Editor's note: This is the first installment in a three-part series examining cheating at Dartmouth.
Once while grading exams, chemistry professor Jon Kull discovered a test booklet missing its cover page and containing one page that was folded into eight pieces, as if it had been stuffed into a pocket. Although Kull speculated that one of his students might have left the room during the test to look up answers in the library, he did not report the student or further investigate the incident, he said.
Like many Dartmouth professors interviewed by The Dartmouth, Kull is a firm believer in the Academic Honor Principle and would only suspect a student of cheating given "very, very clear evidence," he said.
The current honor code system almost exclusively relies on professors to police and report instances of academic dishonesty. Yet most professors generally said that they do not take an active role in analyzing student work for evidence of cheating.
Administrators expect students to uphold the Academic Honor Principle instead of policing for cheaters, allowing students to develop their own "moral compass," according to Teresa Fishman, director of the Center for Academic Integrity. The Center is a consortium of more than 360 educational institutions, including Dartmouth, who share research, policies, sanctions, prevention and enforcement measures regarding cheating.
"Other institutions [with more active policing] may reduce the amount of cheating, but they don't develop integrity on the part of the students," Fishman said.
All Dartmouth students sign a form agreeing to uphold the Academic Honor Principle, usually during orientation, which prohibits them from giving or receiving help during an exam, plagiarizing, submitting the same work for more than one class or participating in unauthorized collaboration.
The code, passed in 1962, also calls on College faculty to assume students are practicing "intellectual honesty and integrity" in their academic work.
While several Dartmouth students and professors interviewed by The Dartmouth said they did not believe cheating is prevalent on campus, many said the instances of cheating that do exist are not limited to the few that are reported to the Committee on Standards.
In one case, mathematics professor Carl Pomerance said he allowed a student to take an exam early, and the student went on to give hints to his friends in the class. Pomerance made the decision not to report the student to the COS, electing instead to give him a warning because the hints he gave were "general," Pomerance said.
Academic Skills Center tutors are available to help students understand course material, but a member of the Class of 2013 who wished to remain anonymous said that she knew several students who have the Center's tutors complete assignments for them. She added that her friends use the center in this manner because they are driven by "pressure to do well and keep up academically."
"[They'd] bring in tests and get their tutors to do the whole thing," she said.
She added that one of her friends had her mother, a professional editor, check over essays before she submitted them to her professors.
A member of the Class of 2011 told The Dartmouth he actively collects past exam questions for economics classes taught by professors who are known to recycle past test questions.
He also said he once used his iPhone to look up answers to an Astronomy exam during a bathroom break.
Nathan Miller, assistant director of Undergraduate Judicial Affairs, said the most common reason students turn to cheating is poor time management.
"Cheating usually occurs at the end of the term," Miller said. "Students are busy during that time of the term when, with so many activities, that they sometimes make a rash decision to cheat."
Twelve professors from a variety of departments interviewed by The Dartmouth said they trust students to adhere to the principles established by the College's honor principle.
"I prefer to operate on the assumption that people are not cheating and are innocent," computer science professor Devin Balkcom said. "I am a strong believer in the honor code."
Balkcom added that he does not proctor in-class exams.
Government professor Michael Herron also said he assumes none of his students cheat.
"You don't want to create an environment in the classroom in which you're seen to be policing students all the time," Herron said.
Instead, the main role of the Undergraduate Judicial Affairs Office is to educate students about what actions constitute academic violations, Miller said.
"As a department, the UJAO is not concerned about policing students," Miller said. "Rather, we depend on the level of pride and character the students have [to police themselves.]"
It takes a "very special student" to be accepted to Dartmouth, Miller said, adding that he believes that all Dartmouth students have a certain level of integrity.
Professors interviewed by The Dartmouth who teach writing-intensive classes said that they choose not to use popular plagiarism-detection services like turnitin.com to check essays. Computer science professors interviewed by The Dartmouth also said that they do not check for cheating by comparing code students submitted with codes available on the Internet.
Although sociology professor Marc Dixon said he had used turnitin.com at an institution where he previously taught, he stopped using the program when he came to Dartmouth because he does not believe cheating occurs frequently here. Dixon said the writing topics he assigns are usually very specific and not generic, so that the likelihood of a student producing unoriginal work is small.
Echoing Dixon's sentiments, history department chair Margaret Darrow said that based on her experience, cheating at Dartmouth is "rare."
Professors should more actively check for cheating to encourage students to be ethical, Herron said.
"Students who are doing their work honestly need to be protected," Herron said.
It is also unfair to assume that students will always follow the rules for proper citation after they have completed courses like Writing 5, according to Christiane Donahue, director of the College's Institute for Writing and Rhetoric.
"I feel part of my job as a teacher is to work with students on the ways they interact, in their own texts, with what they draw on, use, learn from, are inspired by, or resist in other texts," Donahue said.
Citing sources and interacting with texts has become increasingly complicated for students, she said.
"Research suggests that students facing a new writing task in a new context might struggle even if they know how to write in some other context," Donahue said. "In the same way, students might struggle with source interaction in a new task and context."
Although she has seen students struggle "in working with material from other sources," she has never seen any cases of plagiarism in her classes, she said.
Between 20-28 cases of suspected Academic Honor Principle violations have been reported to the COS annually since 2001.
"Violations of the Academic Honor Principle during [the] 2008-2009 [academic year] included 12 cases of plagiarism or inadequate citation of sources, three students who made changes to an exam after it was returned in an effort to get additional points, two cases involving misrepresentation to faculty regarding homework, two cases of consulting unauthorized sources for graded work, one instance in which a student entered a faculty member's office without authorization and obtained homework solutions, and one case in which a student submitted the same work for more than one course without authorization," according to that year's COS Annual Report.
According to the Dartmouth Faculty Handbook, if a professor suspects a student is cheating, he or she is encouraged to first discuss the matter with the student and a colleague or the department chair. If the professor is still suspicious, he or she should inform the Committee on Standards, which handles cases that involve violations of the Academic Honor Principle and the Academic Standards and Requirements.
"The COS is an objective group of faculty, staff and students who make a decision whether the policy was violated and what the appropriate sanction would be," Director of Judicial Affairs April Thompson said.
Students who admit responsibility can request a meeting with a senior level dean instead of a COS hearing, according to Thompson.
Students found guilty of violating the Academic Honor Principle are typically suspended from the College, according to Mary Liscinsky, associate Dean of the College and a member of the COS board.
Of the 71 students found responsible for academic dishonesty in the last four years, 83 percent have been suspended for some period of time.
According to COS Sanctioning Considerations, the length of suspension which is typically one year may be increased to six or more terms due to denial, implication of others or other aggravating factors. The punishment may also be shortened to three or fewer terms due to mitigating factors, such as lack of knowledge about citation rules or relevant "extreme personal circumstances."
Approxiamately 90 percent of students suspended for academic dishonesty return to Dartmouth, Thompson said.
"Most of the students who come back finish quite successfully and never have any disciplinary problems at all," Thompson said.
Balkcom said he is glad the COS determines punishments because it preserves professors' relationship with the accused students.
"This isn't a crime," Balkcom said. "This is a bad decision someone made that they will hopefully learn from."
