The thing about the community of trust—of which all stewards—is that camaraderie, respect, identifying with the community, and integrity will keep the majority of students from cheating. And if that isn’t enough, the “single sanction” was historically a sufficient danger to raise the stakes immensely.

However, some students will cheat, and for that reason, I am very much against curves. If you learn the material and demonstrate that you have, you should get the A. But it’s more work for professors to calibrate their curriculums, and there seems to be no real accountability for the inverse of learning objectives—teaching objectives—so curves are likely here to stay.