Over the years, I've told colleagues and friends about things I have seen or experienced. Many times, people have said that I should write them down so that they won't be lost and forgotten, since some of them might be useful parts of our history. I've been writing them down, without being sure what I would do with them. I decided to gradually post them on this website, and see what reactions I get. I suggest reading from the bottom up (starting with the August 2017 post "The Meritocracy"). Thoughtful and kind feedback would be useful for me, and would help me to revise the exposition to make it as useful as possible. I hope that while you read my stories you will ask yourself "What can I learn from this?" I'm particularly interested in knowing what you see as the point of the story, or what you take away from it. Please send feedback to asilverb@gmail.com. Thanks for taking the time to read and hopefully reflect on them!

I often run the stories past the people I mention, even when they are anonymized, to get their feedback and give them a chance to correct the record or ask for changes. When they tell me they're happy to be named, I sometimes do so. When I give letters as pseudonyms, there is no correlation between those letters and the names of the real people.

Thursday, November 11, 2021

Proctoring, Princeton Style

I learned about Princeton's Honor Code one cold, wintry night when I was a teaching assistant for a section of calculus, and the course instructor asked me to proctor an evening exam.

I use the word "proctor" for lack of a better word. I was told that I wasn't actually allowed to proctor the exam, or even be in the room where the test took place, since the Honor Code forbade it. The point of my being there was to answer any questions the students had. If a student found a typo or an ambiguous phrase in the test, I had to deal with it. 

Princeton students came up with the Honor Code in 1893. The phrase the students had to write on their tests was: I pledge my honor as a gentleman that during this examination I have neither given nor received assistance, with the word "gentleman" remaining until Princeton went coed in 1969.

I distributed the exams, told the students where they could find me, and left.

The exam was given in a large cavernous lecture room. My recollection is that the nearest place I could go that was not in the room itself was outside the building. I was bundled up in my winter coat, hat, and gloves, but by the end I was freezing and shivering. Princeton winters could get quite cold, at least back in the early 1980s.

The students came and went as they pleased. If they looked lost, I pointed them in the direction of the nearest restroom. I could hear voices in the exam room, but I wasn't permitted to do anything about it.

The atmosphere in the room seemed to get more boisterous as time went on. That seemed less surprising when I observed an empty six pack of beer being carried out after I collected the exams (by someone who was gentlemanly enough not to leave it there; the room was left in a newly acquired state of disarray).

Princeton was very proud of its Honor Code. Seeing it from the instructors' side, I'm not surprised that it was the students who demanded it. It's hard to imagine faculty coming up with a plan that would leave them outside in the snow while the students partied indoors.