DukeEthicist: the success of standards

What is the true purpose of a community standard, and how can we measure its success on campus?

The community standard is an honor code. It consists of three points that in essence mean, ‘I will be honorable in my actions and thoughts’. We signed the community standard at freshman convocation, as a sign of admission into the Duke community, and we sign it before every test, as a reminder of our initial pledge of honor. Its purpose is multifold: It is a community standard, something that binds a group of people together under its willingness to embody the community standard in their everyday lives. It is also a community standard, a set of guidelines that helps define the environment of respect and integrity the community should maintain. Simply put, the purpose of the community standard is to create an honorable community within Duke University that upholds a high standard of academic honesty and respect towards each other.

While the purpose of the community standard is noble, how can we verify its effectiveness at creating this “honorable community”? There have been attempts at quantifying changes in cheating incidents, but academic dishonesty is not the only part of what the community standard addresses, nor are all instances of academic dishonesty reported. Honestly, it is difficult to quantitatively measure the success of the community standard. But perhaps, instead of aiming for a school-wide measure of effectiveness, we should focus on the impact of the community standard on each individual, since the actions of each individual are what add up to reflect the actions of the Duke community as a whole. If each person can keep the promise he or she has made to the Duke community, then the community standard will have done its job.

The Duke Ethicist is a project of the Honor Council which responds to ethical questions posed by the Duke community. Our purpose is to provide a medium through which students may anonymously seek advice or spark dialogue. Got a question? Send it to dukeethicist@gmail.com, and look out for a response on our blog.