New honor code exam set

By Jaclyn Youngblood     8/27/09 7:00pm

As part of Orientation Week, each new student who matriculates at Rice must take an exam proving their understanding of the Honor Code. This year's exam, like many other aspects of O-Week, was different than in years past.Last year, the Honor Code exam was given on OWL-Space before registration on Friday, Honor Council chair Lindsay Kirton said. Students were allowed to take the exam as many times as necessary until they passed, with a score of 70 or higher, and scores were reported immediately. Once a student passed the exam, the judicial hold on his or her ESTHER account was removed, Kirton, a Wiess College junior, said.

But this year, students could only take the exam once on ESTHER after registration on Friday instead of taking the exam multiple times on OWL-Space.

"OWL-Space is one system removed from the judicial hold process, so we wanted to streamline the process," Kirton said.

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However, she said the exam was open-notes with no time limit, so students were free to check the Honor Council Web site.

Of the 946 new students required to take the Honor Code exam, 18 failed and 11 did not take the exam. Those 29 students will be required to attend a mandatory re-orientation tomorrow morning, Honor Council external vice-chair Erin Waller said.

Those students who failed the the exam last Friday were notified via e-mail and a judicial hold was placed on their ESTHER accounts. Until this hold is removed by virtue of passing the exam, those students cannot add or drop classes, Waller, a Wiess senior, said. Immediately after the re-orientation those students will retake the exam.

The changes began in the spring with Honor Council chair Jackie Ammons, and continued with Assistant Director of Student Judicial Programs Rebecca Wrynn. Wrynn said there has been a progression of slight changes to the honor code exam over the last three years. In 2006, students took a paper-and-pencil exam; last year the exam was hosted on OWL-Space; this year, it was hosted on ESTHER.

Waller said the idea behind changing the procedure was to encourage new students to spend enough time familiarizing themselves with the Honor Code so that by the first day of classes they would know what was expected of them in the Rice academic community.

"We really see this as, just like the rest of O-Week, preparation for starting the school year and being ready to enter college academic life," she said.

Tatiana Fofanova, a transfer student from the University of Colorado at Boulder, said she found the Honor Code orientation helpful, and the exam not overly challenging. She said she appreciates what the honor code does for Rice students.

"At my old school, we never had take-home exams," Fofanova, a Martel College sophomore, said. "No one trusted us that much, ... especially to time our own exams."

The new procedure is not meant to be a punishment, Waller said. She said she views the re-orientation as a two-way street between herself and the freshmen.

"They have to get up at 8 a.m. [if they failed] and I have to get up at 8 a.m. because I failed to orient those freshmen," she said.

Kirton said the benefits of the new changes outweigh the alternative.

"Having to wake up at 8 a.m. and go to a Saturday re-orientation is way better than having to go to an Honor Council hearing later on down the road," she said.

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