DAVIDSON, N.C., Dec. 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- First-year students at Davidson College this week face the nerve-wracking inevitability of their first-ever college exams. But their anxiety is tempered by a unique benefit of the college's Honor Code, which they all publicly signed in a ceremony during Orientation last August.
Davidson's Honor Code permits students some control over exams by allowing them to tackle whatever exam they want during any of the eleven exam periods between December 9 and December 15 - without a proctor in the room.
 Initiated in 1971, the benefits of Davidson's system of self-scheduled exams give 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 to the faculty supporting continuation of the system. He wrote, "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 system allows students more time to prepare for exams in the subjects they find most difficult, and also gives "eager beavers" the option of finishing exams quickly to get a jump on the holiday vacation.
Self-scheduled exams are administered by the registrar's office, and staffed by student members of the Student Government Association and Honor Council. Students purchase a thirty-cent exam envelope 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 each of their professors. Professors insert the appropriate exam in each envelope, alphabetize the envelopes by student name, and turn all their envelopes in to the registrar's office before the first exam day. The registrar's office organizes envelopes by professor in a central location in Chambers Building, the college's main administration and classroom building.
There are two three-hour exam periods per day, beginning at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. Students who choose to take an exam report to the registrar's desk at the beginning of the period and ask for the envelope from a given professor with their name on it. They may then take that exam in any of about thirty classrooms in the building, and return it to the exam center staff by the end of the exam period.
Instructions are printed on the front of each exam envelope. The forty members of the Honor Council 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 distribution and handling is guaranteed through receipts. Students sign a receipt when they pick up an exam, and receive a receipt when they turn in their envelopes to confirm those actions. When professors pick up their exams from the registrar, they also sign a receipt confirming that the exam is in their hands. "From the time the professor puts the exam in the envelope, we know where it is," explained Hansford Epes, college registrar.
There are no professors or monitors in the classrooms where exams are taken. Students may leave the room and wander the building as they wish, but are on their honor at all times not to cheat. Epes pointed out that the system also helps prevent cheating because students are taking different exams in the same room, and glancing at another student's paper would offer no help in most cases.
Students are also honor-bound to not say anything about exams at all to other students - not even mentioning whether it was hard or easy - until the conclusion of the entire exam period.
Epes concluded, "The fact that students have the ability to design their own schedule relieves some of the pressure. They feel like they have some control over a system in which many perceive they have no power. It's a piece of it they can control."
Davidson's Honor Code 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."
The college's Honor Council adjudicates an average of about a dozen Honor Code cases each year, mostly concerning accusations of plagiarism.
- - - -
CONTACT: Bill Giduz, Davidson College Media Relations, 704-894-2244, cell 704-609-1077, home 704-892-1296, bigiduz@davidson.edu
ABOUT THE COLLEGE: Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for 1,700 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. |
