A Call for Honesty

On August 30, 2012, news broke that propelled Harvard students into the national spotlight, but not to reaffirm their oft-touted position as the world’s best and brightest. Instead, about 125 students—nearly two percent of the student body—faced accusations of inappropriate collaboration and plagiarism on a final take-home exam for Government 1310: “Introduction to Congress.”

In the words of Dean of Undergraduate Education Jay M. Harris, the “Introduction to Congress” debacle was a scandal “unprecedented in anyone’s living memory.” But Harvard continued to face unfamiliar territory as the initial story evolved throughout the year: In March, the Boston Globe reported that Harvard administrators secretly searched the resident deans’ email accounts in conjunction with the scandal. In April, Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds revealed that she had called for a second round of secret email searches without the approval of Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith, in clear violation of University policy. To make matters worse, this development directly contradicted an earlier statement by Hammonds and Smith in which they had assured the Harvard community that no further searches had been conducted.

On the heels of that disheartening news, we called for Hammonds to step down, so that we could begin to repair the deficit of trust between administration, faculty, and students that had deepened during the email search debacle. Tuesday, May 28, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith announced in an email that Hammonds will resign her post as Dean of Harvard College on July 1.

We are pleased to see that Hammonds is vacating her position, and we hope that this move will aid the Harvard community in beginning the process of reestablishing trust among students, faculty, and administrators. However, we must recognize that Hammonds’ departure alone cannot cure the ills that triggered this chain of events in the first place. The shameful saga that began with the cheating scandal, intensified with the email searches, and now draws to a close with Hammonds’ exit is symptomatic of more endemic problems at Harvard.  First, administrators, professors, and students at the College face a mutual deficit of trust and communication. Second, students study in a stressful and competitive academic environment where they are subject to pre-professional pressures that often push them to learn not for learning’s sake, but instead to gain an edge in a brutally competitive job market.

Hammonds’ actions—ordering searches that only occur in “rare instances” and then “fail[ing] to recollect” a round of those searches that blatantly circumvented University policy—undermined values essential to any institution of higher learning. We understand that Hammonds acted with the ultimate goal of preserving the integrity and confidentiality of the Administrative Board. But, as we have opined before, her failure to seek the necessary approval of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, combined with her decision not to inform both search subjects and the Harvard community as whole of the details and extent of the email searches makes it difficult for students and faculty alike to have faith in their administrators.

The lack of trust that many at Harvard inevitably feel in the wake of the email searches, however, will not simply disappear as Hammonds departs University Hall. Harvard College has made it its mission “to identify and remove restraints on students’ full participation, so that individuals may… develop their full intellectual and human potential.” A fraught relationship with the administration constitutes such a restraint, and could prove a serious challenge for Harvard in the near future. Students as well as faculty here must feel confident that the administration will obey its own policy and be forthright with information about issues as sensitive as email searches, or more distractions will continue to draw attention away from the top-notch education, groundbreaking research, and overall excellence that defines us.

Not only must the administration strive toward more transparency in the future, but faculty must also ensure clarity in their interactions with students, especially when it comes to collaboration guidelines. The cheating scandal likely would not have involved so great a percentage of the Government 1310 class if the course had not had a history of collaboration on exams. This does not excuse the behavior of the students, who flagrantly disobeyed written instructions, but it is nevertheless important to understand that certain environments are more conducive to good behavior than others. Faculty must work to maintain consistent, explicit standards for collaboration, while continuing to foster a healthy teacher-student dynamic founded on trust and communication.

But the onus also lies with students to maintain academic integrity. After all, if Government 1310 enrollees had not breached the course’s collaboration guidelines, Hammonds would have had no cause to conduct even one round of email searches. As Harvard enters a new academic year, seeking to leave the cheating scandal behind, members of the student body—ourselves included—would do well to reassess their priorities and renew their commitment to academic integrity.

A Crimson magazine story on “The Fall of Academics at Harvard” identified a troubling trend among many professors who, according to Nicolaus Mills ’60, a literature professor at Sarah Lawrence College, display “an increasing loyalty to career interests and entrepreneurial interests, and decreasing loyalty to students.” Perhaps even more worrisome is the tendency of students to show a parallel devotion to pursuits that they perceive could advance their prospective careers over academics. Pre-professional pressures abound in extracurricular activities—including our own—which require a substantial time commitment that cuts into the hours students would otherwise reserve for classwork.

This focus on the professional over the academic does encourage students to work hard, and it may prepare them for life after Harvard.  But, at the same time, busy students with a singular focus on obtaining the most competitive internships and getting into the most exclusive grad schools are more likely to take an at-all-costs approach to maintaining their GPA than those who learn for its own sake. These high-pressure students might, in moments of undue stress, resort to the very academic shortcuts that can eventually build up to something as explosive as Government 1310 scandal. Perhaps we students ought to reevaluate our priorities to include a deeper appreciation for learning as an end unto itself. Paying more attention to academics would contribute to a better classroom environment, while reducing the pressure to cut academic corners. In the end, students should come to college to learn, not just to snag a position at the best consulting firm or most exclusive law school.

This year-long drama has demonstrated the importance of taking responsibility for one’s actions. The entire Harvard community must move forward with a renewed commitment to honesty, so that we may be worthy of the trust we are working to rebuild. This has been a troubled year for Harvard. We hope that, with increased communication from the administration, clarity from faculty, and cooperation between these and students, next year will hold real promise.