Is a graduate degree evidence that one is a smarter more hard working student or does it merely suggest that one is a more cunning resourceful practitioner of situational ethics? New York Times
Duke University is trying to deal with a cheating scandal involving 34 first-year business graduate students in an era when national surveys have suggested that cheating is widespread among their peers.
In a survey released last September by a Rutgers University professor, 56 percent of business graduate students admitted having cheated, compared with 54 percent in engineering, 48 percent in education and 45 percent in law school. More than 5,300 students at 54 universities were surveyed from 2002 to 2004.
"This is self-reported evidence of cheating, so it's probably underestimated," said Donald McCabe, the professor who oversaw the survey. "I would say at many business schools it is a part of the culture. You want to talk rationalizations? I could give you thousands of them: 'Everybody else does it; it's the teachers' fault; you have to do it to get ahead.' "
The 34 at Duke face steep penalties after university officials determined they collaborated on answers of an exam. Mike Hemmerich, an associate dean at Duke's Fuqua School of Business, said a professor noticed unusual consistencies in the answers of a take-home exam, which the students seeking a master's degree in business administration were supposed to do on their own.
School officials declined to identify the course, the professor or the students.
8 comments:
Whats in the water at Duke? Everybody there is a liar.
Robyn,
Are you suggesting the phenomena of university level cheating is exclusive to Duke?
Not at all. It was a joke.
I was too scared to cheat in college, but knew a lot of people that did so. One of my friends in particular ALWAYS wanted to "copy my paper" All I could think about was..."my family is payin' all this damn money for me to go to school -- I cant go home and tell em I got kicked out."......"certainly not b/c of your ass"........."fuck that, do your own shit."
With the white kids, there was notably less trepidation about cheating. I saw many do it blatantly.
Here's a "funny" story (it aint really funny, but I cant think of a better word) about law school and how the world apparently works. Tell me what you think.
Its my first year, its hard as hell, its exam time. In Contracts class the teacher provided sample tests and answers for studying purposes throughout the course. Well during the open book final exam, I had *my* notes, *my* text and all kind of stuff that *I* created that I thought would assist me. After the test, I was talking to a white classmate, who informed me that he brought all of the old answers from the teacher in the exam so he could just copy them as appropriate.
When I looked at him with a "u cant do that" look on my face, he said "Duh, Rob, its open book."
To me what he did was cheating, to him it was allowed. He got a better grade in the class then me.
Did he cheat?
okay, wait, is giving your friend some of your old papers cheating? If so, then oops.
If its open book, then he didn't cheat, he was just a little more conniving than you.
As a current college student I can honestly say that cheating is a daily part of the life. And this is coming from attending a HBCU AND and PWI (Predom. White Institution). But it really depends on what you describe as cheating. Working together in groups on homework that counts as part of your grade could be considered cheating by many, but what if the goal of your college is to foster, let's say, engineers who can collaborate and work together in teams. Then is that still cheating? Obviously many will say yes because each individual is graded seperately but in my case it seems as if the profs. want students to work together AND come to them with many views on how a problem can be solved.
Now tests (in-class and out-of-class) are another manner. I can honestly say at HBCUs I never saw the level of cheating I did at a PWI. At PWI's "they" will downright discuss the problem at normal speaking levels. Now I am not saying this does not happen at HBCUs but in a class of 300+ at a PWI you have a less chance of getting caught.
Overall cheating in our culture can not solely be blamed on the students nowadays, but on the culture we grew up in. My mom taught me morals/ethics so I cannot live with myself if I copy off of someone's paper during a test, but everything around us is quick, fast and in a hurry. We cannot think about negative consequences because the rewards are too great.
This is getting to long for 2am.....but to sum up all the thoughts I have about this...punish the students but also change the cut-throat atmosphere of college. In my view college is no longer about the learning, but about the GPA and with that attitude cheating (and the grey area in between) will forever be prevalent.
Great post Collidgekid. Lucid. Objective. I like your style.
Welcome to the blog.
Good post College Kid. You did a much better job than I did of capturing the points about what "they" will do in college. You hit the nail on the head.
Post a Comment