New policy at Yale

A couple of weeks ago I read in the newspaper that Yale is (or has) put a new regulation in place that expressly forbids sexual intercourse between faculty and students. I had a couple of immediate reactions. 1) Why is such a regulation necessary? 2) Why is such a regulation necessary now?
I ask the first question because it has always been my understanding that sex between faculty and students has always been unacceptable behaviour. I have heard stories, read novels and seen movies where such relationships were described or portrayed. However intimate relationships between faculty and students have always been not acceptable and usually grounds for dismissal, particularly if there was any suggestion that the academic integrity of the institution was being bent. In other words if sex was being traded for marks, both the professor and the student would be disciplined. So why is a written regulation needed? And that brings me to my second question, why now?
I have two possible answers. The first answer has to do with the increasing average age of students at post-secondary institutions. It is fairly easy to justify a "no sex" rule when almost all students are coming to college directly from secondary school. The age and the role differences give a middle-aged faculty member a great deal of power over teenage students. However, as the average age of post-secondary students has gone up and is projected to continue to go up that argument begins to lose power. While the role difference is still obvious, the age difference has been significantly reduced. Intimacy between a 25 year old and a 40 year old is acceptable, but intimacy between a 17 year old and a 40 year old is not usually acceptable. The new regulation makes sense in the light of this change in the age profile of students.
The second possible reason is the continued growing of what M. Scott Peck has called "secularism": the idea that I am the centre of the universe, that what I want counts first, that my rights are at least equal to and probably superior to society's rights. We have policies and regulations at colleges and in other organizations for many things that were common knowledge a generation or two ago. For example, cheating now has to be defined, the boundaries of academic integrity have to be described in such a way that they will stand against a legal challenge in a courtroom. In course outlines professors have to write things such as "Printed assignments will be submitted with one staple in the top right hand corner. Work that is not stapled will not be accepted. The instructor will not supply a stapler or staples." A common verbal reaction from students when they are about to be disciplined is: "you didn't tell me I couldn't". I wonder if this new regulation at Yale is meant to say "we said you could not do this. Don't do it or there will be consequences."
If the second alternative is part of the reason for this new regulation, it is a predictable but sad result of a significant change in our relationships with each other in our society.

Cheating -- Again

A couple of weeks ago two students handed in the same assignment. This is the second time this semester for these two students. So I immediately handed the files to the Dean who then passed it to the Associate Dean. The penalty imposed was a zero in the course. It could have been worse: the "normal" penalty for a second offense is dismissal from the college for one academic year. While I felt a strong penalty had to be imposed, I thought dismissal for one year to be too severe for the work submitted (2 5% assignments). I think the zero in the course is reasonable and it is one of the options listed in the Academic Integrity policy.
I am really bothered by cheating, but then I am really bothered by lies. In some situations it is not appropriate to tell all the truth. But lying is not acceptable. Many students protest they are not cheating when they have done exactly what the college policy labels as dishonest. Many seem not to understand that sharing computer files is cheating. Presenting work as your own if it is not is dishonest and deserves to be penalized.