In a bold move last week, the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University voted to implement an honor code that students will have to sign upon admission starting with freshmen in 2002.
The pledge makes clear that fabrication and plagiarism will not be tolerated, and reminds students of the unspoken standard existing throughout journalism. Violating the code could lead to expulsion from the University.
Current Medill students will not have to sign the honor code, but incoming freshmen will be mandated to do so.
Although Columbia University, the University of Missouri at Columbia and Boston University — three of the nation’s top collegiate journalism programs — do not require any sort of signed written statement of conduct, BU journalism professor Caryl Rivers said she would initially be in favor of it.
“It’s probably not a bad idea,” Rivers said. “We are seeing a big [increase] in plagiarism due to the Internet. [An honor code] would be a way to underline to students how serious plagiarism is.”
Rivers attributed the influx in plagiarism to the Internet and fierce competition.
“Today, it is so easy to go online,” she said. “There are more lapses because it is so easy.”
No plans of instituting an honor code currently exist at Boston University, though Medill could serve as a benchmark for other schools around the country.
Northwestern’s honor pledge comes just months before the summer when Loren Ghiglione will replace Ken Bode as dean at the college. It also comes in the wake of Medill’s removal of a student from the University’s graduate program after elements in two of his news stories could not be verified.
Ghiglione strongly supports the pledge and hopes it will further educate students about journalistic ethics. Before being named dean at Medill, he taught at Emory University in Georgia from 1996-99. He said while there, he made his students sign an honor pledge for his classes.
Medill’s faculty discussed the code of conduct for close to two hours before a voice vote of approval was given. One professor was in the opposing minority.
David Klatell, the associate dean for academic affairs at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, is opposed to the idea of an honor pledge fearing a deterioration in the relationship between the administration and students.
“We assume they are behaving morally until proven otherwise,” Klatell told The Daily Northwestern. “Asking them to sign a document stating what we take to be an implicit part of education here would change the atmosphere. It’s one thing to ask people to look at certain precepts and codes and it’s another to say, ‘Here’s a contract, sign it.’”
Rob Logan, associate dean for undergraduate studies at the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, told the Northwestern that students come into contact with the school’s honor code everyday.
“There’s implication that any faculty member could check [a story] for accuracy,” Logan said. “It’s an automatic safeguard against someone making a story up.”
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