The United States Naval Academy

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the United States Naval Academy has developed a strict honor policy, called the honor concept, to ensure that students develop sound personal integrity, firm leadership skills and most of all unconditional honesty. The author points out that an investigation of an incident in 1992, when 133 midshipmen were accused of stealing a copy of an exam required for their graduation, reported that this event was the result of extreme pressure to exceed academically and the pressures of military life and a rigorous honor code. The paper stresses that rather than using the honor concept to instill fear among midshipmen, it would serve as a tool to ensure that only the honorable, and utmost qualified men and women graduate from the Naval Academy.

From the Paper:

"Secondly, the Honor Concept cannot be effective when other policies contradict it. For example, many midshipmen did not come forward with information regarding the scandal due to, "the stricture against 'bilging a classmate'." Midshipmen are taught to avoid causing a companion to be looked down upon. Therefore, the question can be proposed of how is one to build personal integrity and honesty through the Honor Concept when he is taught not to come forward with information that could possible tarnish someone's reliability due to misconduct?"

Sample of Sources Used:

• Brock, Pope. "The Extremes of Honor." Making Choices. Eds. Michael Cooley and Katherine Powell. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997. 312-322.
• Schmitt, Pamela. UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY. 22 Oct. 2003. <http://www.usna.edu/Users/econ/pschmitt/FE461/FE461sy_03.pdf>.

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