Dozens Suspended In Harvard University Cheat Scandal

johnsnails writes "Around 60 students at Harvard University have been suspended and others disciplined in a mass cheating scandal at the elite college, the campus newspaper reports. The Harvard Crimson quoted an email from Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean Michael Smith that said more than half of the cases heard by administrators in the scandal, which erupted last year, had resulted in suspension orders. 'After professor Matthew B. Platt reported suspicious similarities on a handful of take-home exams in his spring course Government 1310: “Introduction to Congress,” the College launched an investigation that eventually expanded to involve almost half of the 279 students enrolled in the course.'"

Comments

My Theory

[Javagator]

I guess all of these students were planning on going into politics.

Re:My Theory

[MickyTheIdiot]

I know this is a joke, but it's more than relevant.

I am guessing the people getting off in this case are getting off more for lack of evidence rather than exoneration. Plus logic dictates that with this number of people it's not the first time it ever happened.

What upsets me most personally about the United States is that we've developed a culture where doing the right thing is NEVER rewarded and doing the WRONG thing usually is. We've got a political culture right now where a politician MUST be a huxster or they can't compete. The US Government does suck at every level, but it's an outgrowth of the sickness of the culture itself. Nice guys don't finish last; nice guys don't finish AT ALL.

Re:My Theory

[Vinegar Joe]

So long as it's not "malevolent, it's ok. Just ask Joe Biden. He's done ok.......

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/18/us/biden-admits-plagiarism-in-school-but-says-it-was-not-malevolent.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Re:My Theory

[Intrepid imaginaut]

What upsets me most personally about the United States is that we've developed a culture where doing the right thing is NEVER rewarded and doing the WRONG thing usually is. We've got a political culture right now where a politician MUST be a huxster or they can't compete.

What on earth makes you think that's unique to the US?

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to worry, very few Harvard graduates go far in politics.

In fact, considering how highly selective the admission process is and how well connected its graduates are, the number of presidents who are Harvard alum is appallingly low. I have no explanation as to why.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess all of these students were planning on going into politics.

Please. Cheating isn't even on the goddamn hazing list for politics. You have to be a hardened criminal to break into that group. After all, you wouldn't want to stand out.

Re:My Theory

[Sechr Nibw]

GP never said it was unique to the US, sounded to me like it was just implied that was all the poster had experience with, rather than painting the entire world of politics with the same brush. Sounds rather sensible for someone named MickyTheIdiot!

Re:My Theory

[prisoner-of-enigma]

we've developed a culture where doing the right thing is NEVER rewarded and doing the WRONG thing usually is.

I'd argue that it's not so much about right versus wrong, it's more about the end result trumping the method of getting there. A "win" is considered vindication of the means. If the means are "right" then that's great, but if the means are "wrong", it's too often considered OK to look the other way. The more rewarding the win, the more likely people are to overlook the wrong, especially if those who *should* be doing the looking stand to benefit from the win in the first place. Look at Lance Armstrong. Do you think *nobody* in his inner circle knew he was doping? Sure they did. But they also knew fame and fortune would come from Armstrong's wins, and they could bask in that to considerable benefit. Thus they became complicit.

In a perfect world, there would be ample benefits and public glorification of the person who came forward to expose cheating. Instead, they typically have everything to lose and very, very little to gain by doing so. Hence the culture of cheating prospers in sports, business, academia...pretty much anywhere the stakes are high enough.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 your comment.

It's nothing new and certainly ingrained. In high school back in the 80's, pretty much everyone in my courses cheated (NMB Senior, Class of 88). I never once cheated, ever, and it was galling to watch them walk away week after week with A's and 100's even though I and many others knew that it was unearned. Even simple things -- an art class self portrait (the cheaters asked the more artistic folks to draw for them), a take home physics exam (Mr. Sturgelewski's class) was copied from person to person, a children's book in English class (someone even copied Curious George and handed it in) -- was not immune. These are the cheats and liars that are in business and law now.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is that their families weren't rich enough to hire attorneys.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should anyone have to exonerate themselves? Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? Man, no wonder we're slipping further and further into fascism every day.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

