Honor Principle Up for Debate at Reed Union

On Friday, March 14, students, staff, and alumni gathered in the Student Union for the first Reed Union since 2020. This Reed Union was organized by the Union Committee, which includes members of Senate, faculty, and staff. The topic of discussion was the Honor Principle, which is the subject of a proposed resolution Honor Council plans to circulate.

The occasion for this Union was the Honor Council’s proposed 2025 statement on the Honor Principle. This resolution comes as part of a longer tradition to reevaluate and interpret the Honor Principle around every 20 years, which was delayed in recent years by the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the process of drafting a resolution, the Honor Council seeks input from the community to create a document that reflects widely-held opinions across Reed. Honor Council member Aidan Mokalla ‘25 described the goals of the Union as “[engaging] in open dialogue about what ‘Honor’ might mean at Reed and to Reedies, and [creating] new connections within our community between students, administrative staff, and faculty that might not have formed otherwise.”

While previous Unions took the form of one speaker addressing the whole crowd at a time, this year’s Union Committee decided to organize the discussion around small groups instead. Attendees were instructed to sit with people they didn’t know, to create as much diversity as possible among the limited pool of people who came to the Union. 

Gregory MacNaughton ‘89, Education Outreach and Calligraphy Initiative Coordinator of the Cooley Gallery, provided introductory remarks on the purpose of the Union and the Honor Principle in general. MacNaughton discussed the Honor Principle as an evolving part of the community, stating that “it only works if we talk about it.” Ellen Millender, Professor of Greek, Latin, and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Humanities, also spoke on the goals of the Union. Millender remarked that, while it is “easy to be negative,” for the Union “it’s important to be constructive, not destructive” in the group’s feedback.

After those remarks, the discussion continued among the groups, each of which was moderated by a member of the Union Committee. The conversation revolved around people’s personal experiences with the Honor Principle, how it operates in theory and practice, and how the procedures surrounding it could change in the future.

Following a half-hour of moderated discussions, the Union reconvened for individuals from each group to share the significant takeaways from their conversations. Major points included methods to better expose more people to what the Honor Principle means, publicizing the Honor Principle as a positive community value rather than a punishment, and establishing its scope as a policy that applies to all members of the community, not just for students or in an academic context.

After each group shared their points, participants were instructed to review the Honor Council’s proposed resolution on the Honor Council. Comment cards were provided for people to give feedback on any changes they wanted to see in the resolution, which is still being finalized before it will be publicly released. Audience feedback will be taken into consideration as the Honor Council reviews the resolution.

Millender concluded the session, saying that she and the rest of the Union Committee were “looking for ideas of how to carry the conversation next fall.” The next Reed Union is planned for the fall semester to revisit the Honor Principle in light of this meeting’s contributions, potentially alongside new issues. Until then, discussions within the community can continue outside of the structure of the Union. Regardless of whether there is an external reason, students, faculty, and staff can—and should—continue to have conversations about what matters in the community, as the first step to making the changes we want to see.

Reed Unions have a long history, beginning in the 1940s as organized debates involving students and faculty, who argued both sides of various contemporary issues. These Unions became an institutional tradition, run by student presidents. While the practice of holding Unions largely went away in recent years, following the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, this semester’s foray holds the potential to inaugurate a revival of this tradition of inter-community discourse and debate.