By Lance Hamner
At schools where black and white are clearly defined by an honor code, many students find themselves lost in the gray area.
A recent survey conducted by Collegehumor.com found that colleges with an honor code have a cheating rate of 68 percent among students, as opposed to only 42 percent for schools without the standards of conduct.
'At a school that puts an enormous amount of trust in its students, it''s not surprising that many of those students use that trust to get a few extra points here and there,' said Streeter Seidell, front page editor of Collegehumor.com.
However, BYU''s honor code is not the only contributing factor in academic honesty at the school. All enrolled students are required to receive an endorsement from their ecclesiastical leaders.
BYU spokesman Michael Smart provided the most recent information on cheating at BYU.
In 1999, researchers with the Center for Academic Integrity at Duke University included BYU students and faculty in their national study on cheating at U.S. universities. They found 92 percent of BYU students had never seen someone cheat, compared to the national average of 55 percent.
Though steps are taken in classrooms and the testing center to prevent cheating and plagiarism, many professors rely only on the honor code and the integrity of students.
Ashley Bunker, 23, a BYU sophomore, said she has only seen cheating occur when the professor leaves the classroom.
'Sometimes students will ask questions to each other that are not technically the answers, but basically they are,' Bunker said. 'On things that are kind of gray, people might not see it as dishonest.'
Nicole Gale, 21, a BYU junior, said she has seen students cheat frequently in the testing center and on their homework.
'I see people copying homework or using a book on an online quiz when the teacher has asked us not to,' Gale said.
Steven Baker, director of the BYU Honor Code Office, said although students at BYU are not perfect, they are definitely more academically honest than the average college student across the nation.
' come with an internal desire to be honest, and they already have integrity,' Baker said. 'The encouragement they get here at BYU is to continue to live up to that commitment and their standards here at the university.'
More than 30,000 students across the country were polled for the survey, including four BYU students. Three of those four said they had cheated at some point
'On the one hand, 75 percent of them admitted to cheating, but on the other hand, only four students responded, which is obviously a pretty small sample group,' and not statistically valid, Seidell said.