Students for integrity

“Redbook” seeks to clarify cheating with student-written step-by-step guide to staying honest

By: Jordan Schwartz

Posted: 11/5/07

By Jordan Schwartz

Commerce Township senior
Center for Personal and Professional Ethics

We agree with Central Michigan Life and its call for a change in its academic integrity policy. However, the current policy is of no benefit if students are not aware of what it says.

Often, students do not cheat intentionally.

Rather, they are unaware of what, exactly, constitutes cheating. We believe that many instances of academic dishonesty occur because students do not know the rules.

For instance, did you know that submitting the same paper in two classes, without the consent of both instructors, is a violation of the university’s policy? And did you know that giving another student substantive information about an exam is also a violation?

These are just some of the features of CMU’s official policy. But honestly, who reads that thing?

As part of the student-centered initiative to promote a culture of academic integrity on campus, the “CMU Redbook” has just been released.

What is the “CMU Redbook?” It was written by students for students and provides a simple step-by-step guide so that students both understand CMU’s official “Policy on Academic Integrity,” and have specific tips to help students do work that is in tune with the policy.

Do yourself a favor – pick up a copy next time you are on campus, it’s red … and sweet. It’ll make you laugh, it may make you cry, but in the end, you’ll know your work was done honestly.

Right now copies can be found outside the Ethics Center and at the Writing Center (both in the basement of Anspach).

Have no fear though; the “Redbook” will be making its way to more convenient locations throughout campus in the near future.

This and other projects have been made possible by Vision 2010 funding and the support of the Center for Professional and Personal Ethics.

Another part of our project involved a university wide survey, administered by the foremost expert on academic integrity, Don McCabe. The survey results show that CMU is on par with the national averages for cases of academic dishonesty.

Unfortunately, that average is alarming. We believe that a university wide conversation about the current culture of integrity at both the university and national levels is necessary to deal with the issues that we face here at CMU.

The Ethics Center will have a student led forum about important issues regarding this topic on Dec. 4. See ethics.cmich.edu for more information. You can find our blog, discussing all things integrity, at studentsforintegrity.wordpress.com.

Regis Philbin and Joey Bishop for Hai Karate.

The sad part for FEMA is that their handling of the California wildfires has been praised all-around. The last time there was a catastrophe, we lost a great American city. Now, a new government disaster is afoot – FEMA holds a press conference during which FEMA’s own public affairs employees asked questions of the public affairs director Pat Philbin. The press was surprisingly absent at a press conference.

Like no other time in history, Regis Philbin is now better at something than someone else . He is a better Philbin than Pat.

Luckily, FEMA’s head has condemned this, the White House has condemned this, and Pat was fired.

The story goes: FEMA called a press conference, but not enough time was given for journalists to attend, and the satellite feed that would allow journalists to ask questions from elsewhere was only functioning one-way instead of two-way. Instead of rescheduling or waiting, why not just fake a federal bureaucracy’s recorded event? It was not a pre-planned event. I don’t know which is worse, planning to to have a fake news conference, or, deciding in a pinch that it’s the best course of action.

Either way, we can be sure competence runs rampant in this government.

You know that feeling that comes over you when you say something stupid and realize it directly after? Pat Philbin may have that feeling for the rest of eternity.

Just like matter has its anti-matter, black has its white, and “Stairway to Heaven” has its “We Built This City (On Rock and Roll)”, so integrity has its very own Pat Philbin.

Anya Kamenetz was brought to CMU to speak about issues raised in her book called Generation Debt.   She spoke about student debt and how it is affecting this generation more than any other in the past.  Vicious credit card companies, corrupt loan programs, and lack of government responsibility are among the cards in the deck stacked against us.  They have lead this generation into a situation never before seen:  parents are not seeing their children do better than they did.  Afterward Students for Integrity conversed with her more personally about the issues.  She has a great grasp on what needs to be done.  I encourage everyone to check out her blog and her book.  She’s a cool, smart, young woman who is working on a cause that politicians and the general public generally ignore.

Another article in CM-Life today recognizes the problem of cheating in college, specifically CMU.  It is hard to police and the committee creating a new policy realizes this.  Our solution, of course, is the CMU Red Book, coming to a CMU location near you.  Keep an eye out for it, it’s a project Students for Integrity has put together.

The title isn’t meant to be a specific knock on CM-Life’s integrity – it just flowed.  Like Aspen, where the beer flows like wine, and beautiful woman instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano.

On a further note, Students for Integrity’s new publication the “CMU Red Book” has been finished.  We brought some copies to the conference and it received much praise.  We are grateful that other universities support our cause and appreciate the work we are doing here, and, hopefully, from those colleges sampling the Red Book we can get even more feedback regarding it and our efforts here at Central.

Distribution of the Red Books is to commence soon, so look for a copy near you.

 Taken from the sister-blog  State of Nature

In local news:

A few students from Central Michigan University’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom have created a new group of pointed interest: Students Against Gary Peters. Their interest is in protesting the hiring of Gary Peters at CMU as the Griffin Endowed Chair of the Political Science Department. Gary Peters is running for U.S. Congress in Michigan’s 9th District as a Democrat. YAF is a right-wing ideological group; however, their president, Dennis Lennox II, denies that their objection to Peter’s professorship has anything to do with partisan politics. A September 23 article in the Saginaw News quotes Lennox as saying, “This is not about partisan politics […] Mr. Peters would probably be a great professor if he wasn’t running for Congress.”

