2008 Woodie Awards
Culture of cheating at St. Joe's
HSB and CAS students are equally guilty in their yearly violations of academic honesty
David Spain '08 and Kelleen O'Fallon '07
Issue date: 9/26/07 Section: News
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Most students have seen it. A young woman tapes notes to her leg under her skirt before taking a test. The guy two desks away from you leans over to see his neighbor's answers. A friend neglects to read a book he was expected to write a paper for, so he just copies some information off a Web site he found.
But those are the acts of high school students. College students are different. They are expected to be mature, to care about their learning, and above all to have integrity. Academic honesty should be at the top of their list.
"I cheated on an Italian exam once, but that test was impossible," said a junior English major. She hid the essay answers under her test as she took it.
"Freshman year, I plagiarized a paper about a novel for Texts and Contexts. The book was boring," said a junior sociology major. His teacher e-mailed his class about the evils of plagiarism, but he was never caught.
A junior accounting major recounts his experiences in a business class in which he and the other students in his class talked to each other through chat rooms about the exam they were in the process of taking on their laptops.
The fact of the matter is that cheating does exist on college campuses, whether it is in the form of cheating on tests or homework assignments or plagiarism, and Saint Joseph's University is no different. But is it rampant, and has it increased? What exactly is the culture of cheating at St. Joe's?
"A culture of cheating means you brag about it to your friends because you think it is cool," said Paul Klingsberg, Ph.D., a professor of mathematics and a member of the Academic Honesty Board, which hears cases concerning students caught cheating or plagiarizing. He does not sense that that is the mentality at St. Joe's.
"In my department I tend to trust the students completely," he said.
Yet Klingsberg recognizes that cheating does happen, as his experiences on the Board can attest.
"Students think professors are stupid," said Mary Lloyd, '08, who is also a member of the Academic Honesty Board. According to Lloyd, students think they can get away with blatant plagiarism or blatant cheating on tests because professors are too ignorant or lazy to pick up on it. In reality, many of those students are caught.
But those are the acts of high school students. College students are different. They are expected to be mature, to care about their learning, and above all to have integrity. Academic honesty should be at the top of their list.
"I cheated on an Italian exam once, but that test was impossible," said a junior English major. She hid the essay answers under her test as she took it.
"Freshman year, I plagiarized a paper about a novel for Texts and Contexts. The book was boring," said a junior sociology major. His teacher e-mailed his class about the evils of plagiarism, but he was never caught.
A junior accounting major recounts his experiences in a business class in which he and the other students in his class talked to each other through chat rooms about the exam they were in the process of taking on their laptops.
The fact of the matter is that cheating does exist on college campuses, whether it is in the form of cheating on tests or homework assignments or plagiarism, and Saint Joseph's University is no different. But is it rampant, and has it increased? What exactly is the culture of cheating at St. Joe's?
"A culture of cheating means you brag about it to your friends because you think it is cool," said Paul Klingsberg, Ph.D., a professor of mathematics and a member of the Academic Honesty Board, which hears cases concerning students caught cheating or plagiarizing. He does not sense that that is the mentality at St. Joe's.
"In my department I tend to trust the students completely," he said.
Yet Klingsberg recognizes that cheating does happen, as his experiences on the Board can attest.
"Students think professors are stupid," said Mary Lloyd, '08, who is also a member of the Academic Honesty Board. According to Lloyd, students think they can get away with blatant plagiarism or blatant cheating on tests because professors are too ignorant or lazy to pick up on it. In reality, many of those students are caught.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 3
Regina M. Robson
posted 9/26/07 @ 11:08 AM EST
Every semester I have a few students who cheat. These are the ones I catch; I can only assume others get away with it. What is most upsetting is that they are frequently "good" students - at least in their own eyes. (Continued…)
weidner
Ken Weidner
posted 10/03/07 @ 1:57 PM EST
My comment begins philosophically and closes pragmatically.
Academic integrity is one form of "integrity." I think the question to ask is:
"Why is 'academic integrity' (AI) important?"
AI has two basic premises that underlies all scholarly (i. (Continued…)
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