Volume 67, Issue 5

Faculty Discuss Academic Integrity
at Development Day

Students and Faculty Respond to Recent Incidents of Cheating

by Alan Goldsmith

The annual Faculty Development Day is usually a forum for faculty members to discuss a wide array of university-related academic matters. This year’s meeting, however, was decisively different: it centered on one issue. On Tuesday, November 5, while students were casting ballots, Yeshiva College professors and deans were casting opinions on “Supporting Academic Integrity.”

According to Writing Center Director Dr. Lauren Fitzgerald, a Development Day organizer, “[academic integrity] is an idea that people are thinking about a great deal, here and nationally.”  Dr. Fitzgerald added that she “personally wanted to find a way to talk about it in a positive way, rather than just in terms of its negations, plagiarism and cheating.  It’s the backbone of the university, what students and faculty have in common across the curriculum."

Highlighting this year’s Development Day was a workshop moderated by Dr. Sandra Jamieson, Director of Composition at Drew University. The workshop encouraged faculty to formulate metaphors for plagiarism that would make the concept accessible to faculty, students, and administrators.

Three presentations by Yeshiva faculty followed the workshop. Director of Academic Advisement Dr. Nada Glick spoke on academic integrity as it affects universities nationwide; Dr. Gillian Steinberg of the English Department instructed professors how to detect plagiarism using the internet; and Assistant Professor of Psychology Dr. David Rettinger discussed his recent studies regarding the attitudes of Yeshiva students toward cheating. According to Commentator sources, Dr. Rettinger principally focused his study on the religious observance of students in the various Judaic programs, assessing parameters such as Shabbat and Kashrut observance, and he correlated this data with adherence to academic integrity. Rettinger declined to comment on his survey for this story.

After the presentations, a panel of Yeshiva professors from different departments spoke on “Academic Integrity across the Curriculum.” They included professors from the Humanities, Sciences, Social Sciences and Judaic Studies curriculums. Among them was Dr. Jeremy Zilber, Assistant Professor of Political Science, who focused not on students but on academics. He mentioned how social scientists cite sources in academic journals, as well as how editors decide which articles are published in such journals. Thus, he dealt to a greater extent with the potential for scholarly rather than student plagiarism.

Dr. Zilber himself felt optimistic about student dedication to academic integrity. “By and large, students are honest and trustworthy,” he emphasized, “but there are a significant number of instances where students knowingly falsify work or submit work that isn’t their own… It’s a problem if it happens once, and it certainly happens more than once. Both the students and faculty bear responsibility. It can’t just be the faculty that takes steps. Students need to create a culture where cheating is simply unacceptable. No matter what the faculty says, if students think that it’s acceptable, they will do it.”

Rabbi Yosef Blau, Yeshiva’s Mashgiach Ruchani, tried to communicate the yeshiva mentality to the faculty during his remarks. “Things that come up in class will appear in such students’ minds as questions of halacha,” said Rabbi Blau. “Our concept of a Rebbe is not simply someone who transfers knowledge but also educates his talmid to be a proper Jew. In that sense, there is a responsibility to be clear in stressing the Torah prohibitions on being deceitful.” 

Academic integrity has long been a concern at Yeshiva, but it has entered the limelight now due to the adoption of stricter enforcement measures and the recent cheating scandal involving Sy Syms students.

Yeshiva College Junior Zechariah Mehler was disturbed by the perceived proliferation of cheating at Yeshiva. “I feel that there are students here who are too blasé, thinking that ‘if everyone else does it, why not me?’” observed Mr. Mehler. “In a Jewish institution that prides itself on following the Torah, I find it all the more shocking to find instances of cheating here.”

YC Senior David Schiller concurred.  “One should earn his status through hard work, instead of bypassing the rules,” maintained Schiller. “One hurts other students by unethical behavior. Plus, everyone in society competes against one another. For society to function, people have to be on a level playing field.”

A wide range of countermeasures has been previously suggested to combating cheating and plagiarism. At the beginning of the fall 2001 academic term, the administration published a pamphlet entitled, “Statement of Policy on Upholding Academic Integrity.” The topic has since dominated the bimonthly Student/Faculty Senate meetings.

A committee on plagiarism once was formed, although it scarcely met. Most recently, a task force on academic integrity has been created, with Dr. Fitzgerald serving as chair, and it will meet in the near future to discuss potential future remedies.

One possibility that is being considered is allowing students to take a more active role in upholding academic integrity, through participation in drafting policies and even in enforcement. Honor codes have been implemented or revised around the country with varying degrees of student involvement at institutions such as Duke University, Colgate and Kansas State.  The codes consist of every student agreeing to take responsibility for the behavior of all students, reporting the cheating of others, with penalties dispensed to witnesses who fail to report an incident.

Faculty reaction to this possibility, however, has not been uniformly favorable. The possibility of establishing an honor code at Yeshiva has thus far encountered opposition on the grounds that it is incompatible with halacha. Rabbi Shalom Carmy, Assistant Professor of Bible, explained that the honor code could be seen as a violation of the Biblical prohibition of lifnei iver, placing a stumbling block before the blind. “People might be more encouraged to cheat if the faculty sits back and puts the onus on students to report it,” said Rabbi Carmy.

Yeshiva College Associate Dean Dr. Joyce Jesionowski, however, feels that students must take responsibility for their peers' actions. “I don’t think of the students at Yeshiva as children; I think of them as young men,” emphasized Dr. Jesionowski. “When students expect the faculty and administration to do all the work, that is reinserting that division between adults and kids, and the adults can’t make the kids be good.”

Yeshiva College for its part has continued to work on clarifying its policy on cheating. The academic integrity statement sets a maximum penalty of an F in the course for the first cheating or plagiarism transgression, with a second offense not discounting the possibility of expulsion.  A third breach carries a mandatory expulsion penalty.

The college has also continued its efforts to maintain the integrity of exams it conducts, such as finals and MFATs. Last year, Yeshiva hired an independent Director of Exams to oversee that process, but Yeshiva College Dean Norman Adler explained that although having an outsider overseeing the process was beneficial, it also disrupted the process.  This year, therefore, Dr. Glick will serve as exam director and will be responsible for maintaining an orderly exam atmosphere as well as hiring and training proctors.

Dr. Will Lee, Director of the Jay and Jeannie Schottenstein Honors Program, stressed the significance of devoting the annual forum to academic integrity. “For faculty members it’s like insurance, not anybody’s favorite subject,” Dr. Lee said. “But there is a national problem and a local problem. Far too many cases cropped up over the last year. Students should develop personal integrity and adhere to halacha. In the eyes of faculty members, any breach of academic integrity threatens the core of what we're doing as a university: pursuing the truth.”

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