Volume 67, Issue 5

Five Syms Students Caught Cheating on Midterm
Expulsion Considered but Rejected

by Kevin Cyrulnik

Five students from the Sy Syms School of Business have received failures in their Principles of Marketing course after confessing to cheating on their most recent exam.  Although Sy Syms Dean Dr. Charles Snow was initially pondering expulsion for all those involved, he opted on a more lenient punishment after careful deliberation.

Sometime after Professor Persky had administered the test to her class, an anonymous tip was given to Snow informing him that cheating had taken place.  He immediately mandated that all students in the class, numbering 35 in total, must report to his office to discuss the situation.  After questioning each student, Snow recalled that he had an extremely good sense of where everyone was sitting during the exam and what actually occurred.  Five students, two of whom they had previously suspected, admitted to cheating. 

“At that point,” recounted Snow, “I was forced to decide the appropriate punishment, and I agonized over it for quite a while.”  Sy Syms currently does not have an official disciplinary policy for students caught cheating, which is why Snow was required to formulate his own response to the incident. After conferring with various administrators, student leaders, and Student Services, Snow decided that his unilateral decision to expel the students was too harsh.  He therefore resolved to fail them, hoping this would convey a message to all current and prospective students that Yeshiva University does not tolerate cheating of any kind.

Given that this was the first incident of its kind this year, Snow felt there needed to be some type of warning to the students.  Nevertheless, he maintained that the lighter punishments fit with his zero tolerance rule.  “I hope this punishment will send out a message that we indeed have a zero tolerance rule at Yeshiva,” he said. 

Additionally, Snow took the future of these students into heavy consideration.  “I didn’t want to hurt the life and future of these individuals,” he admits.  He wanted to devise a scenario that would accomplish his goals without compromising their future.  He ultimately concluded that failing the students, while not as harsh, would teach the involved students a lesson and convey his message to others.

A couple of years ago, the administration discovered that Sy Syms students were stealing final exams before they were administered.  When Snow arrived in Yeshiva, in July of 2001, his first order of business was to crack down on this issue.  Snow did just that, and until this point he had not seen any problems related to cheating. 

Because of his efforts to clean up the problem areas, he conceded that an incident involving cheating angers him more so than any other he must address.  He described the behavior of the five individuals as “abysmal - contrary to everything [Yeshiva] stands for.”

The foremost reason Snow regards cheating with such disgust relates to Yeshiva’s famous ideology of Torah U’Madda.   “If we deviate from the truth, we have rid ourselves of the mantra of Torah,” he said.  Additionally, should word get out that Yeshiva tolerates cheating, the institution would lose its appeal, and fewer students, firms, and graduate schools will look respectfully at Yeshiva students.  Finally, Snow remembers when he did an interview for WABC television that specifically focused on Yeshiva and the sense of ethics and morals of it instills in its students.  “Yeshiva breeds the notion of ethics, and cheating conflicts with that ideal.”

Initial student reaction on campus concurred with Snow’s original assessment.  “Yeshiva should not and does not tolerate cheating, and these students should absolutely be thrown out of here,” said one student leader.  Others never even entertained the notion of anything else happening other than expulsion.  Indeed, the rumor circulating throughout campus was that Snow had expelled the infamous five. 

But students soon began to accept that expulsion was not the most appropriate option.  However, some students took this case as a precedent for the future.  “Obviously, Yeshiva does not expel people for cheating and they never will,” commented one student who wished to remain anonymous.  Snow wished to correct the misconception of many by notifying the student body that “the next time this happens, given the same circumstances, the penalty will be severer.  Consider this your warning,” he concluded.

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