Illustration by Josh Hagler

Do you feel trusted? When you sit down to take an exam, does your professor require that you first compose and sign an honor statement? Something like: "I, Pat R. Student, have read the handbook of student conduct and do solemnly swear to not cheat on this exam in any way - whether by glancing at another's paper or at a crib sheet concealed under my watch, by sneaking out to read a textbook stashed in the bathroom, or by failing the exam and later changing my grade on the Internet. Till death do I part. So help me Likins."

My roommate was required a few weeks ago to preface a 10-page essay with a declaration of originality: "I didn't plagiarize any of this paper, and I cited everything." He refused to say that, exactly. His statement read more like: "When I come into class, I don't demand that my professor introduce every lecture with a promise to teach to the best of his ability and grade with utmost fairness. I assume it. To have a productive student-teacher relationship, we must presuppose trust."

What a novel idea. But how can we make the assumption of trust when 80 percent of students admit to having cheated? Because there's nothing we can do about cheating, other than proctoring exams and keeping an eye out for flagrantly plagiarized material. This does not contradict the presumption of honesty in the same way that having a police force does not incriminate every honest citizen. It is reasonable to monitor students for cheating but unreasonable to assume that all students are cheaters.

Requiring that students sign statements of integrity is a practice in futility. No one is deterred from cheating because he or she had to promise not to cheat. Nor does anyone question that cheating is wrong. The only effect of this convention is a strongly-communicated feeling of distrust. And, it has been often said that those who distrust are the least deserving of trust.

I'm not saying that we should be suspicious of professors who make us jump through these insulting hoops. But we might consider how the air of doubt negatively affects the learning environment.

And more proactively, I suggest that we refuse to compose and sign statements of integrity. After all, they are a logical inconsistency. If one cannot be trusted to not cheat, why should a professor put faith in a student's promise to complete work honorably?

Maybe they are meant to scare us. The statements translate as: "If you cheat, I'm going to catch you. And when I do, I will press for your expulsion." I fully support stringent enforcement of the honor code, but I do not like when professors threaten students. It creates an adversarial relationship, which is not conducive to learning.

I understand why professors use this tactic; cheating is a tremendous problem, and they only want to curtail the rampant dishonesty. Unfortunately, the problem will never be solved. There are more numerous and clever ways to cheat than you can shake a stick at. So be it. But our strongest weapon against cheating is not paranoid suspicion: it is trust.

By sincerely trusting, professors will reinforce trustworthiness within students. By creating an atmosphere in which cheating is assumed and threatened against at the top of every exam, professors ironically encourage cheating. If cheating is thick in the air, it will tempt the minds of students - otherwise moral people under a great deal of stress. Similarly, when my smoker friends see government ads discouraging smoking, it usually makes them want a cigarette.

We cannot ignore the problem of cheating. It should be prevented and punished. But let's approach it from a more productive, positive angle.