Wellesley Administrators claimed last November that students are not “living the Honor Code” as students have in the past because they are ill-informed. How are students ill-informed when there is no way to inform them in the first place?
Upon entering Wellesley, all students pledge their agreement to the 31-word Honor Code that they will “act with honesty, integrity and respect, to themselves and to the community.”
However, the vagueness of the Honor Code has long caused confusion among students, with very limited resources available to interpret its extensive applications. The Honor Code Council in recent years created the student code of conduct to clarify the Honor Code processes and rules, but this has instead generated further confusion regarding when each code applies and what truly counts as an Honor Code violation.
The Administration’s comment coincides with an increasing trend of food theft reports, frequent charges against unauthorized student AI use and a recent uptick of student protests in the past few years.
Understanding the limits of both the Honor and the Student Code of Conduct is difficult, but adding to the overall confusion is the fact that current Wellesley students exist in a vastly different campus environment than those of past generations.
Representatives of the Administration during Senate meetings continue to place blame on students for the College’s lack of education and clarity, rather than addressing the systemic issues and breakdown of communication in place at the College.
Students have more reason than ever to distrust the Administration and the Honor Code, especially when it’s not consistently applied. In the 2023-2024 academic year, student protestors were charged with an Honor Code violation, which stated that they failed to meet the demonstration policy during the Renewing Democracy Summit featuring Hilary Clinton on April 6, 2024. Instead of the established Honor Code processes, including faculty, students and staff, their cases were moved to administrative resolution — a process with no formal policies, faculty and student deliberation, or appeal process. The lack of transparency in the handling of this case only deepened student distrust, as there was no way to know whether the deliberation was performed equitably or fairly. The use of administrative resolution in this scenario affirmed to all students that the existing guidelines and procedures we are expected to abide by can be thrown out on a whim.
The students of Wellesley fundamentally lack trust in the College, and the Administration does little to address this growing divide. If anything, the Administration continues to enforce changes without student input. Students have voiced concerns that vague threats of “being Honor Coded” are frequently used despite widespread confusion over what it entails.
In the Feb 3 Senate meeting, a student reported that they were threatened by a former Associate Director for Residential Life with an Honor Code charge while protesting, despite stating that they were following the College’s demonstration policy at the time. A member of the editorial board was also threatened twice by a Residential Life Community Director with an Honor Code violation due to complications while throwing a party in their dorm hall. These threats are very troubling for students if faculty and staff can threaten students with Honor Code charges to police their behavior. The tactic is effective — Honor Code trials are lengthy, stressful and carry severe consequences such as probation or suspension. Threatening students with an Honor Code charge is a way of intimidating them to change their behavior without any accountability on the part of authority figures to maintain clear standards and procedures for what exactly counts as a violation and how it should be fairly and reasonably addressed.
Not only are students ill-informed on the Honor Code, they also lack the structural supports to ensure they are truly able to “live the Honor Code.” One of the biggest recent violations, food theft, is centered around residential life. Students presumably know that theft is generally unethical; However, the administration could do more to address the complicated web of factors leading to food insecurity, often a motive for food theft. Unlike other colleges including Emerson, BU, and UMass Boston, which fund on-campus food pantries, Wellesley does not offer any free supplemental food to students.
At MIT, students receive daily stipends to spend outside the dining halls at local businesses and grocery stores. Additionally, they offer donated swipe passes to students who run out of meal swipes. At Wellesley, students cannot use flex money from their meal plan over winter and summer breaks, despite the extreme cut in hours and locations. Even during the semester, students only receive $75 of flex points, a pitiful amount considering high grocery prices and the comparatively large amount of flex money offered at neighboring institutions like BU (which also has an unlimited meal plan).
Students’ lack of enthusiasm for the Honor Code has much to do with the community cultivated on campus. Dean Horton stated in the Nov. 18 Senate meeting that the Honor Code used to be “a way of living life” and that students used to carry themselves in the community differently, with more integrity and respect. However, the campus has undergone major changes and losses to extracurricular life over the past few years, leaving many students feeling disjointed and often at odds with each other. The state of the campus social life is depressing for most students, especially when compared to what it used to be. The Administration continues to impede co-ops, most notably continuing to prevent Punch’s Alley from reopening and delaying El Table and Cafe Hoop from opening until the end of the semester last Fall. These co-ops do not just operate as businesses but also serve as uniquely vital student spaces for organization, collaboration, and celebration. Even dorm spaces that historically served as gathering spots, such as the Tower Court apartments or 5th-floor blocks, have been systematically and purposefully dismantled by the Administration and residential life. There are few spaces where students feel that they can safely gather without faculty, staff or Administrative presence. This is especially true of spaces for students to consume alcoholic beverages. The campus no longer has its bar, where it safely provided alcohol to students of legal age, and allowed Wellesley students to party in a safe, controlled environment. In the years since the closing of Punch’s Alley, alcohol safety transports increased drastically, and dorm or off-campus parties have become the only other place for students to party with the use of substances.This is especially concerning considering the high prevalence of drink spiking in the Boston area. Quite frankly, the administration appears to be starkly against providing safe spaces for their students.
The foundation of the Honor Code was never meant to be a tool for authoritarian punishment and intimidation. It was created by students, for students, as a means of fostering mutual trust, self-governance, and protecting the right to self-expression — especially in a time when women had little political influence.
Over time, however, the Administration has transformed this once-powerful symbol of solidarity into one of fear and control, wielding it inconsistently and at times unfairly against students. If Wellesley truly values the principles on which the Honor Code was founded, the Administration must work to restore student trust by increasing transparency, ensuring fair and consistent application of policies, and addressing the systemic issues that drive student struggles — rather than punitively punishing those forced to navigate them.
8/8 Members of the Editorial Board voted in favor of this piece.
