The number of Northwestern students who cheat while enrolled incourses offered by the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences is onthe rise.
The Weinberg Dean’s Office investigated 62 cases of academicdishonesty last year in college courses, an increase of 35 percentfrom the previous year — and 139 percent from 1998-99 academicyear.
So far this year the school has investigated more than 56 casesof academic dishonesty and, with finals three weeks away, thenumbers are on track to beat last year’s figures, according toCraig Bina, Weinberg’s outgoing associate dean for undergraduatestudies.
Stephen Fisher, NU’s associate provost for undergraduateeducation, said the statistics are “very disconcerting andupsetting.”
The problem has grown to the point that Bina recently employed asomewhat different tactic in the fight against academic dishonesty– telling mom and dad. In an e-mail to the NU parent listserv,Bina asked parents to encourage their children to make honestacademic decisions.
Classics Prof. Dan Garrison, who has headed the undergraduateacademic conduct committee for more than a decade, said he believesthis generation of students is more prone to cheating. He said asociety with deteriorating standards is to blame.
“Students think they can get away with it, and they don’t havevery good ethics” Garrison said. “They’ve done it so long theydon’t think they’re going to get caught anymore. It’s a terriblething.”
Fisher said most students who cheat typically are “otherwisehonorable” students who lose their cool and copy answers. ButFisher said premeditated cheating is on the rise. He pointed to anincreasingly common occurrence where students alter answers onreturned exams and submit them for re-grading.
“There’s a level of maliciousness and planning that is verydisturbing,” Fisher said.
Philosophy lecturer Mark Sheldon, Weinberg’s acting assistantdean who investigates cases of cheating, said many professors havecaught on and now photocopy the graded exams before returning them.University administrators are encouraging professors to reportviolations, he said, and the Internet is making it easier to catchstudents in the act.
“Are there more cheaters or is it easier to catch them?” Sheldonsaid. “I can’t imagine that years ago there weren’t people who wentinto the obscure stacks of the library and pulled something out andgot away with it.”
But Diane Waryold, executive director of the Center for AcademicIntegrity, said NU’s reported cheating rate is relatively low.
A national survey shows 75 percent of college students surveyedin 1999 admitted to some cheating. The study of 2,100 students on21 campuses, conducted by the center’s founder Donald McCabe ofRutgers University, showed about one third of the participatingstudents admitting to serious test cheating. About half admitted tocheating on written assignments.
Waryold said reported incidents of academic dishonesty only tellpart of the story.
“I’m sure there’s more cheating happening (at NU), but a lot oftimes faculty are reluctant to do anything about it or studentsdon’t get caught,” she said.
Fisher agreed, saying there are an unknown number of cases thatgo undetected at NU.
“We don’t identify all of the cheaters,” Fisher said. “There areprobably people who cheat and get away with it. We don’t run adraconian system, we emphasize reasonable procedures in terms ofproctoring.”
Waryold said the best way to prevent cheating is to raiseawareness of the issues.
“It’s got to be a united type of front,” she said. “Studentswill tell us that if it’s apparent to them that the culture justdoesn’t care, that they tend to cheat more.”
Fisher said this year Weinberg required new students to attend aseminar on academic integrity in an effort to educate students.NU’s other schools employ different tactics.
“We’re trying to heighten awareness among students of theimportance of academic integrity,” Fisher said. “We want to makesure that students know that the consequences … can besignificant.”
