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Home > College Offices > Dean of Students > Student Handbook > Community Responsibilities > Guidelines for Community Responsibility
Guidelines for Community Responsibility
Guidelines for Community Responsibility
The following statement was adopted by the Mount Holyoke College faculty in April 1973.
The quality of life in a college such as Mount Holyoke relies on the conscious choice of students, faculty members, and administrators to commit themselves to honest and active participation in the creation and preservation of the College community. The decision to form such a community of scholars confers upon its members the special rights and responsibilities that allow the College to function most effectively. The very act of choosing to become a member of the Mount Holyoke community implies a commitment to free inquiry and a search for understanding as central to the liberal arts education, and a willingness to share in the responsibility for maintaining an environment in which these goals may be attained. Should an individual fail to assume such responsibility incumbent upon him or her, the community itself, through its officially constituted bodies, must take action.
The privileges and responsibilities of the community must embrace both academic and social life at Mount Holyoke. Guidelines only suggest the scope of community responsibility; effective functioning of the College community rests ultimately on the personal integrity of each of its members.
On a Multiracial Community
The following resolution was affirmed by the faculty in 1973.
The faculty of Mount Holyoke College reaffirms its commitment to an academic environment free of racial discrimination in which all individuals are treated with a common standard of decency. It commits itself to a continuing effort to confront and resist racist attitudes and actions wherever they appear in the Mount Holyoke community, and to build a community useful and attractive to all individuals regardless of ethnic background.
Honor Code
Upon matriculation, each student brings a wide variety of experiences, hopes, and goals to Mount Holyoke College. These rich backgrounds create and continually shape our communal goals and ideals. As individuals entering a larger community, we recognize and affirm the honor system as the foundation upon which our community is built. We, the students of Mount Holyoke, recognize the fragility of this collective ideal, yet strive to achieve it nonetheless. To this end we choose to live by the following code of honor:
I will honor myself, my fellow students, and Mount Holyoke College by acting responsibly, honestly, and respectfully in both my words and deeds.
While this code of honor allows for a significant degree of individual freedom, the definition of a general framework of values is necessary. In choosing to live by a social honor code, we also agree to integrate the following standards into our own definition of personal honesty as outlined in the following interpretation of the code:
Though each student’s individual conception of responsibility is unique, we trust that every student will demonstrate ownership of her actions and will recognize the ways in which her actions affect her peers, the College, and the greater community. Each student maintains her ability to express herself with integrity, which is crucial to the development of a community that is personally challenging, both intellectually and socially. A sense of honesty is fostered by the individual’s ability to express herself in a candid and forthright manner. Respecting oneself and others requires that every individual maintain the integrity of her own values, while acting in a way that is careful and considerate of others. In our community, mutual respect can be obtained only by valuing free inquiry, respect for difference, and intellectual honesty.
The framework of our honor code assumes adherence to the rules and regulations of the College which are designed to promote intellectual and social pursuits and to ensure personal safety. In addition, the College protects and upholds human rights policies, and is committed to an inclusive and diverse community.
Statement on the Honor System
The honor code is the hallmark of life together at Mount Holyoke College. Simply stated, it means that each student is responsible for maintaining her own integrity and, to the best of her ability, the integrity of the Mount Holyoke community. While broad in its applications, it provides a guideline for decision making which holds each student to principles of good conduct toward herself and others.
To ensure the care and preservation of the honor code, standards and procedures have been developed and implemented to provide the structure by which the honor code is administered. Students are expected to comply with the rules and regulations of the College. Beyond minimal compliance, students under an honor code grow to understand, through course work, collaborative learning, and living together, that honor is achieved with diligence, commitment, and courage.
The Mount Holyoke College honor system relies on the integrity of each student. The strength of the system derives from the honesty and self-discipline of every student and from the faith of the faculty and the administration in the student body. With integrity as the foundation, the honor system promotes individual freedom tempered by responsibility to the community. The student demonstrates her respect for individual freedom by conducting herself with maturity and honor, and by showing due concern for the welfare of other members of the community.
College regulations delineate the expected standard of behavior in academic and social circumstances. Dishonorable academic conduct, such as plagiarism and cheating, discredits the individual student. Behavior which is in conflict with the social regulations of the College is detrimental to the well-being of the Mount Holyoke community. Abiding by community standards, under the honor system, indicates a mature acceptance of community responsibility.
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