By Kathryn Moore
Staff Writer
Cheating, plagiarism and academic dishonesty are phrases almost taboo at any college or university in the United States, especially at a university based on Christian values.
However, according to Susan D. Blum’s 2009 book, “My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture,” universities are facing an epidemic of cheating.
Blum writes that more than 75 percent of students admit to having cheated and 68 percent admit to cutting and pasting material from the Internet without citation.
To combat these statistics, Union updated its academic dishonesty policy in the Student Handbook for the 2012-2013 year.
It requires students to “uphold the highest standards of honesty … to refrain from the use of unauthorized aids during testing … to refuse to give or receive information on examinations, and to turn in only those assignments (that) are the result of their own efforts and research.”
Hunter Baker, dean of instruction and acting dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, said he attributes cheating at universities to the availability of technology.
“Smart phones are probably a source of violations,” Baker said. “Ditto with Internet-based plagiarism.”
The handbook says the professor, not a Union judicial committee, decides a student’s punishment. Consequences vary from professor to professor. Baker said he would guess the most common penalty is to give a failing grade for the assignment.
If the student is an undergraduate, the professor is required to file a report with the dean of instruction. Baker said he has only been notified of an
academic dishonesty incident once in the last year.
“My suspicion is that the vast majority of cases are dealt with between student and professor without any further documentation,” Baker said.
A student may file an appeal with the administrator with whom the original report was filed.
If the student or the instructor deems the administrator’s action unsatisfactory, that party may request a hearing before the faculty affairs committee for a final decision.
Bryan Carrier, assistant dean of students and chief judicial officer, is involved in the final hearing as keeper of the official records.
“I only have records of academic dishonesty cases that have been appealed or handled by academic administration,” Carrier said. “(In the last three years) there are a limited number of cases each year that arise to that level — one to three.”
Union also has invested in a web-based service called TurnItIn that allows professors to more easily prevent plagiarism.
“TurnItIn reviews the submitted paper for potential plagiarism … by comparing the paper against a worldwide database of papers and web pages,” said Jim Avery, associate vice president for Information Technology. “TurnItIn also checks grammar usage, spelling, mechanics and style. This allows the teacher to focus on providing more substantive feedback to students.”
In fall 2012, a group of students performed research to discover why Union students cheat.
Josh Morgan, senior psychology major, with his Applied Research class, conducted a survey of 374 Union upperclassmen that analyzed participants’ perception of cheating.
Morgan said the study’s results linked academic dishonesty with academic entitlement, or the belief that students have a right to attain certain grades.
“We found that the higher the academic entitlement, the more tolerant the student was to academic dishonesty,” Morgan said. “Also, we found that students who are extremely committed to an activity, such as Union athletics or Greek life, also have a more lenient view of academic dishonesty.”
However, Morgan said that for the most part, participants responded negatively to questions regarding academic dishonesty. Baker agreed and said he is not especially concerned with the amount of cheating at Union.
“As with most things, I view Union students as more ethical, more kind and more loving in many aspects relative to what I have observed elsewhere,” he said.
