<p>Tsk, tsk, tsk…they don’t do such a thing at the Ivy school. It seems like state schools have the “I want you to fail; I’m after you” mentality, whereas at the Ivies you have a “I want you to succeed, and I’m here to help you” one.</p>
<p>RUN.</p>
<p>The first time the university here in Laredo is mentioned on CC…</p>
<p>This article appeared in the newspaper last week, but it was more focused on the students’ chance of getting the F repealed than what the professor had done. TAMIU isn’t publicizing whatever action they might be taking; this has been a dead story for a week here.</p>
<p>It makes no sense to say that instructors are now afraid to bring plagiarism charges. He wasn’t fired for accusing the students of plagiarism; he was fired for the publicizing. I am an adjunct, frequently deal with plagiarism issues, frequently fail students for it, but I have no right to tell others.</p>
<p>And I’d expect I might be fired if I did. Circling the wagons is spurious; if they want a real issue, how about advocating for better adjunct pay (which most full-time faculty could not care less about.)</p>
<p>
And as an aside, because of this story I now know:
- Texas A & M International University is a college in Laredo
- There are wild javelinas on the campus (it says so on the college web site)
- Javelinas look like pigs but they are not pigs (thank you, google.com)</p>
<p>You learn something new every day. :)</p>
<p>How is this any different than someone arrested on suspicion of prostitution having their name printed in a paper? I don’t see much difference, except for the arena they are located in. Its pathetic that he was fired, because it is only positively reinforcing that cheating and plagiarism is acceptable. Cheating is already rampant enough, and doing everything possible to weed it out is something that should result in adulation, not dismissal from a job. The kids knew what chances they were taking by being so pathetically lazy, and they deserve to pay for it.</p>
<p>I don’t see an issue with the grades being posted, because it is common knowledge plagiarism results in an ‘F’ in post-secondary education.</p>
<p>Edit: I am still a kid, and my post may be influenced by my disdain for cheating having seen other kids doing it, but it seems like one of the instances that privacy laws shouldn’t apply (i.e. don’t jump on me, just post a reasoned answer why I am wrong if you disagree with me.)</p>
<p>I don’t think he deserved to be fired-- He warned them of the consequences, and followed through…if they plagerized AND knew his rules, then by all means they deserved to fail and have their names posted.</p>
<p>The Scarlet Letter approach is never really effective.</p>
<p>amciw: Well, in answer to your question, “How is this any different than someone arrested on suspicion of prostitution having their name printed in a paper?,” the operating word is “suspicion.” The professor did not say (as far as I know) that these students were suspected of plagiarism. The professor stated emphatically that they were guilty. Would he stake his life on it being true?</p>
<p>Actually, the difference is that the professor violated a federal law, FERPA, by public disclosure of the grades these students received or would receive. IMO, he was within his rights to tell students he would fail them for plagiarism, and to follow up on the threat, but he’s not allowed to disclose this information to anyone but the person involved.</p>
<p>Exactly. And the F is fairly sufficient consequences–it’s not exactly a slap on the wrist.</p>
<p>Plagiarism is a serious violation. The problem lies in the possibility that the professor is WRONG.</p>
<p>Yes, that is the problem. The professor could be wrong. He probably wasn’t in this case, but I’m sure it does happen.</p>
<p>My S was once falsely accused of plagiarism on a summer project freshman year in high school. What happened was that the teacher sent any suspicious work to the librarian, who ran the papers through a software program. Several students in the class who were suspected, questioned and then confessed, so that was the teacher’s context. Then they called S down, and he didn’t confess because he hadn’t done it. Apparently, the software program had picked up a 5-word phrase also found in the Spark Notes commentary on the book, but those 5 words came from the most important quote in the novel. Probably half the class cited that same phase, but their papers weren’t sent to the librarian. There was absolutely nothing else about the content, style, topic selection, or chronology or anything else of his work that was similar to Spark Notes other than the fact that any notes on the same book will have some commonality. Apparently, the only reason S’s work was suspect at all was because the teacher thought it was too well-written for an Hispanic. This situation was perfectly awful. Fortunately, since the teacher told him what he had allegedly plagiarized from, it was a simple matter to print out the Spark Notes and S’s notes and show the department head that the accusation was completely groundless. She agreed, but the whole thing was a complete nightmare. And who knows whether anyone bothered to tell the guidance counselor that the accusation was false? We asked for it to be done, but an accusation is very damaging even if proven false.</p>
<p>TheGFG: This is a very good example of how an innocent person can be pegged as a cheater and why we must be careful before we accuse. It must have been a horrible experience.</p>
<p>A slight distinction perhaps needs to be made here, plagiarism is an ethical offense covered under collegiate policies. Soliciting a prostitute is under the criminal code and therefore could have provision written into statute which upon conviction the John would have his name published. </p>
<p>Granted plagiarism is a substantial problem and one which vexes academics considerably. And so many of the professorial contingent would entertain fantasies of such extreme policies, but sensibly never enact such excesses. And most would be very careful to remain within the procedural norms their schools have to handle such issues. </p>
<p>However the prof here seems to have exceeded those limits. According to M. Young “I have wasted much of today reading plagiarized essays. Six (6) students have already been caught and will receive an “F” for the course. The Dean of the College, the Chair of the Department, the Provost, and the Executive Director for Student Life have all been notified. The students may be subject to University disciplinary actions, and appeals to such a decision should be in conformance with University regulations” (thanks dtw8up for the apparent blog entry) </p>
