Faculty members weighed in at a forum Wednesday on proposed changes to Syracuse University’s Academic Integrity Policy, which could make some penalties more stringent.

The forum, which began at 4 p.m. in Maxwell Auditorium, discussed three proposals that would differentiate between academic dishonesty and negligence, place tighter sanctions on dishonesty, and revise academic dishonesty appeal procedures. About 20 people attended the forum.

Gary Pavela, director of the Academic Integrity Office, introduced the first proposal, which would look at the intent of a student who uses unoriginal work. Under the proposed revision, students unaware of their offense would be charged with ‘academic negligence,’ as opposed to the more implicating ‘academic dishonesty.’

Judy O’Rourke, director of the Office of Undergraduate Studies, said that although there may be confusion among younger students as to what constitutes dishonesty, common sense should dictate that copying and pasting is wrong.

‘If you plagiarize nine out of 10 pages of a paper and you say you didn’t know it, that’s not a valid excuse,’ O’Rourke said. ‘You still did something wrong, and you should still be sanctioned.’

Steven Diaz, an associate professor of mathematics, called into question the borderline between dishonesty and negligence.

Diaz acknowledged students may copy and paste direct quotes from outside sources onto a document with their own work. The student may then transfer the copied work into an essay, accidentally believing it to be his or her own, and the mistake would register as plagiarism.

But the sloppiness and potential for error is, in and of itself, ‘intentional negligence,’ he said.

A discussion about proposed revisions to academic dishonesty sanctions followed. Of the sanctions imposed on academic integrity violations in the 2009-10 school year, three quarters of offending students still had the opportunity to finish the course with a grade above failing, Pavela said. That is a policy Pavela called ‘the mildest of any school I’ve encountered.’

The proposed change would impose a ‘presumptive sanction’ on students with academic integrity violations, meaning it would be recommended that they fail the class for being academically dishonest. But because presumptive sanctions serve as a guide to suggest a tougher sanction, but not mandate a sanction, an academic integrity offense wouldn’t necessarily result in automatic failure of a course, Pavela said.

Under the proposed revision, graduate students who commit acts of academic dishonesty would also face a presumptive penalty of suspension or expulsion from SU.

Can Isik, a professor and senior associate dean for academic and student affairs in the L.C Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science, defended graduate students and said even acts of academic dishonesty by them can be turned into a learning experience.

Enforcing an expulsion policy does not make a campus more academically honest, Isik said. Instead, a college’s willingness to hold students accountable for their actions is a better measure of academic integrity.

The third proposed change to SU’s Academic Integrity Policy would reconsider academic appeal procedures. Pavela described the campus’ current appellate structure as ‘overly cumbersome,’ due to the potential for repeated appeals.

The University Senate’s Committee on Instruction will take both the forum discussion and written recommendations into consideration when deciding whether or not to pass the proposals.

Should the proposal pass, appeals that result in penalties less than suspension or expulsion will be final. In the appeals process, panel decisions to suspend or expel a student would serve as a recommendation to the associate provost for academic programs. The associate provost would have license to reduce or increase the severity of the punishment after requesting written comments from both the student accused of dishonesty and the accusing faculty member.

Discussion about the proposed changes to SU’s Academic Integrity Policy will continue at a Friday luncheon at the Sheraton University Hotel and Conference Center. Student leaders from Vanderbilt University, Princeton University and the University of Maryland, who manage student integrity issues, will be on-hand to discuss how each respective campus copes with academic integrity violations, Pavela said.

dbtruong@syr.edu

Published on April 13, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Debbie: dbtruong@syr.edu | @debbietruong