My life as columnist collided with my life as a professor this week.
As Milligan College finished its academic year, I failed a student because he submitted a paper that copied, almost word for word, an essay on the Internet and tried to pass it off as his own work. In the academic arena, we call that plagiarism. In other places, they call it cheating or even theft.
Academic dishonesty is a big problem, one that’s growing. In just the latest headlines, 34 students in the MBA program at Duke University were caught cheating and suspended two weeks ago.
At least one of every five college students confesses to cheating on an exam or other test, and half admit cheating on a writing assignment. That’s according to Donald McCabe, professor of management and global business at Rutgers Business School in New Jersey, who has researched academic honesty for more than 15 years, surveying hundreds of thousands of students.
So, sad to report, my plagiarizer wasn’t alone, even though Milligan is a Christian college, one of several in this region, one of scores across the country. Shouldn’t a religious environment make a difference?
“You’d like to think so,” said Michael Arrington, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Carson-Newman College, a Southern Baptist university in Jefferson City, Tenn. “But Christians are exposed to the same temptations as anyone else. We’re still human. I haven’t seen any studies that show Christian colleges have any lower incidence (of academic dishonesty) than state schools.”
Tracy Parkinson, dean of the faculty at King College, a college in Bristol, Tenn., affiliated with the Presbyterian Church USA, is equally humble.
“I don’t want to come across as saying our kids are more ethical than anywhere else,” he said. “That would be a bit self serving, and I don’t have enough evidence.”
But in fact, some evidence does suggest that religious schools are distinctive. Although McCabe has not formally studied church-related schools apart from other institutions, he is convinced that a religious environment can bolster academic integrity.
“There’s little question that the nature of Christian colleges is different,” he said in a phone interview this week. “It’s generally better, but not always. At some Christian colleges, the situation is clearly better.”
Carson-Newman might serve as an example. Arrington’s office receives only about seven or eight reports of academic dishonesty per semester, in a student body of almost 2,000. Arrington knows more incidents occur but, he said, “We have not had the problems we’ve heard from my peers at other schools.”
McCabe thinks two factors are at work. One is the role of religion at the school, which can vary widely, from secularized universities that began as Christian institutions, to those that highlight their religious character with devout mission statements, required chapel services or prayer during class. (Being a Christian college doesn’t imply an all-Christian student body; most schools readily admit non-Christians.)
“My sense would be that the more the school is infused with its Christian heritage, the more it teaches Christian principles, the better it will be,” McCabe said.
The size of the institution is another vital factor, he said. Small schools form tight-knit communities, and Christian colleges tend to be smaller than most.
“I would argue that some of the rituals and ceremonies help build community as well,” McCabe said. “When it comes to cheating, being part of community is important. Students realize they are going to stand out.”
King College connects community and academic integrity through its honor code, which is overseen by the Honor Council, a committee of students whose responsibility includes deciding cases of academic dishonesty. (One of the council’s faculty advisers was impressed that the students are “pretty tough on one another.”)
“If something goes before the Honor Council, then the ruling comes from the students, with guidance from faculty,” Parkinson explained. “It’s part of our responsibility to one another. The student ownership has been a positive influence.”
While no one is claiming Christian colleges are perfect examples of academic integrity, at the very least they offer some kind of alternative model.
“We all make mistakes,” Arrington said. “We want to be redemptive and use it as a teaching experience. We don’t want a mistake to destroy an academic career.”
First published in the Johnson City (Tenn.) Press, 12 May 2007.
Image via Glass Half Empty.
I recently overheard two teenagers deep in conversation about a paper neither had started for school yet. Here’s the part that I heard:
Girl 1: I haven’t even started writing it yet. I’m dreading it.
Girl 2: Just go to the Internet and copy and paste. That’s what I do.
I walked away both miffed at the general attidude and blatant cheating/plagarism and sad for them, too! Even though the vast majority of students don’t enjoy writing papers (I admit I’m a nerd and enjoying writing most of them. After all, what kind of a writer despises writing?!) I’d like to think that most students realize that research papers, essays, and the like aren’t a (good) instructor’s personal form of punishment.
I think most people don’t consider plagarism as big a sin as copying answers from a neighbor’s test. It’s really the same thing: taking someone else’s work and passing off as mine.
Duh.
So, Mr. Dahlman, I’m glad to hear plagarism received a failing grade. It is as it should be.
Comment by Annie — May 12, 2007 @ 11:24 pm |
A lot of schools are making students submit their papers via a website that checks it against the web for plagarism. This still wouldn’t catch papers that are paid for. As a writer, I had been contacted by a website one time to secure my services in writing made-to-order research papers. They pay well. Despite the monetary temptation, I turned them down
Good article, Jim.
