Newsletter

September 2012

‘Unemployed Professors’ Website Helps Students Cheat

As an
associate dean of academic services, Catherine Bolton spends a lot of time
studying, lamenting and worrying about cheating in universities – but a
Montreal-based website that propels cheating to a new level made even her wince.

Professors writing custom papers
for students? Heresy! But that is the very idea behind the self-described
academic prostitutes at unemployedprofessors.com, which unabashedly defends its
actions on the grounds that education has already become overly commodified and
academia is downsizing the tenure system. So what’s a poor unemployed prof to
do?

Sell essays on demand to
over-wrought students with a catchy tag line: "So you can play while we make
your papers go away."

"The idea that it could be
legitimate for any professor to sell their brain, when they know better than
anyone that papers are assigned for students to learn," said Bolton, an
associate dean for the faculty of arts and sciences at Concordia University.
"There are for sure teaching assistants and graduate students who do this, but
professors?" Schubert Laforest, president of the Concordia Student Union, found
the concept both ironic and reprehensible.

"It’s the first I’ve heard of
professors doing students’ work," he said. "It just seems to hinder the academic
process. The focus should be on acquiring skills, not trying to get an easy A.
But I’m sure some students will take advantage of it."

The problem is not confined to
Montreal or this group of arguably unethical professors. Cheating in university
is an old problem – and it is only get-ting worse.

A recent Pew Centre survey of
1,055 college presidents showed that plagiarism is viewed as a growing problem
on campus.

As described on the website of
turnitin.com, a leading online plagiarism checker: "We live in a digital culture
where norms around copying, reuse and sharing are colliding with core
principles of academic integrity."

The professors’ service started
last fall and has about 30 professors involved.

While they don’t guarantee an A
(because they’re not supposed to be providing a final product), they do
guarantee high-quality work and turn away about 15 applicants for every one they
hire.

There is no set price, as the
ghost-writers bid on the projects and the market then dictates the price.

Vancouver Sun, September 13, 2012.