If upper and middle school students and faculty vote in support of implementing a revised Honor Code for the 2024-2025 school year, it will likely be ratified following a meeting between Prefect Council the administration May 29, according to Upper School Dean Sharon Cuseo.
An initial draft of the revised Honor Code was written by Prefect Council and sent to students to receive student feedback May 2. A second version of the code, which incorporated feedback from students, was sent for students and faculty to vote May 23.
Cuseo said Prefect Council tried to maintain the original ideas of the Honor Code while modernizing the language.
“Some of the changes were based on feedback from students and faculty,” Cuseo said. “It was a real balancing act between maintaining some of the tradition and spirit of the original with the increased clarity and conciseness of the revision. Student and faculty members are voting on this new draft, so if both groups sign off, then it will get final approval from the School Leadership Team.”
Head Prefect and Print Managing Editor Davis Marks ’24 said Prefect Council has been working on incorporating student feedback in the latest draft of the code.
“If you look at honor codes at most colleges, they aren’t lengthy documents detailing every prohibited action,” Marks said. “Instead, they outline each community’s core principles. The feedback we have received from students shows that most are unfamiliar with the current Honor Code, so by revising it to be more concise and affirmative, students will be able to live by these principles. Over the past month, we have been discussing this project almost daily, working to incorporate feedback from administrators, faculty and students.”
The revised Honor Code was presented at Faculty Advisory Committee (FAC) meetings at the Upper School and Middle School on May 16 and May 21, respectively. Upper School FAC Chair Heather Audesirk said most faculty supported the implementation of a revised Honor Code.
“The departments were generally in favor of the revisions to the Honor Code,” Audesirk said. “There were definitely some suggestions for changes to the [draft], but the general feeling was positive. Faculty emailed suggestions directly to me, and there were suggestions at both the middle school and upper school FAC meetings. All of these suggestions were passed along to Prefect Council, who used them to make several iterations of the code. The voting survey includes a question for further comments, and there have been lots more suggestions sent in via that voting form.”
President Rick Commons said he is happy about student involvement in the revision process and is in support of ratifying the new code.
“I’m really excited about [the change] because student interest in the Honor Code means that students broadly are discussing how to live lives of integrity now and in the future,” Commons said. “I’ve found our current Honor Code to contain some phrases that seem inefficient and a little distracting, [so] I like the fact that it’s been refined and condensed in the draft. I can’t wait to continue the process and to ratify a revised Honor Code.”
Part of Prefect Council’s latest draft states that “I will foster an inclusive community and respect every individual through my words and actions.” Assistant Head of School for Community and Belonging Janine Jones said it is important for the revised Honor Code to align with the school’s mission statement.
“An ‘inclusive community’ is important to all members of the Harvard-Westlake community because it is mission-aligned in the first words of our mission statement,” Jones said. “By including this phrase in the honor code, it brings the honor code into alignment with our mission and is an attempt to put those words into action. It is important that we live up to our mission beyond words, and this new honor code is another step in that direction.”
The final meeting for approval will be held with the Senior Leadership Team which includes Commons, Head of School Laura Ross, Head of Upper School Beth Slattery, Head of Athletics Terrence Barnum and Jones. Ross said she is appreciative of the time and care that Prefect Council is putting into revising the Honor Code.
“I’m proud of [Prefect Council], and I really appreciate them taking this on,” Ross said. “[The Honor Code] was proposed by students to begin with, and I agree that it could use some updating. I like that they’re framing it in the positive instead of what you won’t do. Our hope is to be able to ratify it exactly as presented [to the administration], but we just wanted to reserve [the] right [to revise it] in case there was a word choice that didn’t seem quite right.”