Faculty Senate Working Group on Graduate Honor Council

 

Report:

Read the final report, endorsed by the Faculty Senate in April 2023.

Charge: 

The Faculty Senate of Rice University charges the Working Group on the Graduate Honor Council to:

  • Investigate practices for addressing academic dishonesty in graduate-level coursework at our peer institutions;
  • Determine whether the Graduate Honor Council, as currently configured, is an effective means to promote academic integrity among graduate students across the university and equitably adjudicate violations of academic integrity in their coursework, including in online and distance-learning settings; and
  • Present a report to the Faculty Senate, the Provost, and the President of the University and make recommendations with respect to
    1. whether the current Graduate Honor Council, as a University Committee, should remain as currently configured, be restructured, or dissolved;
    2. whether the principles that govern academic integrity in graduate students’ coursework should remain linked to or be decoupled from the undergraduate Honor Code;
    3. how any proposed changes to, or dissolution of, the GHC could be replaced by an alternative model that would better promote academic integrity among graduate students and address instances of academic dishonesty in their coursework;
    4. where in the university authority and responsibility for cases of academic dishonesty that arise in graduate students’ coursework should be housed, including the authority to consider appeals and cases that imminently affect a student’s graduation timeline.

Members: 

  • April DeConick (Religion) (Chair)
  • Ron Goldman (Computer Science) (co-chair of the Graduate Honor Council; non-voting member)
  • Doug Schuler (Jones School of Business) (co-chair of the Graduate Honor Council; non-voting member)
  • Seiichi Matsuda (Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies)
  • Kate Cross (Associate Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies) (non-voting member)
  • Barb Ostdiek (Associate Dean, Jones School)
  • Alan Crane (Jones School)
  • Dan Wallach (Computer Science)
  • Danielle Ward-Griffin (Shepherd School of Music)
  • Chris Johns-Krull (Physics and Astronomy)
  • YingHua He (Economics)
  • Josh Moore (Graduate Student Association)