Faculty Meeting 2/6: Honor Commission Proposes Proctoring, AI Policy Changes
Students walking on campus in the snow, Jan. 20, 2025. (Grace Jurchak/The Gettysburgian)
By Vincent DiFonzo, Editor-in-Chief
The Honor Commission presented two proposed changes to the honor code related to exam proctoring and artificial intelligence policy at the second faculty meeting of the semester.
President Bob Iuliano opened the meeting acknowledging the presence of members of the Board of Trustees, who are meeting on campus this weekend. Iuliano then spoke on the recent cancellation of a $500,000, six-year grant awarded to the College by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, calling the cancellation “disappointing and disquieting.”
The grant was designed to help the College create a more inclusive learning environment through giving faculty “the required tools and resources to support their students as teachers, scholars, and mentors, and to deeply imbed in our policies and practices the College’s core value of inclusion and belonging,” according to the College’s website.
“Just yesterday, the College received news that HHMI was canceling the grant effective immediately,” said Iuliano. “No reasons were given, but the recent executive orders undoubtedly played a role in that judgment.”
Iuliano said that the Johnson Center for Creative Teaching and Learning will “continue its work to help make sure we’re providing [the faculty] with the tools and the resources to create the most dynamic and effective learning environment for all our students.”
Next, Iuliano announced that the College has established an endowed professorship in the creative performance and historical study of the arts thanks to the donation of two alumni.
Iuliano then gave faculty shout-outs. History professor Jim Downs was recognized for an interview he gave on a podcast by the American Medical Association and for being quoted in a recent article by the New York Times.
Environmental studies professor Salma Monani was recognized for her monograph, “Indigenous Ecocinema,” which was recently published in her publishers blog. The last professor to be recognized was chair of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies Abdulkareem Said Ramadan, who won the 2024 Book Award from the American Association for Teachers of Arabic.
Next, Provost Jamila Bookwala took the podium, welcoming the new Center for Career Engagement Director Brita Doyle, who started at the College last month.
After discussing the Board of Trustees meeting set this weekend, Bookwala shared that the Italian studies department will be merged into the French department, which will be changing its name. The Italian major will be cut later this semester, while the existing minor in Italian will remain available.
Italian studies chair Alan Perry will retain his tenure position in the merged French and Italian department.
The meeting’s main agenda item was two proposals by the student-run Honor Commission to make two main changes to the honor code. To be approved, honor code changes must be approved by both a vote by the faculty and the Student Senate.
Honor Commission faculty advisor and professor Douglas Page, along with student advisor Magie Matheson ’25 and co-chairs Morgan Unger ’25 and Maimuna Mustafiz ’26 presented the proposals to the faculty.
“Over the course of the past year, we have been gathering feedback for honor code from faculty, CUB tabling, as well as students through surveys, which is why we’re here today to present those proposals,” said Mustafiz.
The first proposed change would make professors responsible for clearly communicating their AI policy in their course syllabus. Matheson explained that the Honor Commission has been seeing a stark increase in honor code violations related to AI, which is why they identified a need for professors to make their AI policy clearer.
“We would like to delegate the responsibility of individual policies to the professor in the classroom,” said Matheson. “And based on the cases that we’re seeing, what would be best for us is that the professor can have as clear guidelines as possible, whether that’s on their syllabus, on the individual assignments, or verbally.”
Matheson explained that the Honor Commission would then process AI-related honor code violation cases based on the stated policy of each individual professor.
The second proposed change would allow professors to choose their own exam proctoring policy, as opposed to the “self-proctoring” policy currently used by the College which endorses students proctoring themselves and does not allow professors to proctor exams.
After their initial presentation, Iuliano opened the floor for faculty discussion.
History professor Michael Birkner commented that he appreciates the proposed changes allow for flexibility.
“My perception, talking to colleagues with the emergence of AI, is that we have such different standards among ourselves about who accepts Grammarly, who accepts another program, and there’s just no consensus among us here,” said Birkner. “So I think having this flexibility does make sense.”
Birkner stated that he has observed a cultural change among students in which “something like an honor code is not considered a high priority.” He pointed to an article published in the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled “Cheating Has Become Normal,” which reported that 65% of students at Middlebury College admitted to violating the honor code in a survey.
“Reading a story like that makes you have to think harder about what it is we can accomplish, individually and collectively in terms of raising our students’ awareness of the value of honor — something that I think has been an asset of Gettysburg College for many, many years,” said Birkner.
East Asian studies professor Eleanor Hogan expressed surprise that many students do not know the honor code by heart. She also endorsed allowing professors to choose for themselves whether or not they proctor their exams.
Sociology professor Cassie Hays, chair of the Faculty Governance Committee, asked if it would help the Honor Commission if more faculty were made available to review honor code violations to even out the workload.
History professor Bill Bowman agreed with Birkner’s comments, arguing that there is a disconnect between how faculty and students view the honor code.
“I often think that our students think ‘if you don’t put the guardrails [to prevent cheating] in place, then it’s on you. You’re being naive about how this works,’” said Bowman.
Mustafiz responded, stating that this perceived cultural change was one of the main motivations behind the proposed changes.
Sociology and women, gender, and sexuality studies professor Alecea Standlee questioned if there has been a cultural shift around the value of grades.
“With increasing pressure, with grade inflation, with issues like that, I wonder if students feel like they’re at a competitive disadvantage if they don’t cheat,” said Standlee.
Health sciences professor Josef Brandauer argued that the honor code will only be taken seriously by students if it is taken seriously by the faculty.
“There’s actually data about how we, as faculty, handle an honor code, and an honor code is only effective in reducing cheating if the faculty treats it like a serious thing. So I think as far as culture is concerned, we can have some impact on that as well,” said Brandauer.
He also commented on generative AI detectors used by some professors to detect use of AI in essays, arguing against their use.
“[AI detectors] actually don’t detect the AI writing, they just predict it. And that importantly disadvantages people from some cultural or other groups that are not following those probabilistic models. So you’re going to have more false positives, basically accusing students of cheating that haven’t cheated from some student groups than from others,” said Brandauer.
Psychology professor Richard Russell stated that he has observed the honor code receiving less and less emphasis over the past few years. He pointed at recent financial constraints, COVID-19 and “turmoil in the Provost’s office” as issues distracting from attention to the honor code.
Iuliano then thanked the students on the Honor Commission for their work.
The faculty will further discuss the honor code change proposals and vote on them at the next faculty meeting scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 20.
