Editorial: Hold Honor Committee elections

In addition to a general sense of fairness and honorable conduct, an effective Honor Committee member should be a good listener and have the ability to make accused students comfortable and forthcoming during what is often a stressful process. Class presidents, however, are elected by the student body on an entirely different set of criteria. They often promise effective class representation and interesting events and study breaks. Though voters would be wise to consider candidates’ fitness for the Honor Committee during class government elections, it is unlikely that this occurs in practice, and candidates rarely mention it when campaigning. The current appointment system, in which the class presidents select from a pool of applicants to fill the other spots on the committee, also presents problems. Such a system increases the chance that there will be more of the same, rather than diverse, views represented in the committee.

The inexperience of freshman committee members is another problem with the committee. Serving on the Honor Committee requires a high degree of familiarity with the school’s Honor Code and Princeton’s academic system, something that is difficult for freshmen to acquire even after one semester. In addition, it is especially difficult for freshmen to select an Honor Committee representative from a pool of candidates who have only been on campus for a few weeks. As a result, there should no longer be a freshman representative on the Honor Committee.

To improve the current selection process, a separate election should be held at the beginning of the fall semester to select Honor Committee members from the sophomore, junior and senior classes. This would encourage voters to select candidates based on criteria that are actually relevant to being an effective committee member. Moreover, a separate election would inevitably increase the visibility of the committee and encourage the student body to take greater ownership of the code as a whole.