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DAVIDSON, N.C., Dec. 11 (AScribe Newswire) -- The honor code at Davidson College eases the traditional collegiate gloom of final exams before the holidays. This time-honored community standard gives students the freedom to schedule their own exams and take them in any classroom of the college's main academic building - unproctored.
"This is the time of year when the honor code's benefit is most apparent," said Jamie McNab, a senior who chairs the Honor Council. "Scheduling our own exams relieves some of the pressure, and gives us a little control over a high-anxiety process."
There are many approaches to preparing for exams, and the system at Davidson allows students to arrange their schedules to make the best of their personal style. Some get the most challenging test out of the way first; others get the easy ones done and give as much time as possible to the hardest exam.
Toward the end of the semester, students purchase exam envelopes at the college bookstore for each course in which they will have an exam. They write their names on the envelopes and turn them in to their professors, who insert an exam and send the envelopes to the registrar's office before the examination period begins. Students are then free to tackle whatever test they want during any of the two daily exam periods between December 12 and December 18.
The exam periods run from 9 a.m. to noon and 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. each day. Students report to the exam center any time during those hours and ask for the proper envelope. They may take their exam in any of about thirty classrooms in the building, returning it to the staff by the end of the exam period. Students may leave the classrooms and wander as they wish, but must not bring books into the building, and are on their honor at all times not to cheat. They are also honor bound not to say anything about their exams at all-not even mentioning whether it was hard or easy-until the conclusion of the entire exam period.
The system is overseen by personnel from the registrar's office, but volunteer student members of the Student Government Association and Honor Council actually hand out exams as students request them. The forty members of the Honor Council also support the system by visiting halls of first-year students in the week before fall semester exams to explain the system and answer questions.
Assurance of proper exam envelope distribution is guaranteed through a system of receipts that tracks each envelope through its handling by students, administrative office, and professor. "From the time the professor puts the exam in the envelope until they pick it up to grade it, we know where it is," explained Hansford Epes, college registrar.
McNab and many other students develop exam routines that fit their lifestyles and learning styles, giving them the best opportunity to do well. McNab begins with the exam he feels will be hardest, and saves the one he feels will be easiest for last. As a "morning person," he takes exams during the first period of the day. He also always goes to a certain brightly window-lit first floor classroom that has tables that accommodate his left-handedness better than individual desks.
Junior Trey Akers said he likes to take exams in the room in which the class was taught. "That helps me picture a specific lectures that may help with my answers," he said. "I think that psychological connection definitely helps me."
Initiated in 1971, the benefits of self-scheduled exams gives students a significant stake in making sure the Honor Code is maintained throughout the academic year. President Emeritus Samuel Spencer made that point strongly in a 1979 memo, writing, "Because it is a privilege that students prize and want to keep, the self-scheduled exam system injects an element of self-interest which reinforces student support of the Honor Code as a whole. ... they are an added incentive to reinforcement of the concept of a campus community based on honor."
The Honor Code, signed by every entering student, states that "Every student shall be honor bound to refrain from cheating (including plagiarism). Every student shall be honor bound to refrain from stealing ... from lying about official college business. ... Every student shall be honor bound to report immediately all violations of the Honor System which come under his or her observation. ..."
Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,600 students. Since its establishment in 1837, the college has graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently ranked in the top ten liberal arts colleges in the country by U.S. News and World Report magazine. Davidson is engaged in "Let Learning Be Cherished," a $250 million campaign in support of student financial assistance, academic resources, and community life.
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