By Janna Pulver '02 Community Court Chair

I want to begin by having us all go back in our minds to our first day, when we first came to Wells College as students. I remember anxiously moving into the dorm, waiting to meet my roommate, trying to get unpacked and settled. And there were so many traditions begun during that first week!

The first time the class got together, one of the first traditions we participated in was learning about and then signing the Honor Code, which reads in part:

"Community honor shall be the basis of student government at Wells College. The principle of community honor is based on the pledge of each member of the student body to be honest and trustworthy in the conduct of her collegiate life… Wells College students are under community obligation and pledge not to lie, cheat, steal, deceive, or conceal…"

But, you know, that Honor Code is more than just a tradition. When we signed that pledge, we became part of the Wells community. We each individually and together as a class chose and promised to uphold community honor. It takes each of us to hold ourselves and each other responsible to this code. The Wells community and our Honor Code have an interdependent relationship. The community as we know it cannot exist without the Honor Code, but the honor code does not exist without an active commitment from each member of the community.

Once we've pledged to the Honor Code, we create the Wells community. We create an environment of trust. We all benefit from this environment in our academic and personal lives, in ways we may not even appreciate at times. We have access to facilities, unlimited access to computer labs, unproctored and take-home exams, no metal-detectors anywhere on campus, and an open campus where we can get what we need just about any time we need it.

Not all colleges, in fact not many colleges, function with an honor code where the students self-police and self- govern. We only have to talk with friends who go to other colleges to realize that life is very different here, because of the code.

What's amazing to me is that this tradition of pledging to keep the Honor Code is almost as old as the college. Wells women for generations have been making this same pledge. It is part of what it means to be a Wells Woman. Some of those women return here, including President Ryerson, Dean Reeves '97, Jeri Vargo '70, our head librarian, and Professor Morfei '89, among others, to provide a model for and to safeguard the legacy of community honor.

We live this Honor Code for the length of time that we are here. But it doesn't end there. These values are instilled in us while we are here, and help shape who we are and what we become. There is a sense of trust, almost an assumption of trust among Wells women. I experienced this firsthand two years ago when I had the opportunity to go to Washington for two weeks in January. Two Wells alumnae, Sue Arthur '92 and Margaret Arthur'90, took me in, sight unseen, gave me a key to their home, and welcomed me as a part of the family. I was treated like a "little sister" because that's what I was!

The honor code is more than a tradition; it is a way of life. Wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone everywhere pledged to uphold that Honor Code: to be honest and trustworthy, not to lie, cheat, steal, deceive, conceal? What if the politicians, the world leaders, the bankers, the lawyers, the teachers, the police, the doctors, the artists – everyone – lived by that code?

Well, we may not be able to change the entire world (right now), but we can live the code in our world. We can expect ourselves and each other to live by this code.

And that's why tonight, we are celebrating a recommitment to the Honor Code at a special banquet. This symbolic recommitment will be on public display in MacMillan Hall, on large posters, with all of our signatures. As we sign this pledge again, we need to remind ourselves of our personal responsibility to make the spirit of the Honor Code a meaningful part of our lives, because that's what it means to be a Wells Woman!

Delivered Monday, January 28, 2002, in Phipps Auditorium, Wells College