COLUMN: Council sets penalties for honor violations

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by Lauren Kern

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* Repeat or Heinous Violations: F in course and indefinite suspension;

* Violations on any assignments worth more than 15 percent of course grade: F in course and two semester suspension;

* Violations on assignments worth less than 15 percent of course grade and consisting of collaborative work: F in course and 1 semester suspension;

* Violations on assignments worth less than 15 percent of course grade and consisting of non-collaborative work: F in course.

Heinous violations are rare cases that may include but are not limited to the following examples: stealing a test, breaking into an office or computer system with the intention of changing grades or obtaining information or participating in a large-scale conspiracy.

Collaborative assignments permit outside assistance. Non-collaborative assignments include tests and other work in which outside assistance is not allowed. For the purposes of penalties, single-author papers will be considered non-collaborative.

The council will give no penalty more severe than these pre-determined consensus penalties for any particular case.

We may, however, lower penalties on a case-by-case basis due to mitigating circumstances.

We cannot anticipate all mitigating circumstances we will consider, but they may include unintentionality, emotional trauma leading to the violation and self-accusations made in good faith.

The council will not consider the following conditions to be mitigating factors: academic stress, freshman status, remorse, rehabilitation, the possible effects of the penalty on the violator and ignorance. If no mitigating circumstances exist, the consensus penalty will not be lowered.

The council recognizes that not all violations or assignments will fit into our Consensus Penalty Structure.

Therefore, we have approved a "severity of violation" clause that allows us to work outside the structure in these cases while still trying to maintain consistency in our decisions.

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the September 22, 1995 issue.

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