Well we had a very, very--and still do at NC State--a very strict honor code that students were expected to adhere to
and violations were pretty severe.
That was in the day when you violated the rules you got kicked out.
You didn't get mollycoddled or you didn't get pampered, you were kicked out of school,
and that was a very serious offense for a young person at NC State
and so we were very, very concerned about all of the values of the honor code being upheld
but also at the same time being fair.
We wanted to be sure that students were treated fairly in the process,
and one of the great strengths of that program that it was student run. It was not run by the faculty or by the administration of the university.
It was run by the students and students tended to be much more pragmatic about the issues that students faced as students.
They were pragmatic about the issues but they were also much more pragmatic about the so-called punishment for violating the rules,
because most of the--. NC State was a small school. Everybody knew everybody. It wasn't like it is now when there are thirty-four thousand kids out there
so everybody kind of knew everybody else and if you violated the honor code it was a stigma on you on campus.
People knew who had violated the honor code. It was reported in the Technician,
it was in the gossip chain on the campus,
and so those of us in student leadership positions wanted to make sure that we maintained the integrity of the honor code
so that students understood how important it was
and how important the decisions they made to either violate the code or get convicted by the code about their futures.