Cheaters often prosper?

Cheaters often prosper because we let them. Some schools have such ridiculous requirements of paperwork/documentation to pursue a cheater, that it's not worth zinging a student for a few non-cited googlings. Other schools have such lenient plagiarism/cheating policies that faculty don't even bother reporting incidents.

When I was interviewing for jobs, I asked specific questions about how violations of the honor code were judged. Was the punishment policy black and white, or were decisions made on a case-by-case basis? Did my interviewers acknowledge that cheating and plagiarism did in fact occur, or were they blissfully in denial that cheating does and will occur in every type of class, even among the best students.*

Fortunately, TempCollege does not fall into either of those categories. My department is very aware of potential cheating problems, and Head has told me that the department would support me if ever chose to present an incident to the disciplinary board.

I might have to take Head up on the offer this week. This irritates me (particularly since my non-Spring break is fast approaching), but I'll be damned if cheating is going to occur under my "roof."





*Yes, I sound jaded. For good reason: in every single grad class I took, cheating occurred at some level. Blatant copying of problem sets, plagiarism on research papers, graphing calculator cheating, non-approved sources on take-home exams....I'm sure you could add to the list.