Survey: Profs not reporting cheating

The U. Honor Council asked faculty how they treat integrity violations. A whopping 70 percent of faculty members are not very likely to report academic integrity violations to the Office of Student Conduct, according to a survey conducted by the University Honor Council this week. Surveying 107 faculty members and 68 teaching assistants, these results follow the council's release last week of a survey that questioned 1,689 undergraduates about their familiarity with the University's honor code. Both surveys are part of the University Honor Council's attempt to gauge the level of cheating at Penn, according to past Chairman Kevin Hodges, a Wharton senior. "We were faced with the fact that the Office of Student Conduct gets only 40 cases [of cheating] reported each year," Hodges noted, emphasizing that many more incidents go unreported. "So we tried to do a study to ascertain whether students were getting caught by faculty and whether they were handling [the cases] themselves." The results show that 70 percent of faculty surveyed are familiar or somewhat familiar with the Code of Academic Integrity. The survey also revealed that only 30 percent of faculty are very likely to report incidents of cheating to the Office of Student Conduct. "Faculty like to retain as much control over their own students as possible," Hodges said. "The OSC process is very long and comprehensive? and a lot of faculty see that as red tape." The numbers reflect Hodges' statement, with 27 percent of faculty saying that they would be unwilling to take action against students because of the hassle involved. Additionally, 37 percent of teaching assistants surveyed said they had never had any exposure to the code. And only 26 percent said they consistently have students sign the code before exams. This statistic is especially significant because "handling of grading and advising [in recitation sections] falls on the shoulders of graduate students," Economics Professor Herbert Levine said. The University Honor Council is composed of 13 undergraduate students who advise the provost and the OSC on policy, as well as educate the student body on issues of academic integrity. As a result of these findings, the council will be working with the OSC to streamline the process for reporting academic integrity violations. Even if the faculty member does not wish to refer the student, Hodges' hope is that some type of record of the offense would be filed. Though the survey tackled several different types of cheating and possible ramifications, two that notoriously plague Penn and other major Universities stand out: plagiarism and taking an exam for another student. Faculty and teaching assistants were relatively close in their evaluations of the situation. Of those surveyed, 37 percent of faculty believed the correct measure in cases of plagiarism is to fail the student in that specific class, and 22 percent believed expulsion to be the correct course of action. Of the teaching assistants, 36 percent believed failure was best. "Especially many freshmen don't yet know the difference between pulling things people said together and what at higher levels would be called plagiarism," Levine noted. When it came to taking a test for another student, 40 percent of faculty and 38 percent of TAs felt failure to be the correct measure. However, while 55 percent of faculty felt expulsion to be necessary, only 21 percent of TAs indicated that they would seek that punishment. Biology Professor W. John Smith, remembering his days of teaching large lecture courses, said that class loyalty can dissuade cheating. "You get quite an esprit de corps going," he said. "And the students feel like they would be cheating one another if they were to cheat, not only themselves." The University Honor Council plans to implement more programs that will educate faculty, TAs and students about the code and what ramifications will result if it is violated. They hope to spend time with the incoming freshmen class, teaching them about the Code of Academic Integrity at the very beginning of their Penn careers.