You've touched on a fine point about democracy, but its an important one. A certain number (and I don't have a very specific number for you), but at least 50% of elected public officials must have upstanding morals for a democracy to survive. It would be good to have a morals test given to politicians at uneven intervals to determine their level of morality (truth, honesty, etc.). All results are recorded publicly and posted without fail (and widely distributed). It can be something like letting them find a wallet someone has lost with a certain amount of money in it, and see if they turn it in with all money intact, that kind of thing. In countries where the common good takes second place to private interest (be it corporate or the interests of the politician), democracy fails. Note that these are general rules, and I'm not naming any country specifically. The problem with corporations is that they are *not* democratic, and their typical way of doing business "I want it, I want it now!" isn't the way democracy works, but they (corporations and democracies) have a common base of power (money) which leads one to corrupt the other. To have a strong democracy, you should isolate the first (political) from the other (corporate). Its like a separation of Church and State. When the Church had money, they corrupted politics (see European History from AD 300-AD1800). Now that corporations have all the money, they corrupt politics. Its only when huge numbers of people have money (middle class) does democracy work best for the most people.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the problems with Capitalism is it can force Managers to compete with each other to screw everyone; their employee's, customers and ultimately the environment; the best. The classic method of constraining it has always been to involve government. For example; The Red Triangle fire resulted in 120 Americans dieing on the 8th floor of a high-rise factory floor from a fire that started on the 10th; the bosses surmised they only needed a few buckets of water in the corner, locked their workers in, and weren't around to let them out when the fire started. The result of this was a "general strike" and hundreds of laborers unionizing overnight as everyone came to the realization they were putting up with something they aught not to put up with.

The lesson here is, if management and labor don't work together, neither of them will be employed for long. The pride of management blinds them to the obvious dangers they place labor, and ultimately themselves, at, and labor if they follow management down the rabbit hole will lead inevitably and invariably to injury.

I work at a company run by lawyers, they're always fighting over the slightest nuance of communication instead of looking at what's really going on; a infrastructure built with products promised to last decades but because foreigners cut corners as there was no real repricussion for doing so, thus it is in decay. An entire generation retiring oblivious to the peril management has placed their pensions in. Men Dieing or getting injured in the field from too many hours of overtime worked. Managers putting in 16hr shifts because their managers need to feel like the lower managers are "with them". Accountants oblivious to all of the above.

Re:My Theory

[__aaltlg1547]

I know this is a joke, but it's more than relevant.

I am guessing the people getting off in this case are getting off more for lack of evidence rather than exoneration. Plus logic dictates that with this number of people it's not the first time it ever happened.

What upsets me most personally about the United States is that we've developed a culture where doing the right thing is NEVER rewarded and doing the WRONG thing usually is. We've got a political culture right now where a politician MUST be a huxster or they can't compete. The US Government does suck at every level, but it's an outgrowth of the sickness of the culture itself. Nice guys don't finish last; nice guys don't finish AT ALL.

The heartening result is that Harvard takes cheating seriously. They suspended about 60 students over it and a bunch of others are on probation -- probably because they couldn't prove those students cheated.

Re:My Theory

[GodfatherofSoul]

I think it's a little more subtle than that. It's not that we reward wrong behavior. We simply don't really punish people in these kinds of situations enough to deter doing wrong. And, that punishment scale is based on how much money or influence your parents might have.

Here in Kansas, we had a group of high school kids get busted a few years ago buying essays. The teacher flunked them all, but the parents went to the school board and pressured them into giving the kids passing grades. You can be assured it wasn't an inner city school. We've become a nation of cynics.

Re:My Theory

[Khashishi]

Maybe we should have some reward for people who rat on cheaters. All the students seem to know who the cheaters are, but nobody wants to be a rat.

Re:My Theory

[Mashiki]

What on earth makes you think that's unique to the US?

People tend to think that everything like this is unique to it. Well once people get out into the real world and see what happens, they quickly realize that cheating happens everywhere. Or that a politician must be a huckster to compete, I'm guessing they've never seen european politics or canadian, or hell japanese. From my own neck of the woods, take a look at Dalton McGuinty probably one of the biggest liars, cheats and scum suckers since Bob Rae. And one that's successfully ensured that Ontario will be paying through the nose for electricity. Despite claiming that hydro prices will go down.

Re:My Theory

[khallow]

My theory is that this is mostly a consequence of urbanization. One can have hucksters, con men, etc in rural environments and there are plenty of them out there, but the victims are far more concentrated and to an extent wealthier in urban areas. And once you get enough of such people in one place and they become influential enough, then society itself starts to glorify them.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

What upsets me most personally about the United States is that we've developed a culture where doing the right thing is NEVER rewarded and doing the WRONG thing usually is. We've got a political culture right now where a politician MUST be a huxster or they can't compete.

What on earth makes you think that's unique to the US?

Great example of the level of discourse in the USA today. Let me point out the pattern:

Thinking person: In the USA this problem is evident to me.

Knee-jerk apologist: You said the rest of the world is better than the USA! You are a bad person and not a patriot! We can ignore your point and concentrate on how evil the rest of the world is because they all have this problem at least as bad!

Thinking person: Wait, what? I never mentioned any other country because I live in the USA and am not prepared to comment on other cultures I only know from hearsay!

