Should we end Bicker?
Try to imagine the University without one of its most controversial and distinctive institutions — one that has endured for more than a century, even in the face of sharp criticism for its divisiveness and exclusivity.
Try to imagine the University without one of its most controversial and distinctive institutions — one that has endured for more than a century, even in the face of sharp criticism for its divisiveness and exclusivity.
Abiodun Azeez ’12 knew even before she arrived on campus last fall that she didn’t want to join an eating club. “I don’t think eating clubs are the place for me,” she said in an e-mail. “I guess part of it had to do with what I’d read about eating clubs — elitism, rich white kids —and I’m not elite, rich, or white.”
In the fall of her sophomore year, Sarah ’10 received an e-mail from her sorority inviting her to an unusual gathering. Instead of advertising an upcoming semiformal or tailgate, this e-mail announced one of the sorority’s annual Bicker workshops.
During his junior year, Ted Price ’10 had trouble finding time for regular meals at Ivy Club, where he was a member. He was a distance runner on the track team, and he found himself spending large sums of money on food, beyond his Ivy membership dues.
During her sophomore spring, Kaitlyn Hay ’10 wanted to join Charter Club, along with many of her friends. Despite the University’s financial aid programs, cost proved to be a barrier for her.
This discrepancy between the number of students who said they cheated on in-class exams and the number who said they cheated on take-home assignments reflects the dramatic distinction at Princeton between these two types of academic work — a distinction which is highlighted by the jurisdictional divide between the University’s Honor Committee and its Committee on Discipline.
Many college students wouldn’t think twice before feigning illness or computer malfunctions to explain to a professor why an assignment is late. But at the University of Virginia, that could get you expelled. At the other extreme, Yale has no honor code. With a disciplinary system administered by a combination of students, faculty and administrators who hand down punishments ranging from probation to expulsion, Princeton charts a middle course among peer institutions with its standards of integrity.
At an institution that prides itself on upholding high standards of academic integrity, several students and faculty members said they believe the punishments doled out by the Honor Committee and the Committee on Discipline for academic violations are unnecessarily severe. Members of the committees, however, defended their punishments, explaining that their decisions are based largely on precedent and that they take into consideration a wide variety of factors when determining penalties.
Each day during Dead Week, some of the 14 faculty, staff and student members of the Committee on Discipline assemble in West College around a long oval table. The committee will hear cases and dole out punishments for infractions of “Rights, Rules, Responsibilities."
Last January, Shafiq Kashmiri ’10 was working alone in his room on the final problem set for an upper-level engineering course when his phone rang. It was a classmate — someone who often struggled with work for the class — calling to ask for help with the assignment.