Comment by Cher Smith — May 13, 2007 @ 11:02 am |
Jim, did your student fail the class or the paper assignment? I had a student last year who included verbatim parts of a Wikipedia article on her topic–I could tell when the prose style changed for the better and Googling it confirmed it’s source. Of course it’s harder with a paper purchased from a “supplier.” Working with our school’s dean, we gave her a chance to write it again plus another paper on the dangers of plagiarism in order to pass the course. I think she’s become a better student since then. Frankly most students’ writing level is so low that any “professionally written” paper stands out. I would hope having a paper with a prof’s specific criteria for an assignment would make it hard for a purchased paper to match.
The University’s honesty policy has been revised and transgressions must be reported upstairs and create a file that follow the student’s performance in all their classes so that cheating in one class becomes part of their permanent record rather than an isolated case that no one else ever knows about.
Comment by Alex — May 14, 2007 @ 8:59 am |
Alex, the student failed the paper, but it was such a major portion of the final grade that it caused him to also fail the class. The student has the opportunity to submit an acceptable paper in its place and therefore, in theory, could pass the class. Milligan has adopted a policy similar to the one you describe — all instances of academic dishonesty must be reported to the dean, to find possible patterns or repeat offenders.
Comment by Jim — May 14, 2007 @ 11:11 am |
(Gasp!) Professor Wainer, I hope you don’t mean MY writing level is that low! (Just teasin’. I know what you mean!)
I just have two words for all of you. No DUH!
Just because you slap the label Christian on something, that doesn’t mean it’s automatically heavenly bleached perfect. We all cheat, at some point. (I can’t say I’ve “cheated” in college per se, but I DID wait until the last minute to do my math papers almost religiously.) And I did do some cheating in my (Christian) high school. You’d be surprised how well you can code title/author match-ups in your literature class desk.
I remember one kid in my high school or maybe middle school class. We did an assignment about birds. While all the other kids paraphrased sections of books and encyclopedias, one kind whom I’ll call Scooby (Because that was his nickname anyway) decided that birds were too borin for him to research. SO he printed out the Encyclopedia Americana article on birds. My teacher failed him horribly because a) he KNEW Scooby didn’t write THAT well, and b) Scooby, being the genius that he was left the web address at the bottom of EVERY PAGE!
To be fair, I did plagiarize a little bit of my final term paper for my English class. Seems I thought what a particular organization wrote pretty much summed up what I wanted to say, so I slapped it somewhere in the middle of my report. Later, the teacher said my 18 page paper (About 90% of which was my ideas anyway) was too long and had to be cut. So the plagiarized material was scrapped anyway. Maybe that was God giving me a chance to redeem myself. It worked. I hadn’t cheated since. (Procrastinated maybe. Cheated, no.)
Comment by Ashley — May 15, 2007 @ 5:57 pm |
I think this says it all “I haven’t seen any studies that show Christian colleges have any lower incidence (of academic dishonesty) than state schools.” Of course not! So why would anyone, including CultureBeat, think this is news?
Comment by professor — June 15, 2007 @ 3:52 pm |
I cheated a couple of times in (Christian) high school but never in college. Several factors contributed to my repentance:
– I was raised to see cheating as wrong.
– I learned my lesson about cheating in HS. I was never caught, but I was ashamed of my actions and realized that I missed out on learning because of it.
– I committed my life to the lordship of Christ after my freshman year in college.
– My college, Rice University, had an honor code. On every assignment, I had to hand-write on the front “I have neither given nor received aid on this [assignment|test]“.
I was a student at Rice from 1978-1982; I don’t know if the honor code survives there still or not. It was liberating at the time because it meant that we were presumed honorable until proven otherwise. For example, we could, and sometimes did, have timed, closed-book, take-home exams.
The honor pledge sharpened the division between cheating and being honest. If I had cheated, then written the pledge on my assignment, I would have had to tell a bald-faced lie in addition to my cheating. While it is often easy to rationalize sin, it’s harder to rationalize, then lie about it to someone else. This is why accountability groups are effective.
However, I don’t think the honor code and pledge would have meant anything without the moral foundation provided by the first three factors. They amplified the instincts of my conscience, but if I didn’t think cheating was wrong in the first place, it wouldn’t have stopped me.
Comment by shoebear — June 25, 2007 @ 6:49 pm |
I am a college student who has never cheated. I have written every single one of my papers without anyones help and I study diligently for every exam that I don’t anticipate dropping (if that is a viable option). I don’t have a problem with cheating if it only affects the person cheating. Cheating doesn’t always negatively affect others.
Comment by Jairezzle — August 16, 2007 @ 11:32 pm |
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Comment by rocky — November 26, 2007 @ 10:37 pm |
omg … get a life … acting like none of you ever cheated …
Comment by jose — April 17, 2008 @ 11:27 am |
антимаулнетизм что антимаулнетизм спешно
Comment by антимаулнетизм молнии — June 21, 2008 @ 11:59 am |