KJ apologist: Fuck you traitor! Go live in Sweden/Iraq/Russia/Somalia since you like Socialism/Arabs/Commies/pickaninnies so much!

Thinking person: .......

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

> The lesson here is, if management and labor don't work together, neither of them will be employed for long

Lots of companies still run this way. That's not the lesson you should have taken away from the story.

Re:My Theory

[runningduck]

What upsets me is that in many top program there is a forced curve. There is nothing worse than studying your ass off and being pushed down a letter grade due to a crop of cheaters. It seems that some grades should be restated for previously classes these cheaters completed.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

If Harvard took cheating seriously, it would fail and expel these students from the program and not let them back in. It is (or was) exceptionally easy to get decent grades at Harvard. Last time I checked, very nearly 90% of its students graduated cum laude or better.

Academic dishonesty at Harvard is not a new thing, either. Ted Kennedy was caught, red-handed, cheating at Harvard when a hired person took an exam for him. Kennedy eventually got his degree anyway and went on to be a career U.S. Senator.

What Harvard and many of the Ivy Leagues are is an institution for developing the next generation of elite, white-collar criminals. The 2008 financial crisis was caused entirely by rampant fraud perpetrated by the private institutions that overwhemingly are run by and hire Ivy League alumni.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess all of these students were planning on going into politics.

We've had a similar scandal in the Czech Republic. It was a *law faculty* (talk about hypocrisy!). Many graduates fell into suspicion, many of them already actively engaged in politics. It turned out that this had been going on for at least a decade. The vice dean had plagiarized someone else's work for his dissertation. He and three other similar suspicious character resigned (one other vice dean, one department head), all in high positions. An ex post facto computer check found that dozens of other dissertations had been plagiarized throughout the years. Dozens of other graduates were found to have been "fast-tracked" through the faculty, obviously with the knowledge of the faculty administration, often in violation of rules enforced to other, less fortunate students, including grading standards. These include high-ranking civil servants, police officers, politicians, family members of the faculty members etc.

In the end, the faculty was simply shut down.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't accomplish what you want:
-The only people aware of cheating are friends of cheaters. Cheaters only reveal the fact that they are cheating to people they trust will not rat them out.
Witch Hunts:
-"He Said, She Said" justice is ALWAYS brutally messy.
-Encouraging betrayal of trust quickly degrades to a "first to file" system of impropriety. Whenever a conflict of interests exists, someone will feel compelled to be the first one to tattle to mommy before they are the victim of false witness themselves. IE: Count of Monte Cristo.

Re:My Theory

[icebike]

Maybe we should have some reward for people who rat on cheaters. All the students seem to know who the cheaters are, but nobody wants to be a rat.

Considering the number of students involved in cheating, it would be like ratting out your local thug gang.
Someone is bound to take revenge.

This whole tendency to suffer any injustice and never speak up will probably be the downfall of civilization.

Re:My Theory

[Antique Geekmeister]

I'd not be so sure. When I was on college, I certainly saw students cheating or having enormous opportunity to cheat because of poor care of exam notes and problem set answers by the teaching assistants. On several occasions, I saw the notes lying around and deliberately did my work an entirely different way, or with additional work deliberately added to demonstrate my actual knowledge of the subject rather than simply copying those answers, and notified the professor that the answers had been left lying out where students could see them.

This does not mean I was a "nice guy finishing last". It was seeing someone cheating and beating them _anyway_, in ways that meant if the cheaters won, I could take it to the deans and make a huge affair out of it.

Re:My Theory

[Pinky's Brain]

That's where they went wrong ... if they already had political pull they would have been part of the group who were caught but didn't get suspensions.

Re:My Theory

[VAElynx]

Indeed.
Take Silvana Koch-Mehrin , the german EU politician who had plagiarised her graduating thesis (having before waved on about how she manages being a mother, an active politician and an academician at the same time, well, amusing how that turned out to be) , and was kicked out of function for it.... only to be appointed on the EU commission for research and industry.

Re:My Theory

[Pinky's Brain]

Why did Romney lose? People don't like the privileged much any more (Bush got a pass because he could play such an endearing moron).

It's much better to groom someone who came from relatively humble backgrounds ... they will be hungrier for money and less likely to suddenly go FDR/JFK on you as well.

Re:My Theory

[LordLimecat]

If Harvard took such things seriously, the students would be out of the University and barred from readmission, and a mark on their transcript indicating such.

