History of Civilization II
The end of my sophomore year was ten days
away. The Dean of Students
had sent word by way of one of his snitches for me to come to his office. I'd had several run-ins
with him before, none of which had gone well. During these first two years he had
found it necessary to (1) issue me countless warnings; (2) require me to offer
written/verbal apologies to faculty and students for egregious behavior; and
(3), present me with invoices for property damages.
I hadn't done anything terrible lately,
so I assumed it was someone else's dirty work that I was going to get credit
for. Once I sat down in his office, I learned that instead of the usual
accusatory rant, it was actually worse - he wanted to discuss my grades.
He said that my current GPA was 1.3 and that a C average of 2.0 was required to
graduate. In addition, I was quickly approaching a point where it would
be statistically impossible to raise my GPA to a C in the remaining two
years. He ended the conversation by encouraging me to find a way to turn
things around.
This added to my growing concern over the
History of Civilization final exam scheduled for the next day. This final
was a multiple choice exam termed "comprehensive" as it was to cover
all two years totaling 30 units, lectures and reading materials encompassing a
little over two thousand years of art, literature, philosophy, music, religion
– you get the idea. Since I had missed the majority of the lectures
and hadn't yet started studying for the exam, things did not look promising.
I was going to need help figuring a way around this. Marc Hartwig had
been a good sounding board in the past and I asked him to join me in the attic
of the FiJi
The next morning we drove up and parked
in the remote and rarely used parking lot behind Thorne Hall where the test was
being given. We arrived about twenty minutes after the test was handed
out. All exams at Occidental were carried out under an honor
system. Test materials were distributed by college staffers at the start
and then the staffers left the building. When students completed their
exams they placed their materials in a box which was later retrieved by the
staffers.
Hartwig waited in the car and I entered
the stage area at the back of Thorne Hall. To repay property damages it
had been necessary for me to work part time jobs at the college during the last
two years. I had done custodial chores in and around Thorne hall – I knew
the place like the back of my hand. After entering the back stage area, I
climbed the stairwell until I was above the hall's ceiling. The ceiling
inside the hall that rises thirty-odd feet above the seating area is actually a
"drop" ceiling. Above this drop ceiling, there is an eight foot
high open space that runs the entire length of the hall. The drop ceiling
is a massive lattice constructed with eight inch wide wood beams. The
open areas between the beams are two-by-two feet square. The open squares
are covered by a loose knit material like burlap that you can see
through. The area above the drop ceiling is not lit but of course the
area where everyone was seated
was well lit. This allowed me to walk gingerly across the beams without
fear of being detected and perch in a spot by the front of the hall where I
could wait and watch for the first person to finish.
Larry McClelland was the first to grab
his stuff, leave the hall and deposit his test materials in the box in the
foyer. The exam had only taken him forty-five minutes. I proceeded
forward through the 2,000 organ pipes located above the foyer, went down the
stairs and into the foyer. I left Larry's answer sheet but I took his
exam booklet from the box. It was then a simple matter of retracing my
way through the organ pipes, above and across the 400 unsuspecting test takers,
and back down to the car where Hartwig was waiting. Piece of cake.
Our plan was based on the following
assumptions:
- If we called the History of Civ office at
mid-day (which we did separately of course) and said we were sick and had
missed the test, they would schedule a make up test.
- Since we were deathly ill, the make up test
would be scheduled at least two days off to allow us to recover and give
us ample time to research answers to the questions in the test booklet.
- Due to the scope of the comprehensive test and
the effort required to create a second test, even if it were determined
that one booklet had gone missing, they would not take the trouble to
create a second test.
- Larry McClelland (or whoever finished first)
would obviously be a straight A student and being above reproach, would
suffer no adverse consequences if it were discovered that his booklet was
missing.
Normally, Marc and I would have some real
misgivings about cheating. In this instance, no such concerns were ever
in play. We were swept up in the enthusiasm for this caper; once
formulated, there was no way we were going to pass this up. Granted, not flunking
out of school added to the appeal.
Following the plan we called in sick, the
make up test was scheduled for the following week and we spent five straight
days in the attic of the Fiji
We arrived at the History of Civ office
for the make up test, were handed each a test booklet and an answer sheet, and
sent to two adjacent cubicles. I opened the test booklet and was
greatly relieved to find that it was the same test that we had studied.
Marc and I had agreed that if it were the same test, we would both shoot for a
grade of B – no need to flaunt things at this stage, We had even
determined in advance which answers we would mark incorrectly so that our
answer sheets would look different, I went about marking my answer sheet
as planned but then I noticed that Hartwig was doing all kinds of erasing.
I suspected that Hartwig was going for an
A instead of a B. This pissed me off.
If he was going for an A, then I was
going to go for an A+. I spent over two hours checking and rechecking my
answers against the questions until I was convinced there weren't more than
five questions where I wasn't certain of the answer. This was due to the
fact that even with five days to study there were still some questions we couldn't
answer. I got up, turned in my test and walked outside. Hartwig
stayed for another twenty minutes.
Toward the middle of the summer I
received my grades in the mail. I looked at the semester grade for
History of Civ and saw a C. This struck me as odd since the final exam
was supposed to comprise more than half of your grade for the whole
semester. If I had nailed the final, as I was sure that I had, there was
no way I should get anything lower than a B. I waited a few weeks after I
returned to school in the fall before I stopped by the History of Civ office to
ask how I had done on the comprehensive make up test. The lady behind the
counter wrote down my name and went off to check. I waited a full fifteen
minutes before she finally returned. Something was surely afoot.
She looked me straight in the eye and said, "C, you got a C." I
didn't say anything right away. I didn't flinch, smirk or gasp. I
remained perfectly motionless and after a second or two I said, "Thanks"
and walked back down to the Fiji