So, you’re arguing that because the course syllabus warned the students beforehand, and the syllabus was previously approved by the instructor’s Department Head, that the instructor doesn’t deserve to be punished. The instructor should be reinstated, or his punishment reduced, because the students willfully approved and agreed to the syllabus prior the incident. Or, perhaps, if the instructor is to be punished, then the Department Head should also be punished, because he is the one who had the authority to reject the instructor’s syllabus and could have prevented this entire issue from ever happening in the first place. </p>
<p>If that were true, I’d completely agree.</p>
<p>However, the course syllabus promised to “[publicly] humiliate anyone who is caught lying, cheating, or stealing,” without every specifying how it’d be done. I can think of many ways one might interpret the “warning” as outlined in the course syllabus, ways that can be done without violating any federal (or state) laws – it’s incredibly vague. Far too vague for either the Department Head or the students to have any reason to reject it.</p>
<p>If you agree to something that is illegal, does the person still have the right to do something illegal? I took a law course a few decades ago so things are fuzzy but if a contract requires someone to do something that is illegal, then the contract is unenforceable.</p>
Nah… I don’t think the person should have the right to do something illegal, rather, I think that all those who agreed should be held equally accountable. For instance, if the Department Head approved of the instructor’s EXPLICIT warning by approving of the syllabus, then he should be removed from his position too (given that the instructor was fired under same conditions). Further, I think if the students willfullly agreed to their instructor’s illegal syllabus, despite the EXPLICT warning included within, and they had always known it was illegal, yet waited to “cry out” against it only once they were the “victims,” then they should be held equally accountable. </p>
<p>However, the “warning” given in the instructors syllabus, in this case, was not EXPLICIT, but rather it was implicit. It was very vague, and open to too many different interpretations for the instructor to be granted any leniency, or for either the Department Head or the students to be held accountable. So, yeah…</p>
<p>methinks A and M Laredo is a big school
methinks the department head looks at A LOT of syllabi
methinks his failure to catch this clause was an oversight not of a “criminally negligent” capacity</p>
<p>I don’t think he should be held accountable.</p>
<p>I had forgotten this until reading others’ stories, but when I was in college a professor accused me of plagiarism too–merely on the grounds that the one-paragraph commentary on a poem I had writtem was too sophisticated to have been composed by a mere student such as myself. I was so outraged that he backed off, fortunately. Then my roommate, a very bright and creative girl, was similarly accused by a different professor. I had watched her write that essay with no books or reference materials on her desk. She denied the charge and dared her teacher to prove it. He couldn’t, and also backed off. We were lucky. As in the case of my son, the teacher threw out an accusation based on mere suspicion, without any proof, to see if it would stick.</p>
<p>Any accusation of this gravity needs to be thoroughly reviewed by more than one person, since a professor could have a vendetta or bias. The prof. should have sent the evidence to the appropriate university authorities for a final determination/confirmation of his finding. He overstepped his bounds by bypassing such a step, and by publishing the names w/o doing that first.</p>
<p>Its really the only way to teach the students that its inappropriate, he said</p>
<p>I disagree.
Failing the class/assignment- would certainly be logical consequences.
Since ignorance is not an excuse, its possible that some students, had never been correctly taught the importance of accurately citing sources, or taught how to do so.</p>
<p>Meetings with students to see how they are doing on their paper- to assist/instruct them also could have been tried, but that would be assuming its not a 300 student class.</p>
<p>“Then what’s the point of him even reviewing them in the first place if not to catch blatantly illegal course outlines?”</p>
<p>They weren’t blatantly illegal course outlines, just inappropriate. he never said how he would publicly humiliate them, i.e. post grades, which is the illegal part</p>
<p>Classes at TAMIU are held in rooms sometimes smaller than a standard high school classroom. Intro courses almost always include no more than 30 students.</p>
<p>Not only his employer, but also himself. I won’t say it’s stupid for him to expose himself because he’s free to expose himself to litigation if he wants to, but an employee who exposes his employer to litigation should be fired.</p>
<p>Sounds like she was the guilty one. The corrected spelling an grammar errors, the study group quotes, the date/time stamp: she’s toast on the first two alone.</p>
<p>That was a pretty interesting read. And it sounds like the university was pretty dumb in how they handled it. This was a western civ class so there should have been several papers already assigned before this paper which appears to be the end of the term. Simply looking at prior papers should be enough to establish the author of the paper in question. If there were no prior papers, then looking at their English Comp I and English Lit papers should do.</p>
<p>I’m surprised that the lawyers didn’t do that.</p>
<p>The professor did not subvert “due process” in the school. At most schools, it is up to the discretion of the professor whether an assignment constitutes plagiarism. If the professor states in the syllabus that plagiarism constitutes failure for the assignment or the course, the school is not going to intervene. Professors are given great leeway on assigning grades. Perhaps this instructors only mistake was that he was not a full professor. </p>
<p>The point of sending the matter to the Provost, Dean, etc, is whether the school wants to pursue further actions - suspension, expulsion, etc, based on the severity of the plagiarism. </p>
<p>I’ve heard of very few instances where the professor’s decision has been overturned. Plagiarism is pretty cut and dry. And a professor usually doesn’t fail a student for missing a couple of citations, it has to be pretty clear, such as no citations, paraphrase or quotation without citation, taking large sections from known books in the field and online sources, multiple papers that are nearly identical, or simply buying papers online. </p>
<p>The students got fair warning, and I don’t think that the professor violated FERPA. He told everyone that those six students plagiarized their papers. Besides, there is already precedent for this- other colleges publicize lists. And what are people supposed to think, oh, they plagiarized their papers, they probably got a B+! No, the professor listed the consequences on the syllabus. You can assume that anyone who plagiarized received an F.</p>