<p>In appears that by his own admission he may have been subverting the due process procedures of his own institution… as it would seem that The Dean, Dept Chair, Provost, Student Life Director and presumably a student honor/ethics committee would all need to make an assessment whether plagiarism did indeed occur before censure would be applied. </p>
<p>From a pragmatic view, his decision was very ill considered. Private consultation with the students would have been enough to provide warning of potential consequences, before handing it over to the COC. Additionally the manner in which he publicized the students ensures an unnecessary loss of face for them, an unjustified excess given the potential problems which could arise. It would have been better to fail them, and to warn of further trouble if additional plagiarism occurs rather than to revel in professorial power and publicly wreck students (albeit ones with poor judgment) potential futures. </p>
<p>In other pragmatic considerations no doubt the college admin. was worried about extreme responses from the students affected by this situation. Some of the more unstable or pressured students could have considered suicide or other violent acts as a result of this poorly executed policy. And the lawsuit problems resultant from violation of federal and state privacy regulations has already been mentioned. </p>
<p>On the whole a very bad series of decisions by the prof…</p>
<p>You’re right – the error here is really in that the professor could be wrong, not in what he did. While immature to publically humiliate his students, do real wrongdoers deserve better?</p>
<p>But I say yes for two reasons. It is wrong because it could violate the due process of the university and federal laws, but more importantly, and tied to the first reason, because <em>he could be wrong</em> </p>
<p>As a person who has been falsely accused with life-changing allegations, there are few things worse than having your name smeared when you just didn’t do it. Few people give creedance to the falsely accused. People think, if they are innocent, they will be vindicated, so what’s to fear? Well, tell that to the innocent people in jail or those set free whose love ones have alienated them because they will never quite look at them the same again because their views have been so colored by the mere implication of impropriety. </p>
<p>These students deserve better</p>
<p>There were a number of professors at Duke that openly criticized the Lacrosse Players for their “crimes” which damaged the players in terms of arrest records for sexual assault and worldwide publicity. There are many (perhaps a majority) in Durham that still think that they did it. The Gang of 88 letter certainly didn’t help.</p>
<p>Yes, professors can be wrong. Dead wrong. And they’re still trying to whitewash and cover up their sordid behavior in the matter. One only has to watch KC Johnson’s Blog from time to time to see what the bad actors are up to.</p>
<p>One thing that we’ve discussed at durhaminwonderland is getting your name out of sexual offense databases for the wrongly accused and the wrongly convicted. The Innocence Project has cleared over 200 convicted people that have served jail sentences, in some cases, very lengthy, and that have been on death row. Imagine losing 20, 30, 40 years of your life for something that you didn’t do. Or being falsely charged with rape, arrested, interrogated, having to come up with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend yourself, etc. Or having the police break down the door to your house with weapons drawn and pointed at you.</p>
<p>I don’t think he was wrong to publish the names, BUT I do think he did it at the wrong time. If he had waited for the dean, and whoever else, to review the cases and make a decision, and then published, I wouldn’t have been upset.
Plagiarism is awful and shouldn’t be encouraged.
However, everyone is innocent until found guilty. A clich</p>
<p>Again, it isn’t a matter of “deserved.” It is illegal to publish this information, just like it’s illegal to release medical information about you. that’s just the reality here, no matter what one might prefer.</p>
<p>“even if all the evidence points toward someone, there’s always a chance that there’s been a mistake.”</p>
<p>The chances are getting bigger with identity theft.</p>
<p>We had a local case a few years ago where an ex-boyfriend of a women used a public access terminal to spoof an email to the woman’s employer (military unit) with threats to her superior officers. So when she went there, she was apprehended. They eventually figured out that it was the ex-boyfriend.</p>
<p>When I was in HS, I did an independent study in which I was “mentored” by a teacher new to the school who knew a lot about my topic: the Irish Literary renaissance. </p>
<p>I read a lot of novels, plays, and poetry and wrote a lengthy paper. The teacher was annoyed with me because I didn’t go and see her enough to suit her. I was laboring under the misapprehension that an “independent study” was, well, independent. No specific guidelines or expectations re meetings were ever set up.</p>
<p>She took my lengthy paper, marked it up with comments such as “footnote this” wherever I expressed any insight or used any vocabulary that she considered too advanced for a HS student. She gave me a big red D, and then she POSTED my paper on a public bulletin board in her room. With a thumbtack.</p>
<p>Apparently she thought it “didn’t read like a student paper.” Apparently it never occurred to her to ask one of the teachers in her dept who knew my work whether I could have written it without cribbing liberally from literary criticism. (I read only original texts, and knew nothing about sources of literary scholarship at that age.) She apparently failed to take into account that a) the “average” HS student doesn’t choose to undertake an independent study on the Irish Literary Renaissance and read 20+ texts in one semester, b) I was an NMF with the highest verbal SAT in my class and was one of the outstanding English students, and c) any intelligent reader approaching the same set of texts is likely to come to similar conclusions.</p>
<p>NO ONE defended me. She appointed herself judge, jury, and executioner. Looking back, she should have been strongly disciplined, or better yet fired for what she did.</p>
<p>This adjunct deserved to be fired. The students may well be guilty, but he failed to follow the process established by the college and he broke federal law by publicizing their names.</p>
<p>Everyone accused of plagiarism is not guilty.</p>