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Or maybe you’re sitting in the library scrambling to finish up a final essay that is due in just a few hours. As the end of the school year wraps up, many area students may be feeling these pressures, and sometimes, the temptation to cheat.
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Viterbo nursing student Teresa Keniston holds the pledge that she and classmates signed saying they will have acedemic integrity.
Erik Daily |
Western Technical College student Garrett Schaefer said he definitely felt that pressure in high school.
“I was in sports and drama,” he said. “I didn’t have time to do homework, so I’d do it right before class or get friends’ answers.”
Schaefer, a second-year student in the fire protection program at WTC, said he’s grown up since then and realizes that the consequences of cheating mean more to him as a college student.
“I’m paying for school now, and I don’t want to get kicked out for cheating,” he said.
Cheating, whether plagiarism, making up false information for essays and assignments or copying answers on a test, can appear to be such an easy and quick solution, however, many local instructors and academic leaders say they don’t recommend trying it.
Viterbo University, Western Technical College and University of Wisconsin-La Crosse all have policies in place to handle various forms of cheating. Consequences range from re-writing an assignment to expulsion.
What professors see and do
Every once in a while a word or phrase in an essay may look strikingly familiar, or students use words not typical to their vocabulary or writing styles which don’t match throughout a paper. These are red flags that a student is plagiarizing, said Kimberly Vogt, chairwoman of the Sociology and Archaeology Department at UW-L
Vogt, who has taught for 14 years, sees more plagiarism than other forms of academic misconduct and believes in dealing with it proactively. Her sociology class delves into the ethical expectations of UW-L students and also the ethical code laid out by the American Sociological Association.
“I want students to understand not just a university-wide, but a professional expectation of students in our field,” she said.
Stephanie Genz, an associate professor of nursing at Viterbo, has a similar philosophy with her nursing students.
“We talk about nursing ethics and the contract we have with society and the need to always be people of honesty and integrity,” she said.
Genz and her department take it as far as asking that all nursing students sign a statement in their syllabus at the start of every nursing class and sign a poster when they enter the nursing program that they will abide by a code of honor committing to academic honesty and the five core values of Viterbo’s School of Nursing.
Research shows that signing such a pledge has an effect on whether people cheat, said Genz.
“There are always going to be people who will cheat and the people that will not cheat, but there will also be people in the middle who in times of adversity or in times when they have pressure from a peer will feel the pressure to cheat,” said Genz. “By signing the honor code, it gives them the strength they need to not cheat and be a person of integrity.”
Teresa Keniston, a senior in the nursing program, said that signing the honor code is an important commitment for students going on to become nurses.
“As nurses we are caring for people — sometimes at the most vulnerable point in their lives,” she said. “I feel that I am a person of integrity and they should trust me and trust that I will provide them with the best care.”
It also opens the line of communication with professors regarding what is considered cheating, said Keniston. It teaches students to ask questions when they don’t understand if they are allowed to work with other students on an assignment or ask for help when they don’t have the resources to complete a task, said Keniston.
While professors and programs are doing plenty to deter cheating, the Internet and various Web sites that sell papers have made it much easier for students to cheat, said Vogt.
Luckily, Internet plagiarism is fairly easy to check, she added.
Many UW-L faculty use Google as a reference if part of a paper seems out of character for a student, said Michael Miyamoto, assistant dean of students at UW-L.
Some students have much more in-depth strategies to cheat. YouTube boasts a video of a student who actually replicated a plastic Coke bottle wrapper by scanning it on his computer. Then, instead of listing ingredients, it held the answers to test questions.
Miyamoto hasn’t seen any cheating strategies that elaborate, but in the past few years, he’s seen some serious cases that have led to failed courses and even expulsion.
In one UW-L sociology class, students were asked to do a telephone survey and one student didn’t make the calls. Under a time crunch, he fabricated all of the results. When the teacher found out, he was removed from the course and received an F, said Miyamoto.
One UW-L international student was allowed to take an English dictionary to exams for help with language translations. The professor later noticed the dictionary held not only words, but formulas and test answers. That student also failed the course.
A couple UW-L graduate students have been kicked out of their programs after years of work based on cheating on final exams and plagiarizing on final papers, said Miyamoto.
UW-L has about 12 to 13 reported cases of cheating throughout the academic year, Miyamoto said.
WTC has about two reported cases of cheating per year, said Shelley McNeely, student development manager at Western.
Viterbo does not record all forms of cheating, but has about six incidents of plagiarism per semester, said Wayne Wojciechowski, academic vice president at Viterbo.
But, incidents are often under reported, added Miyamoto.
What happens to students who cheat?
Depending on the severity of the cheating, all three schools offer students a hearing with a panel of faculty, staff and sometimes other students to decide on the punishment.
At UW-L, faculty initially decide on the penalty for cheating. In cases beyond asking the student to repeat the work, the student has a right to a hearing. In the most severe cases, including suspension and expulsion, a hearing is automatically scheduled.
“The more severe the penalty the more due process offered,” said Miyamoto.
However, most UW-L students do not request a hearing. When students are caught, most fess up and take the consequences, said Miyamoto.
“I am really impressed by our students because even when they do make mistakes and are confronted, the vast majority have been very adult about it,” he said.
Ultimately, the hope is that students who cheat will learn from their error, said Wojciechowski.
“It is better to make your mistakes here (in school) than in the professional world where the consequences will be much more severe,” said Wojciechowski.
KJ Lang can be reached at (608) 791-8226 or klang@lacrossetribune.com.
