of Undergraduate Education opened up an assessment on academic integrity to students, but it received too few responses to provide enough data to be useful for administrators. Only about 27 percent of students participated in that survey.

The survey comes in the midst of discussions within Houses about the potential honor code and academic integrity more broadly.

—Staff writer Madeline R. Conway can be reached at mconway@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter @MadelineRConway.