Students realize the benefits of meeting these expectations. The trust the faculty and administrators have in them expands their freedom. The faculty trust students enough to permit self-scheduled, unproctored examinations. Should a professor suspect plagiarism or other cheating, the faculty member addresses his or her concerns directly to the student J-Board. Trust means our students participate in highly confidential meetings and on search committees, and advise department chairs on tenure decisions.
Students also experience expanded social freedom in their self-management of dormitories.
Students today write the same words of the Honor Pledge on their blue books as students from the '20s, '50s and '80s, but the Honor Code is under stress every year just as it was this year when a new group of students arrived and struggled to understand and then commit themselves to this experiment in contemporary living. The Honor Code is a critical distinguishing characteristic of this college. It does not suggest that this community is more perfect than others, but that our community engages the subject of personal honor among citizen-neighbors as a framework to define the relationship between individuals and others. The most powerful outcome of life under an Honor Code became clear to me last month when college trustee Anita DeFrantz '74 told about the value of her Connecticut College education to her adult life. DeFrantz wrestles with the often-diverse politics of Los Angeles and the international Olympic movement in her roles as head of the foundation set up by the 1984 Olympic Games in California and as U.S. representative to the International Olympic Committee.