 | Board of Visitors minutes June 4, 1965 |  |
II
Among the tangential factors, Dean Dillard noted that the Air Force Academy
suffered by virtue of its newness and lack of stability. The command changed
frequently and even more significant oscillated frequently between emphasis on
"Socrates" to emphasis on "Sergeant York." The problem of how to weld the two
images was not successfully accomplished. This had a tangential effect because
when you have uncertainty as to one phase of a total system, it tends to carry over
into other phases. The "honor system" is not an isolated part of an institutional
environment, and when the environmental values of one part are clouded by doubt
the doubts tend to spill over into other parts.
Another tangential factor has to do with the fact that the Academy had no
"heroes." Heroes are important because they tend to capture the imagination
by symbolizing the finer aspirations of an institution or a profession. (Consider
Marshall, Holmes, Brandeis, Cardozo and others in law.) Now in the absence of
heroes, living or dead, there is a tendency to substitute purely quantitative
standards in order to appear excellent. This is innocent enough but when it is
overdone, as it was at the A.F.A., it tends to weaken the sense of "honor"
because "honor" accents not the end result so much as the way it is reached
Dean Dillard gave examples of this tendency.
Turning more specifically to those factors which might have a bearing at
Virginia, Dean Dillard first emphasized that there is no use glossing over the
fact that there can be a conflict of values between loyalty to friends and
loyalty to an honor system. The conflict becomes all the more poignant
of an honor system that loyalty to the system transcend loyalty to any single individual
or subgroup. Using the analogy of a poker game he explained why an honor
system, if correctly understood and adequately communicated, attempts to eliminate
doubt on this point and why such terms as "ratting," "squealing," etc. are not appropriate.
A good deal of publicity from all over the nation has been directed to this
point, so the Committee felt it should not merely state a conviction but spell out
the reasons for it very strongly. It attempted to do this and to reinforce its
reasoning by using analogies which pointed up sharply the potential conflict in our
society between loyalty to friends and higher loyalty to society. This phase of the
Committee's report is attached to this summary as an attachment.
The important point in any school with an honor system is to be sure this is
clearly understood by all students and the faculty.
These observations brought Dean Dillard to the most critical finding of all.
As at West Point ten years earlier so at the A.F.A., the core of the cheating and
its spread was sharply centered on the recruited athletes and particularly those
engaged in football and basketball. At this point, he showed the Board an elaborate
chart graphically disclosing the progressive involvement of those who were and were
not recruited athletes. The statistical findings were also eloquent. While only 4%
of the entire Wing (as the student body is called) were implicated, no less than 44%
of recruited athletes were implicated either as direct peddlers or users of examinations.
Dean Dillard suggested that the reasons for this heavy involvement were not too
difficult to discern. They were not attributable, in his opinion, to any sweeping
assumption that athletes are inherently morally inferior to others. The Committee
considered such an assumption "grotesque." The evil lies in the psychological damage
done to the recruited athlete before he comes to college whereby he is made to feel
that he is so wanted that general rules don't apply to him, second by the policy of
segregating him once he arrives as by special training tables, housing, etc., which
reinforces the earlier damage, and third by the intensification of close personal
friendships attributable to the tough shared experience which they undergo together.
The Committee did not find that academic pressures were extreme, and very few of the
athletes were in danger of failing. They just took the easier course and while aware
of the system were not sufficiently aware of their higher loyalty to the Wing as a
whole or the abstract values implicit in the system.
One wryly humorous remark emerged from an interview which Dean Dillard had
with one of the football ring leaders. When questioned as to why he implicated
Cadet X but not Cadet Y, he said, "We knew Cadet Y believed in the honor system,
so we couldn't trust him. You couldn't trust fellows like Y."
The moral here for Virginia appears clear. It is to be sure so long as we do
recruit, that (a) we make it abundantly clear that the student is to be treated on
exactly the same plane as all other students, (b) that we imbue all members of the
coaching staff with the need to stress this point. They are in a particularly good
spot to exercise a healthy influence and to shape a healthy attitude among the
squads committed to their charge. (c) While training tables may be a necessary
adjunct to the toughening job, any other tendency to segregate the athletes should
be resisted and, finally, (d) the whole trend toward bigger and bigger gate receipts
and winning for the sake of winning should be resisted because of the subtle effect
it has in distorting the values of a university and indirectly imposing a strain on
the whole system, of which the honor system is a part. The Committee was quite strong
on this point. It suggested that if intercollegiate athletes are deemed an integral
part of the total educational experience, it should not be made to depend on gate
receipts.
Another finding that might apply to Virginia but one to which the students are
sensitive focusses on the need to limit the scope of the honor system. If it is
made to bear too heavy a burden, then it might fall of its own weight. That is why,
although it may seem illogical to refrain from extending it to all the manifold
affairs of life, it is yet wiser to limit it to academic matters or, at least, to
matters of honor which are focused on the academic community. At the Air Force
Academy, the tendency was noted to stretch the system too far so as to make it cover
trivial matters.
Dean Dillard ended on one other note. He said that at the A.F.A., as at West Point,
the overwhelming majority of Cadets believed in the honor system and would have bitterly
resented any attempt to eradicate it. Nor is there any evidence, in his opinion, that
American youth has gone soft and irresponsible. On the other hand, the study on cheating
undertaken by a social scientist at Columbia, which the Committee considered, does
suggest that in those schools where there is no honor system cheating is pretty rampant,
and even in those which have a system it is more prevalent than is generally believed.
| Board of Visitors minutes June 4, 1965 | |