Now, although I doubt there would be a coalition of students from YAF, ceteris paribus, protesting a conservative holding the Griffin Chair, that does not refute their argument. To denounce their point of view solely on motivational grounds amounts to an ad hominem attack. The motivation for their argument has nothing to do with the argument itself, which is where I turn my attention.

First, I must provide full disclosure. I am in Peters’ PSC 300 class. I signed up for it unknowing of the situation surrounding it, but enjoy class nonetheless. My status as student in his class may be valuable in evaluating SAGP’s claims.

Their main contention seems to be that, by working as a state employee and running for Congress simultaneously, he has a conflict of interest. Don’t state employees, such as House members and Senate members, run for other offices? This claim is not pointed enough. He is providing a service for CMU and its students, while separately running for a public position. Can’t someone have a job and run for public office? Not everyone is independently wealthy enough to fund a campaign and support one’s family. Were his campaign to disallow him from completing his teaching position adequately, I would ask for him to step down as well. But it hasn’t, so I won’t.

A crucial point that SAGP seems to ignore is that Peters’ $65,000 salary is paid for by a private endowment. He is the Robert and Majorie Griffin Endowed Chair in American Government. “The Peters Report,” a blog maintained by SAGP that monitors the every move of Peters, asserts that Peters is an “expert at living off taxpayer money.” Peters is not living off taxpayer money. In fact, CMU’s Operating Budget for the 2007-08 school year, which can be found here, lists state appropriations’ for the Griffin Endowed Chair at $0 (p.14). Furthermore, let me provide a quick lesson in private endowments. An endowment is money donated or transfered to an institution (i.e CMU) that must be invested so that its principal remains intact. The compounding of interest allows the fund to last over the long term. An endowed professorship (i.e CMU’s Griffin Chair) is permanently paid for entirely from the revenue of the endowment fund specified for that purpose. The salary that Peters is afforded through the endowment may be “cushy”, however it is one that the endowment would allocate to someone regardless of how many other professors were being laid-off or how much the budget provided by state appropriations (i.e tax dollars) was being reduced (or increased, for that matter). There is no need for the university to justify this salary or its associated costs, as it is provided in full by the private endowment. Whether or not the compensation package is “fair” is a moot issue, as it is set by the endowment.

The endowment funds the salary and associated costs of a U.S. and Michigan political expert to serve as a faculty member in Central Michigan’s political science department.

- CMU’s Griffin Chair website

SAGP contends that the job is “full-time” according to the contract, while he has said that it is part-time. YAF is splitting hairs here: Peters can reasonably be seen to have evaluated the number of hours it takes to perform his tasks and conclude it will not take 40 hours per week, widely considered the standard for full-time. It is not unreasonable to consider 1 weekly class, office hours, and the formation of a forum a part-time job, even though the legal status says full-time. Consider this: while I am a full-time student at CMU, this does not mean I have to acknowledge that my full-time job is a student. This point of contention is a waste to spend time on.

They also claim that Peters is necessarily biased and will jeopardize a healthy classroom atmosphere. This is where my attendance in class proves valuable. I can attest that Peters is not one to construct a biased classroom, nor let his internal bias subconsciously escape him. I have all too often had professors with clear, unashamed biases in class. Peters is not one of these professors. His lectures and exercises are entrenched in honest debate. I honestly have trouble determining his positions on any issue. Their contention that he could be biased really has no bearing on the discussion. Because he is not biased, there is no cause for concern.

Other meaningless claims against Peters include that he forgot where he was working, telling the Politico that he was teaching at Eastern Michigan University. In fact, the Politco acknowledged its regrettable error.

In the end, I don’t see a conflict of interest, an unreasonable salary, a professor trying to “pull one over” on the taxpayers or the students of this university, or a pattern of bias in his classroom. Not to mention the meaninglessness of some of SAGP’s other claims. I wish they would spend their time on more positive efforts, instead of playing partisan games for the political gain of their favored candidate. Surely, with their zeal for investigation they could do some positive work in a worthy area.

After denying on several occasions, she has confessed to using performance enhancing drugs, and was thus stripped of her Gold Medals from the Olympics. This confession has come after Floyd Landis’ fall from grace when he tested positive for steroids after the Tour de France. And furthermore, Major League Baseball’s all-time home run leader, Barry Bonds, among many other players, has taken steroids.

The use of steroids undermines the whole of sports. The love of winning has overtaken the pride in winning. Surely, someone who has taken steroids can’t take pride in their win; it was made possible by cheating. Taking steroids is equivalent to corking baseball bats or moving your king 6 spaces in chess. It’s breaking the rules. Games are tests of skill within the framework of the game.

The question is not whether he or she would have achieved so highly without the steroid usage. The athlete has undermined the integrity of the game. Actually, the athlete wasn’t even actually playing the game! A game is a set of rules, if you don’t play within the rules, you aren’t playing the game.

Another great example is the not-so-sleuthy Patriots coach videotaping the other teams signals. How low can people go just to win? It’s not even winning as far as I’m concerned. This whole controversy isn’t met with as much outrage as would be expected. See a wonderful article from Time Magazine here.

To play a sport with integrity is to play by the rules, and do the best you can within them. Winning while cheating doesn’t prove that you are the best in your sport. Isn’t that the goal? To prove, through hard work and dedication, against others similarly situated, that you are best?

Join it. Free pizza in your inbox! Check out the group page for details. While you join the group, Students for Integrity will do some serious R&D regarding electronic pizza transactions.

Check back on the blog for our thoughts regarding news-worthy, integrity-related happenings.