By Tim O. Peterson
Mays’ Director of Undergraduate Learning, and a Texas A&M PhD graduate

In 1982, I accepted a position on the faculty at the United State Air Force Academy.  The Air Force Academy has an honor code:  We will not lie, steal or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does. It is very similar to our honor code at Texas A&M. 

That first semester, I taught two sections of human resource management in the Management Department. As one of the assignments, I provided a case study to my two sections.  I encouraged the cadets to read over the case and to discuss it with other cadets in the class — but when it came to writing the case up, they should do their own work. 

Two cadets were roommates in different sections of the course.

When the papers were turned in I put them in one big pile to be graded. As chance would have it, these two cadets’ papers ended up next to each other. So when I read them, I quickly realized that the two papers were almost the same. I reread each paper, looking for differences. I really wanted to find differences so I did not have to start an honor investigation. While there were some differences, they were very slight. So after some soul searching, I called the two cadets in to discuss what I believed to be cheating.

When I met the cadets in the conference room, I let them explain. They told me about being roommates and admitted discussing the case at length in their room. They had shared notes from the class with each other. Then they had each sat at their own computers and composed their papers. They said that they had talked to each other while they each sat at their own computers and wrestled with the analysis and recommended actions. 

They assured me that they never read each other’s papers and did not make suggestions about how to improve one another’s paper.  But now in hindsight, they said, they could see that their two papers had become as one.

While I felt the two cadets had crossed the ethical line, I also felt that I had contributed to their transgression.

I saw this as an opportunity for them to learn an important lesson about ethics. We agreed that I would provide them each with a new case and that they would work completely independently on preparing the written analysis. We also agreed that they would prepare an hour-long presentation on ethics and how organizational factors as well as individual factors can affect our ethical behavior.

When I reported the resolution to my department head, it was not greeted with the same enthusiasm I felt for the outcome. My department head felt (as did many of my colleagues) that the cadets should be turned in and punished under the honor code.

But since I could not seem to secure an agreement that the cadets would not be dismissed from the Academy, I refused to turn them in to the honor council.

Over the next year, I heard about different possible cheating incidents that were going on in other classes but being ignored. I also heard about cadets being dismissed from the Academy because of trivial violations of the honor code. I was still sure that my action for this ethical issue was appropriate and measured.

In 1984, 19 cadets were caught cheating on a physics exam by receiving or passing test information from one period to the next. Upon further investigation, it was determined that this was only a small part of a larger ethical problem. All cadets were granted amnesty. It was believed that this was the only way the Honor Assessment Committee, which was formed and chaired by my department head, could determine the extent of the problem and possible solutions. 

The resulting investigation found that organizational factors at times contributed to the breaking of the honor code. It also found that we (faculty and staff) needed to spend time teaching our freshman and sophomores about cheating so they had clear examples of what was and was not cheating.

We also needed to do a better job of meting out appropriate consequences for different honor code violations. Graduated sanctions were introduced for freshmen and sophomores; no longer did a first violation of the code mean dismissal or suspension from the Academy. At the same time, juniors and seniors were not given discretion unless they self-reported. By the time a cadet was a junior or a senior, the cadet should fully understand and commit to living the full spirit of the honor code.

These events have shaped my view of honor codes and also ethics education. Early on, I believed we need to help students to become more ethically aware. The situations that get most people in ethical trouble often seem harmless at the time. It is not an ethical dragon that causes problems for most people — it is the cute ethical bunny that we pick up to pet. When we put it down, part of it stays with us, like fur shed on our clothing.

Not only do we need to make our students more aware of the ethical dilemmas they will face, we also need to help them learn how to reason about these ethical dilemmas. We need to help them define for themselves what their ethical conduct will be as it relates to the critical stakeholders in their professional and personal lives.

We also need to help students identify and resist the organizational factors that might cause them to make unethical decisions or to act unethically. It will require us to be honest with students about the consequences of standing up to organizational pressures to act unethically.

The year between my situation with the cadets and the physics cheating scandal was not always pleasant. There was direct and indirect pressure applied to me to turn the cadets in to honor council. This would have been the most expedient and easy answer.  However, I believed then and believe now that the action I took was a fair consequence for the ethical situation that occurred.

I also have never forgotten that good intentions, such as telling the students that they can talk to each other about an assignment, can set in motion ethical dilemmas that are unintentional. It is critical that all managers and teachers ask themselves this question —Am I contributing to an ethical dilemma by my words and actions?

For more:
Aggie Honor Code
Air Force Academy Honor Code