September 2012
Harvard University pennants in Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
About 125 Harvard University undergraduates are
being investigated for cheating on a final exam earlier this year, the most
widespread academic misconduct scandal known at the school, college officials
said.
All of the students, who were in a class of more
than 250, will face hearings before Harvard’s
Administrative Board, Jay Harris, dean of undergraduate education at the
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based school, said today in an interview.
Harvard professors probed the
incident with months of reading through the take-home exams beginning in May,
Harris said. Students found to have violated university rules may be required to
withdraw from school for a year, Harvard said in a statement.
“These allegations, if proven,
represent totally unacceptable behavior that betrays the trust upon which
intellectual inquiry at Harvard depends,” Harvard President Drew Faust said in a
statement on the college’s website.
The Administrative Board’s actions
are confidential, and Harvard won’t reveal the identity of the students or the
name of the course, Harris said. Harvard is using the incident to increase
student awareness of the importance of academic integrity, he said.
“This is a national problem – an
international problem – a technologically enabled problem,” he said.
Several students familiar with the
investigation said the class in question was Government 1310: Introduction to
Congress, taught by Matthew Platt, the Harvard Crimson student newspaper
reported today. There are 279 students in the class, according to Harvard’s
website. Platt declined to comment when reached by telephone.
The incident came to light when a
teaching fellow noticed similarities among a number of exams in mid-May and
brought it to the attention of the professor in charge of the course, Harris
said. That led the Administrative Board to begin a review of every exam, he
said.
While he wouldn’t discuss
specifics, Harris said school officials believe that electronic communication
was part of the apparent rule violations. Students who have been raised in the
Internet age may view all kinds of media differently than past generations, he
said.
“Technology has shifted the way
people think about intellectual property, the way people think about
communicating with each other,” Harris said.
All the students suspected of
being involved in the cheating have been informed that they will be asked to
come before the Administrative Board, Harris said. Penalties may include a
warning or probation, and some students may be exonerated, he said. No specific
cases have been heard yet, he said.
The College Committee on Academic
Integrity, which Harris leads, is preparing recommendations for reminding
students of the importance of “academic honesty,” the school said. Harvard has
orientation programs that focus on research and writing practices, such as
integrity and appropriate citation, he said.
“We always stress academic
integrity with our students,” he said. “It’s very hard to explain to someone
that this raises ethical concerns and that it’s not OK.”
The committee will look at
practices of other institutions that have faced cheating scandals, Harvard said.
Security at sites administering the SAT and ACT tests in Nassau County, New
York, was stepped up this year after students were found to have hired stand-ins
to take the college entrance exams for them.
In 2010, Harvard senior Adam
Wheeler was found to have faked his way into a spot at the college using forged
recommendations, and then applied for scholarships with plagiarized essays.
To contact the reporter on this story: John Lauerman in Boston at jlauerman@bloomberg.net
Bloomberg.com, August 30, 2012.
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