Acting with the desire to help both professors and students, the Faculty Senate endorsed changes to the Integrity of Scholarship and Grades Policy Tuesday afternoon.
The proposed policy changes set up a system in which an undergraduate who is accused of academic dishonesty has the opportunity to have the citation removed upon graduation, provided they go through a training process and the rest of their Spartan career is free of academic dishonesty allegations.
The changes do not apply to graduate students, the reason being that at that point in their academic careers they should know better.
Professor Cynthia Taggart, chairperson of the University Committee on Undergraduate Education, spoke at the meeting to present the proposed changes, having previously spoken on them at the last Steering Committee meeting.
“What the policy was put in place for was a way of tracking academic dishonesty acts,” Taggart said of the original policy.
The reasons for updating the policy include the desire to limit penalties for a simple mistake in which a student might not even understand they are being academically dishonest.
“We recognize that people early in their academic careers could make a mistake,” said Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs June Youatt.
Taggart also commented that this would especially help international students who may not be aware of American cultural standards, since “the way of understanding (academic dishonesty) is different across cultures.”
With offenses that she described as “particularly egregious,” the professor has the opportunity to request a harsher punishment in which the offense may potentially remain on the student’s academic record upon graduation.
Youatt commented that professors are frequently torn on whether to report an offense or not, especially if that student may be prevented from gaining employment in the future. What this policy change would do, she said, was diminish the “moral dilemma” involved if the consequences would not be permanent.
The Faculty Senate endorsed the changes with no vocalized opposition.
The exact language of the changes can be viewed on the March 17 agenda for the Faculty Senate at acadgov.msu.edu.
