Ethics of Academic Dishonesty

Not one student was dismissed for failure to comply with the academic honesty policy last year. Whew. We must be more ethical than the rest of America because most sources show that between 75 and 98 percent of America’s high school and college students have cheated in one way or another.
The Olivet College Student Handbook lists the following as forms of academic dishonesty: cheating, plagiarism, fabrication, failure to contribute, sabotage, misrepresentation, and facilitating dishonesty. All are situations students could be faced. According to America’s societal norms it is unethical to participate in academic dishonesty, or is it? No one condones academic dishonesty yet many participate in it; very hypocritical. A 1992 Reuters study showed that “74% of people have witnessed cheating during an examination.” Looking at someone’s answers and work is very easily done in many classrooms and it is often less consequential than it should be. As an American society we don’t condone cheating but we don’t oppose it or impose many consequences.
In the courses I have taken many students don’t understand plagiarism. One student that I talked with commented, “Doesn’t everyone plagiarize? When you don’t know a word you copy the definition from the dictionary.” Hope College’s Web site states, “ You are plagiarizing if you cut and paste without acknowledging your source, borrow an idea without acknowledging your source, turn in a paper purchased online or written by a friend, or if you have turned in a paper you have already received credit for in another course.”
Students must realize that there is a difference between searching and researching, even though many students don’t practice this difference. An article by M. Gladwell from The New Yorker said, “Words belong to the person who wrote them. There are fewer simpler ethical notions than this one, particularly as society directs more and more energy and resources toward the creation of intellectual property.”
A question you should ask yourself when doing homework is; are the consequences worth the risk?
Often students answer the previous question with a yes because they are more likely to get away with academic dishonesty than to get caught for it. Recently I randomly polled students on campus and they said that cheating and plagiarism was, “common, easy to do, and worth it.” Some said that their cell phones were the best way to get ahead during a test and that the Internet made writing papers easier.
A CNN survey on cheating found that the Internet does make plagiarism easier: “There are many Web sites like schoolsucks.com where you can download a paper on any subject for $9.95 per page.” CNN also found that students cheat because of, “academic pressure, poor adult examples, and that it is easily rationalized.” Nocheating.org claims that while, “20% of college students admitted to cheating in high school during the 1940s, today between 75 and 98% of college students have reported having cheated.”
Cheating is much more socially acceptable and carries less of a stigma than it did sixty years ago. The No Cheating organization also found that because of, “the campus norm, no honor code, penalties being not severe, no faculty support for academic integrity policies, heavy workloads, and the small chance of being caught.” is why students cheat. I think it’s simple: students act without integrity in the classroom to simply get ahead. Does a student who cheats have anything to judge themselves against ethically if society accepts the behavior?
Olivet fits the profile for a high occurrence of cheating, according to the study done by Reuters, “The higher percentages (of students who cheat) are in fields that are typically very competitive.” Studies show that business, insurance and engineering students are more likely to cheat. The same survey noted, “It is easier to cheat in math or science based majors, since in humanities majors would need to gather your own thoughts in papers and essays.” Cheating is easier when there is only one right answer. I have sat in business classes while students zoomed in on pictures of their study guide on their cell phone. This usually goes unnoticed since so many of us students intermittently use our phones in class. Society’s acceptance of cheating and plagiarism as the norm has made many students unaware of the stigma that used to be attached to academic dishonesty.
I believe that if Olivet College wishes to hold students to being academically honest faculty and staff should hold themselves to the same standards. I personally know many students, who cheat and plagiarize, get caught and the teacher simply gives them a zero for the assignment. I think that the college needs to enforce their rules and use the sanctions as stated in the handbook.
The Olivet College Student Handbook lists these as sanctions for academic dishonesty, “an official written statement expressing disapproval of acts committed; one year disciplinary probation, including withdrawal from athletics, ISC organizations, and student leadership positions; one year college suspension; or expulsion.” These sanctions are fair, but when are they used? According to Matt Wait, head of the Judicial Board at OC, “we had a few violations last year, but there were no dismissals from the college. Most of the students received warning letters.”
However, Matt Wait will not be dealing with cases of academic dishonesty this year. It must be noted that recently the college has changed the procedure for how faculty deals with academic dishonesty and the new procedure calls for the new Academic Performance Committee to keep track of repeat offenses and decide consequences outside of the professors in each classroom. Each professor can handle cases of dishonesty individually and most have their standards and sanctions on their syllabus, but also the new committee will oversee further repercussions and repeat offenses. The Academic Performance Committee is helping to hold us more accountable four our actions. For more information on the new procedures and sanctions refer to page 3 in your Student Handbook.
Because students do not see academic dishonesty as a problem it is best, according to Plagarism.org, to catch students in the act. We must hold each other to equal standards not just let the faculty deal with it. Allowing academic dishonesty is not any more ethical than cheating. Students don’t gain knowledge when they cheat or plagiarize; so why should they get credit for it? A’s shouldn’t reflect students’ ability to cheat but the knowledge they’ve gained. As students we shouldn’t want to get credit for work we didn’t do. According to the Compact we are “responsible for contributing to the learning of others.” Anytime we let someone copy and paste or sneak the answers off of someone else’s quiz we are breaking a part of the Compact and supporting an unequal playing field for ourselves as well.
Another tactic in minimizing academic dishonesty is knowing how to properly give credit where credit is due. Many students are found guilty of unintentionally plagiarizing. Proper citation, keeping your ideas separate from your notes from the text or class, knowing how to properly paraphrase, tracking your references, making sure you quote anything that isn’t a fact, and clearly knowing your professor’s citation guidelines can keep you out of trouble. CNN suggests that educators “promote integrity among students rather than trying to police their dishonesty.” Eli Newberger, M.D., founder of the Family Development Program at the Children’s Hospital of Boston claims there is simply too much sympathy for students who get caught.
This may be why there are so few academic dishonesty cases each year at Olivet. Are our professors too sympathetic? Most professors I have had take academic dishonesty into their own hands and fail to report the incident any further. The new Academic Performance Committee hopes to prevent this. Teachers and professors are often judged on their classrooms overall performance so good grades are the goal, bottom line, so ethically a professor who notices academic dishonesty and doesn’t report it, is wrong.
I also feel that professors should not have to stake out their classrooms during exams and tests or search every word in the essay you turned in. Let’s hold ourselves responsible, as the Compact suggests, and to higher standards than in years past. I know that I want an even playing field for my peers. Every student here has different morals and values but as responsible students we are a good tactic for leveling the chance of fairness.
Overall I think that as a college striving for good ethics according to the Compact, we need to step up as students, professors, and administration and make better ethical decisions. Whether the academic dishonesty is intentional or just the case of poor citation, Plagarism.org suggests, “you know why plagiarism occurs, identify its different forms, and try to prevent yourself as well as others from plagiarism at all costs.” I leave you with this, spoken by Thomas Jefferson, “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.”