At the University of California, San Diego, we try to honor and celebrate integrity. We do this in an attempt to counter the often negative way in which people approach academic integrity (as if it WERE cheating instead of the OPPOSITE of cheating). There are two main public ways in which we do this: 1) an annual Integrity Awards Ceremony held every April in which we celebrate "integrity champions" among our faculty, staff, students and alumni; and 2) an annual "Excel with Integrity" Contest in which students submit art (written, video, song, visual) to explain how or why they excel with integrity or why excelling with integrity is so important.
There are many winning entries displayed on our UC San Diego Academic Integrity website, but here are the lessons I think that any institution can draw from our spotlighted experience.
Lesson #1 - Celebrate Integrity. Don't let a cheating scandal be the first time people hear about the importance of integrity on your campus. Be proactive and be positive - integrity is something to be desired and developed, not feared.
Lesson #2 - Spend a little to get a lot. We give $250 to the winner of our contest and $150 to the runner-up. You can adjust that amount to suit your campus. We have found cash to be the most attractive draw to the contest. One year we had a bicycle donated (worth far more than $250) and we received fewer entries! So, it may be the usefulness/convenience of the prize is more important than the dollar amount.
Lesson #3 - Involve students. Students should be involved in the designing/creating of your proactive and positive integrity efforts if you want them to attract students. They should also be involved in judging/picking winners - for example, the adults in the room never would have picked the Gorillaz album entry since most of us didn't know what the "Gorillaz" were!
Lesson #4 - Showcase the results. The fruits of your efforts shouldn't just be noticeable for the one day or event. Build your website to highlight your awards, your contest and your other positive-proactive approaches on a daily basis. This can help feed the culture, changing hearts and minds until they believe that the institution cares about integrity and that integrity is something for which we should all continually aim.
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