Collegiate Times

Despite recent accusations of inefficiency and stagnation, the Virginia Tech Honor System stands by its strong history and constant efforts to improve. The resignation of its chief justice and multiple associate justices took remaining faculty review board members and student justices by surprise, as constant betterment of the Virginia Tech system has always been a priority of the Honor court, said Ron Daniel, associate provost.

“We are committed to whatever it takes to support the honor system,” Daniel said. “Everything we’ve done this year is in good faith, trying to address the issues brought to our attention.”

Frustrations arose chiefly around the perceived inability of the Honor System to educate students and instead punish those that made mistakes. Former justices also questioned the ability of the Honor System to efficiently complete appeals, denying graduating seniors their diplomas because of unfinished justice hearings.

According to the registrar’s office, of the 3,560 2006 graduates, there were nine students that had honor system holds.

“I just disagree with many of the accusations because it’s just not factual or it’s an exaggeration,” Daniel said. “When you have an honor system hold before graduation, you can walk, but until you do the service hours that go with the sanction, you do not receive the actual degree.”

Many of the accusations stem from a performance review conducted in 1999 in which the former justices felt the measures recommended were glazed over. These concerns focused on Honor System education as well as budgetary compensation for the justice’s time. Associate Provost Daniel assured that this year’s review was postponed in order to address continuing concerns from the previous review.

“These internal reviews are typically on five-year cycles. We had intended to run a review this year but did not because of issues that were brought up at the beginning of this year. There were accusations that we didn’t take the previous review serious and that’s just not the case. If there are things we know need to be done then we are going to do them,” Daniel said.

The Honor System and the provost’s office hope to resume the postponed review as soon as possible and while the intention was to begin the new review in the coming fall, it will now be scheduled to begin this spring.

Continuing education and making sure that all students are aware of the ramifications of their actions continues to be a priority. Freshmen, as well as international students carry the most risk and demand the most attention to educate them on honor code violations. The resigned justices brought concerns about the ongoing efforts to reach out to these groups of students and current Chief Justice Amanda Beringer echoes their goals.

“I talked to the provost and we are working on something for orientation,” Beringer said. “We are also going to try to branch out to as many area high schools and community colleges as we can. In regards to international students they have their own orientation and Cranwell gives them their own view of the honor system, but we are really pushing to get into that orientation and go more in depth.”

Gary Brown, a faculty member of the honor system and professor of electrical engineering has been with the Honor System and observed the changes over the years.

“What I saw was a reference by the resigned justices to previous problems, but we’ve overcome those or dealt with them and we are moving on. The students felt the system wasn’t being run the way they thought it should be run, and no where in the process do we feel that we have gone against the constitutional procedures. What are we left to do but move on,” Brown said.

Currently there are 164 total cases awaiting review and while Daniel agrees this is a greater number than they would like, the numbers decrease quicker than one might think. This number does not reflect 164 individual students but merely 164 cases. Individual students can be charged multiple times. While this is not an official number, close to 19 cases were finalized as of yesterday.

“We are still processing cases and moving forward. We are not fretting over allegations that the system is broken,” Beringer said.

Many of the resigned justices have expressed interest in continuing to pursue and make their ideas about the betterment of the Honor System heard.