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The Dean weighs in on cheating
Dean of Students Judy Cummins gives her point of view on academic dishonesty.
The Upper School is a unique community where students and faculty live the shared values of trust, honesty and respect. Academic honesty is a key component of these values. I believe that our students do not take these expectations lightly and, consequently, when academic dishonesty occurs, it is a serious and complicated violation.
The news media reports that cheating has reached epidemic proportions in academia, especially high school and higher education (2013 Harvard University cheating scandal). Perhaps this is true at SPA but I have not seen evidence of it.
Although academic dishonesty is the most frequent violation that comes before the Discipline Committee (an average of 5 cases yearly), there is no difference in the number of cases we have seen over the last 10 years. One recent challenge lies in the wide availability and ease of on-line access to information i.e. papers to purchase, Wikipedia, etc.
The majority of our cases involve language and concepts that come directly from sources without attribution. Our students understand that plagiarizing a paper is wrong but have more difficulty with the gray area of when and how do collaboration and conversation about work cross the line.
The concept raised in the student poll about loyalty vs. honesty presents a moral dilemma to many students. In our community, we encourage students to communicate with teachers when they are having difficulty with work, not take the risk with their integrity. The student representatives on the DC focus on the motivation of the student, highlight the violation of trust and the breaking of relationship with the teacher, and ask the student to strategize how this will be different in the future.Consequences without strategies rarely lead to a change in behavior and these conversations are designed to prevent development of a pattern of academic dishonesty.
In higher education, consequences for academic dishonesty are more severe and may include immediate failure in the course or suspension and, in some colleges, expulsion.
As a school, we educate students to develop and adhere to community principles , and provide firm, yet supportive boundaries for growth.
