<p>IvyKid, perhaps there is a language problem here. </p>
<p>Admission deans do not have control over the Honor Council. I have linked to the Honor website, which will explain how the council and process works. The Office of Undergraduate Admission is not involved.</p>
<p>“College Rep” is the title given to admission officers by College Confidential.</p>
<p>The admission office does not have any power over the Honor Code. The students are responsible for the Honor Code.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I really understand your posts, but I hope you’ll look into the honor code and how student self-governance works at UVa.</p>
<p>Ivy, please read what I wrote. The Office of Admission has no power over the Honor Committee. We have no involvement with honor trials. </p>
<p>I don’t think you understand how the Honor Code works at UVa. Perhaps [the</a> “On My Honor” video will help](<a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/honor/OnMyHonor/]the”>http://www.virginia.edu/honor/OnMyHonor/). Also, [here’s</a> a longer video about the Honor Code](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HnGqpMRjZU]here’s”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HnGqpMRjZU).</p>
<p>Dean J, I hope you don’t have to read ivykid’s file!</p>
<p>Barboza,
stop speaking. you, nor most of the people on this threat, know what you’re talking about.
bringing up mary and the relation to her “sorority sister” is just a way of trying to make her look bad. you don’t know enough about honor to even talk on this thread in the first place</p>
<p>Kristinasings89 a.k.a. Mary Siegel’s ~attorney~</p>
<p>"Barboza,
stop speaking. you, nor most of the people on this threat, know what you’re talking about…you don’t know enough about honor to even talk on this thread in the first place "</p>
<p>Uhh no…we’ve got an Honor ~authority on this board, ~fascinating</p>
<p>Sorry if we all just happen to be UVA students who are so ~ignorant that we can’t voice our opinion on such an unfair system. Would you enlighten us please? Perhaps you can start working for our vote when you run for honor and promise to bring ~change we can believe in~</p>
<p>Sweetheart, did you just make a profile to defend your friend? Hilarious. BTW, she needs some serious PR makeover around grounds. If she weren’t so scared of getting hate mail, she wouldn’t have disabled the private message option on facebook. </p>
<p>lolz</p>
<p>PS: Can you please not bring me up on honor charges…I beg of you.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>People are entitled to comment on what they view as an injustice perpetrated by mary. Just because you disagree does not mean we are ignorant of the facts.</p>
<p>ivykid – I hope you do not apply to UVA next year. UVA would both be better off if you went to a different school. Hope you don’t take admissions’ time up with an app.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure IvyKid was just an alias created to stir things up. No need to reply to him/her anymore.</p>
<p>Jason’s appeal was denied, in spite of nearly 1000 signatures collected for his petition. This means he has absolutely no chance to return unless he hires a lawyer, and the decision is unlikely to be overturned based on historical data.</p>
<p>I really, really wonder how Mary Siegel will look back in the future to think what a horrible mistake she made though.</p>
<p>vistany, I was kind of amused when you wrote, “With all due respect Sir, it appears things have changed since 1982”. Actually, controversial honor cases have always been a part of UVa and the disccussion here would probably seem very familiar to students back in 1982. Most of what is being said certainly takes me back to almost identical debates when I attended in the late '70s. Then as now, suspicion would often focus on the accuser, i.e., what axe did he/she have to grind? In one notorious case, statements were made that the convicted student had been accused due to long-term animosity (even “hatred”) between him and his accuser. This at least is not present in the current case, although the same thing could happen at any school, with or without the single sanction. Similar follow-on questions also inevitably arise, concerning prior associations among any/all of the involved parties, not just the principals. The question to me has always been, given the severity of the punishment, does the system adequately protect the rights of the person accused? My sense has always been that it does not. The difficulty has always been to create a more nuanced set of sanctions without harming the advantages that the current system brings to everyday student life (unmonitored tests, take-home tests and assignments, and more generally the assumption that what you say can be relied on).</p>
<p>It’s rather ironic that professors/TA’s still proctor tests… if they really believed in the honor system, they would not have to be monitoring students.</p>
<p>There were no proctors used during my three years at the law school from '78-'81.</p>
<p>Barboza, in my experience, the professor is in the exam room during the test to help answer student questions, but they frequently leave for a few minutes… there’s a lot of trust there.</p>
<p>That’s true, but in my experience, my professor just told us we could go to his/her office if we had any questions. I guess if you go to the comm school, there would be no need to proctor due to the proximity from class to the professors’ office.</p>
<p>"Honestly, I can’t wait for the honor system. I am SO SICK of almost EVERYONE at my school cheating.
Seriously…during our Anatomy tests, people have their photocopies of the book out on the lab table and look through them and find the answers. And once my friend and I just casually brought it up that everybody cheats, and the teacher was like oh yeah I know. …? SERIOUSLY? "</p>
<p>Let me assure you, cheating at UVA is rampant. But as typical of the “let’s make people think we are really honorable”, it is hidden beneath. Covered so that it seems really something that people can write checks, take exams on the lawn, etc. Please. My daughter was expelled last Oct. I have seen first hand what the system is like. A friend of ours, a lawyer, sat through the trial. He walked out of there with complete disgust as did the friends that my daughter had with her. They were disgraced to be a student at UVA. Ask me questions, I will give you the real honest answers. As for Dean J, you sound like the typical soldier, “we are not affiliated with this, just taking orders”. From whom? STudents whose frontal lobes are not fully developed yet. I suggest that you all read “Lord of the Flies” and take a look at your “honorable” system.</p>
<p>Mama, my comments were in response to a student, most likely a ■■■■■, who wanted to know why I didn’t change the Honor Code or Council.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Weldon when I wrote that I was speaking of Vadad’s claim that you could leave your ipod or other valuables out. That simply is not true anymore. </p>
<p>One of the last emails I got from my TA was asking for the return of a dryer full of someone’s clothes. He said that if the clothes were returned there would be “no questions asked.” In view of what Smith got that seems wrong to me. </p>
<p>I have only been here a year but I haven’t had a take home tests or even unmonitored tests.</p>
<p>People violate the honor code all the time. But if we are going to maintain single sanction the people who step up to that responsiblity need to be nearly flawless in their excution of the process. Based upon what I have seen and read that is not the case. Just because a system has been in place and is considered a tradition does not mean critical review is not needed to assure fairness in the system.</p>
<p>understood vistany. it is indeed a shame if things have gotten to the point where unmonitored tests and assignments have gone away, that was a huge plus during my time there. Of course things got stolen when I was a student as well, but in general it wasn’t that widespread- maybe because there are a lot more really valuable things that are also portable than there used to be. I agree about the need for an honor system that is beyond reproach. I’m not a lawyer, but I have sat on juries and I know that courts take prior relationships among the various parties very seriously, in the interest of keeping the process fair and objective. However, I was always afraid that at UVa, it took a certain kind of person to involve him/herself heavily in the honor system, thus creating a relatively small, well-acquainted and likeminded group that would not serve the interest of fairness particularly well. Then again, many people (I guess myself included) just find conspiracy theories kind of fascinating, and the reality might be quite different. I wonder if the current trial and conviction of Mr. Smith will encourage students with concerns to find out first-hand what actually goes on in the process.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree with what you are saying. My biggest issue is that they let the alleged victim serve as the DA too. At the point mary bought the charge she should have been removed from the system and only been allowed to serve as a witness. I don’t think it was a conspiracy but human nature. Someone, like mary, who is that invested on several levels should not be working both ends simultaneously. Especially within the confines of a small, like minded group of people. Whether it is UVa or the real world (in which you have served as a juror) I would not want that sort of insider trading happening to me.</p>