The Committee on Standards yesterday released its Annual Report to the Community, which revealed that the number of academic violations decreased from 17 to 14 since the 1993-1994 academic year.
Dean of the College Lee Pelton said he feels "the number of academic violations has not really changed from year to year," and that the decrease observed this year is part of the normal fluctuation in total violations.
But two of the students who violated the Academic Honor Principle were separated from the College -- a penalty that has not been assessed for the past eight years. The COS also reported on the measures it has taken to reduce the number of academic violations in the future.
One of the students Dartmouth dismissed purposely changed exam answers before submitting them to be regraded. The other student broke into a professor's office and corrected answers on a final exam paper.
The report also states "there was an increase this year in the number of students involved in disciplinary action with concurrent legal cases pending outside of the College. These cases with concurrent legal action pending involve a wide variety of behaviors ranging from driving under the influence of alcohol to simple assault to theft and drug possession."
Another issue addressed by the report was the decision made by the COS to increase the average sanction for "typical" Academic Honor Principle violations from three to four terms.
"For those kinds of behavior, a calendar year away from the College will allow students to come to terms with their own behavior," Pelton said.
"President Freedman and I just believed that students that are away from the College for a full academic year will have more time for them to regain their confidence and to demonstrate the necessary readiness to return," Pelton continued.
The COS also decided to require English 5 and Freshman Seminar professors to cover proper citation of sources in their classes.
Pelton said the COS currently requests professors of those courses to put citation guidelines on course syllabus.
"My suspicions are that fewer students have an understanding of citation of sources than we think they do," he said. "We need to redouble our efforts on this so that students understand that this is important."
Pelton said he hopes this effort in addition to the increased academic violation sanctions will minimize the number of Academic Honor Principle violations that occur each year.
The report also addressed the relatively new method of choosing faculty members to serve on the COS.
The method is a lottery whereby faculty members can serve on the COS for only two academic terms at a time. After that time period, the faculty members are removed from the lottery for five years.
Pelton said the system, which has been in place for one year, has both advantages and disadvantages.
"It does ease the burden on individual faculty, and more faculty are able to participate in the process," Pelton said.
But Pelton said he is worried faculty members will not have as much experience with cases brought before the COS as they did before the new system went into effect.
"The individual faculty do not serve for long periods of time, and thus their understanding diminishes somewhat," he said.
Both Pelton and Undergraduate Judicial Affairs Officer Marcia Kelly will monitor the system in a continued effort to measure its success.
"We'll get a sense of whether that disadvantage outweighs the other advantages," Pelton said.
