Serendipity35

This post is meant to be read as a companion post to "Why Students Cheat: A Student View." As I said there, this is based on some formal & informal surveys and opinions communicated to me while I was working on issues about academic integrity while working at NJIT, and from workshops I have run on other college campuses.

I'll talk briefly here about the reasons that I heard multiple times. If you teach, you will probably be able to identify with some of these reasons - either for yourself or for other teachers you know.

1. A number of faculty members told me quite simply that they preferred to deal with it themselves. Some said this with a clear feeling of pride, as if going to their department chair or the Dean of Students showed a weakness. A few told me this with a hint of shame, as if going to someone else would be showing weakness. This was especially true of adjuncts and non-tenure faculty. In my K-12 years, I experienced the same sentiments from my fellow teachers at times.
2. They want to give students the "benefit of the doubt" and be fair.
   
3. They don't have the time to deal with instances of cheating and plagiarism using "the system" that was in place at the university. As someone involved with the Honor Committee then , I knew that "the system" of reporting infractions was not really that time consuming, but that was a perception on campus.
4. Some people told me that it made them feel uncertain about their own roles as models or mentors rather than as "police."
5. Deserved or not, there was also the perception on at least three campuses I surveyed that there was a lack of support from the administration (from department chairs, to deans and above) for faculty who pursued infractions of the honor code.
6. I also heard that frequently they did not have solid "proof" that a student cheated and obtaining that proof would take too much time, if it was even possible. Using Turnitin.com (which was something I was involved with implementing on campus) did provide much of that proof in instances of plagiarism, but many instructors still saw it as too time consuming.
   
7. Finally, as the years went by I heard more frequently a reason that I was aware of from my years in K-12 education: a fear that there would be legal action by the student or the student's family. Oddly enough, no one could give me an actual example of a case that had ended in this way, but there were plenty of second & third hand examples. The only case I was actually involved in was when a student filed a grievance against an instructor who had failed him in the course for copying a homework assignment. Unfortunately, the instructor had not gone to the Dean of Students, but had acted on his own (see reason #1 above). Failing the student in the course could not be supported by the administration, as it was not the appropriate punishment for that level infraction. The student "won" his case. The instructor felt angry with the Dean's office ( see #5 above)