Honor

Welcome to the Honor System Website. This site is designed to provide information, assistance, and inspiration to faculty members and graduate instructors responsible for establishing and sustaining academic integrity at UNC.

The Honor System represents a partnership forged and renewed by students, faculty, and staff at Carolina over many generations. Our Honor System is envisioned, both ideally and realistically, to be the best means available to maintain high standards of both academic integrity and student conduct within our community. The honor system serves several functions including the articulation of both important norms regarding the pursuit of truth and respect for others who have gathered to share that intellectual goal. It places responsibility for both self and peer discipline, two cornerstones of our governance structure, squarely on the shoulders of students, thus imparting crucial judicial lessons to those who will emerge as citizen-leaders.

The Honor System provides students with informal education in many venues around campus, and it also aids instructors by providing information that will assist them in preventing misconduct. The existence of the honor system, including the serious sanctions that can be imposed for student misconduct, also serves as a deterrent to those who may occasionally be tempted to cut corners. Finally, the honor system serves as the means of adjudicating student misconduct, through a structured process in which facts are found and sanctions are imposed.

This website provides more detailed information on

• The Honor System, including the specific provisions of the Honor Code, sanctions that may be imposed, and processes used to resolve problems of misconduct when they arise;

• The role of faculty members in setting academic ground rules and preventing misconduct before it occurs;

• The steps to be taken in reporting suspected misconduct; and

• Opportunities for greater involvement in the Honor System and its work.

Please take steps to become aware of the Honor System and its operation through the information available on this website. The Honor System is a particularly important pan-University component of our academic governance structure.  Learn to use it wisely and it will serve us all well.