Princeton Introduces Proctoring, Changing Honor Code

"Princeton University's faculty voted this week to proctor all in-person exams, fundamentally altering a 133-year-old honor system that has relied on students to monitor for and report cheating. But it was students, not just faculty, who pushed for the change. Students have found it increasingly difficult to identify cheating during in-class exams and fear teasing, doxing and ostracization by their peers for reporting suspected cheating to the Honor Committee."

"Going forward, "in-class exams shall be supervised by instructional staff," according to the policy. Proctors will "serve as a witness to what happens but will not interfere with the students taking examinations," and if the observers suspect cheating, they will make note of what they saw and report it to the Honor Committee. The process for hearing and appealing cases will not chan"

""Much of the demand [to change the policy] came from students who felt that there was too much cheating going on. They felt they could not enforce the honor code any longer," Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton, told Inside Higher Ed in an email. "AI was the breaking point-where everyone thought that this introduced stealth cheating that was harder to detect without in-person supervision.""

Princeton faculty voted to require proctoring for all in-person exams, changing a 133-year honor system that depended on students to monitor and report cheating. Students helped drive the change, citing difficulty identifying cheating during in-class exams and fear of peer retaliation such as teasing, doxing, and ostracization for reporting suspicions. Other institutions have also moved toward proctoring, including Stanford and Middlebury, with varying levels of adoption. Princeton’s policy takes effect July 1. In-class exams will be supervised by instructional staff who will act as witnesses without interfering, and suspected cheating will be documented and reported to the Honor Committee for review and appeal.

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