Campus Honor Code
Norris Tolson described the honor code at NC State College in the early 1960s and how Student Government sought to uphold academic integrity.
Interview on 2011-05-12 00:00:00 -0400
Transcript
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Well we had a very, very--and still do at NC State--a very strict honor code that students were expected to adhere to
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and violations were pretty severe.
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That was in the day when you violated the rules you got kicked out.
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You didn't get mollycoddled or you didn't get pampered, you were kicked out of school,
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and that was a very serious offense for a young person at NC State
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and so we were very, very concerned about all of the values of the honor code being upheld
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but also at the same time being fair.
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We wanted to be sure that students were treated fairly in the process,
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and one of the great strengths of that program that it was student run. It was not run by the faculty or by the administration of the university.
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It was run by the students and students tended to be much more pragmatic about the issues that students faced as students.
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They were pragmatic about the issues but they were also much more pragmatic about the so-called punishment for violating the rules,
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because most of the--. NC State was a small school. Everybody knew everybody. It wasn't like it is now when there are thirty-four thousand kids out there
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so everybody kind of knew everybody else and if you violated the honor code it was a stigma on you on campus.
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People knew who had violated the honor code. It was reported in the Technician,
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it was in the gossip chain on the campus,
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and so those of us in student leadership positions wanted to make sure that we maintained the integrity of the honor code
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so that students understood how important it was
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and how important the decisions they made to either violate the code or get convicted by the code about their futures.
This video is an excerpt from a longer interview. Contact the Special Collections Research Center to request the transcript of the full interview.
