So, I’m in Honor Council. What in the world does that mean? And why does it matter to you?

Let’s tackle these questions one at a time. What is Honor Council? Well, the Stetson website will tell you that its goal is to “educate the campus community regarding issues of academic integrity and to serve as a peer hearing board in cases of alleged academic dishonesty.” This is a lot. Other students might tell you that it’s mysterious, but that it deals with plagiarism, maybe?  They had those “Face of the Honor Council” posters hanging everywhere a year or two back. There is a little more to it all than that, but it’s a good start.

The Stetson Honor Council is a group of students responsible for the handling of undergraduate student violations of the Stetson Honor Code and Honor Pledge. We all signed the pledge when we got here, trust me, it’s right here: http://www.stetson.edu/other/honor-system/media/honor-pledge.pdf

Okay, but why is this important? Why should we uphold honor, and what does it even mean to be honorable?

It might seem silly, but when someone cheats, plagiarizes, collaborates on independent assignments, or what have you, they really are devaluing the $200,000 degree you’re working so hard for here at Stetson University. They’re bypassing the hard work it takes to be an incredible student and their A, although achieved through shady means, remains an A unless something is done about it. I can safely assume that everyone has witnessed someone else cheating. I can also safely assume that most people didn’t do much about it. This is okay, I’m not mad. I’ve done it too. I was shy in high school and I’m no natural-born tattle-tale. However, through the process of applying for and joining Honor Council I realized that even though I wasn’t the one cheating, I was still allowing the cheating to happen and was complicit in someone else’s academic crime.

This feeds right into being an honorable student–what’s that? (Definitely not me in high school.)

Honorable students don’t cheat, don’t plagiarize, but they also don’t let others do those things! It’s really easy to do nothing, but it’s also incredibly important not to. Stepping up and letting a professor or the Honor Council itself know that a classmate or peer is achieving their outstanding grades in not-so-outstanding ways is not only the right thing to do, it is really brave and incredibly difficult–ie. honorable.

TLDR; you are paying so much money for this degree. Make it count, make it worth it, and speak up when others are trying to escape the hardships of being a student at the ivy of the south. It isn’t only for the vaguely menacing student Honor Council; it’s for yourself.