Re:My Theory

[Anti Cheat]

Crooks, thieves and liars Dalton Mc'dumb'ass has doomed Ontario to far more than just high electrical rates in his quest to pay off his past electoral financial cronies. Cronyism is alive and well in Ontario. Dalton took Ontario from a have, to a have not, province now entitled to transfer payments from the other provinces for the first time in its history. All while destroying it's manufacturing base. Not just the loss of traditional jobs as we knew was coming anyway, but failed to replace those jobs with even one hi-tec job of the future. Such hugely bad contracts with Asia for example. They were to build factories for all the windmills and solar panels to first supply Ontario so to replace oil generation but to then have those job continue to sell to the US etc. As soon as those contracts ended, the Asian companies pulled out, closed them down, laid off the workers. On top of that, there were never any customers to sell to, that wanted overpriced panels and windmills. Cost to taxpayers ran into the billions. Not only did Dalton make Ontario over pay for those alternate energy systems, but less that 1.0% of Ontario power is generated by them at best of times. No oil fired plants can be shut down without a net loss to the Ontario grid because the sun only shines in the day and the wind doesn't always blow. So oiland gas fired plants have reopened. Back to square one after billions spent. In fact, during The hottest days for the last two summers, not one watt was generated from the Kingston island wind farm, because no wind blew during those heatwaves. No power could be sold onto the shared US/Ontario grid, as there was already a glut to the point that penalties were paid for over generation, to the point of another $20 million loss to Ontario taxpayers. The disasters continue. So Dalton resigned as Liberal leader of Ontario. Now the Liberals have placed their hope to regain the right to rule in some unknown person. The liberal hope to capture the vote by the party electing a leader that is 1: A woman, 2: A lesbian, 3: A white, aging baby boomer. If that isn't being disingenuous I don't know what is. Since when is being gay and a woman qualification to lead a province. White aging baby boomer is only slightly relevant because I guess they couldn't find a gay, female, minority. Voters won't care as they eat cold dog food in the dark in order to pay off the provincial debt and their electric bill. Shifting the balance of power even more westward, to the oil patch in Alberta. Thanks Dalton. Sorry for the rant, but it needed to be said in support of mashiki's post above.

Re:My Theory

[Attila Dimedici]

If Harvard took cheating seriously, they would be investigating their faculty. They just discovered that their "Native American" professor lied about being Native American after she left to run for Senate. If she lied about that, how many other faculty members have lied about similarly difficult things to confirm, but which provide them with a step up? Her husband is still employed there and he almost certainly knew she was lying.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Deja vu... look up Sparta. 9)

Re:My Theory

[JustOK]

You think it's only relevant to your planet? Or to people with knees?

Re:My Theory

[buybuydandavis]

Platt reported suspicious similarities on a handful of take-home exams in his spring course Government 1310: “Introduction to Congress,”

They shouldn't worry. When they cheat in Congress, the press won't report it even if they are incompetent enough to get caught. Rules aren't for rulers.

Re:My Theory

[Sique]

And what makes you think, that this culture has developed in the U.S.?
In fact, it's never been different. The notion that morally flawed deeds get rewarded while good behaviour doesn't is so old, that many religions incorporated concepts about a later reward for the good ones and a later punishment for the evil in their systems of faith, because reality seems not fair enough to us. And through the times you find cultural pessimists who complain and whine how bad it has become. It's one of the recurring themes of the world (others being the children being worse and worse educated and only interested in partying and being lazy and the death of real art and their replacement by cheap, uncreative and superficial knockoffs).
Thus let me assure you: We invented better and better methods to minimize those problems. We call them laws, investigations, public scrutinity, accountability and responsibility. They are not perfect, they are as flawed as we as humans are. But we are improving.

Re:My Theory

[McGruber]

+1 your comment.

It's nothing new and certainly ingrained. In high school back in the 80's, pretty much everyone in my courses cheated (NMB Senior, Class of 88). I never once cheated, ever, and it was galling to watch them walk away week after week with A's and 100's even though I and many others knew that it was unearned.

+1 to you as well. I graduated high school in '89 and college in '93 -- I saw lots of cheating at both institutions.

Re:My Theory

[grantspassalan]

Liberal universities such as Harvard have taught their students for a long time that there are no absolutes. What makes you think that what you believe is right or wrong is what someone else believes is right and wrong? When a ship's captain throws the compass overboard, that ship is very likely to get lost and end up on the rocks somewhere. Our nation and many of these liberal universities were founded on the moral compass provided by the God of the Bible. That has all been thrown out and replaced with relativism. In light of that, who do you think you or anybody else think they are, to say that cheating is wrong, especially if it gets the desired results for the cheaters? Our government and its politicians only reflect our culture that has lost its moral compass.

Re:My Theory

[cheesybagel]

From what I understand most of the EU comission is full of people like that.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

> The Red Triangle fire resulted in 120 Americans dieing on the 8th floor of a high-rise factory floor

Got a citation for that? The only result on Google for "'Red Triangle fire' factory" is your post.

It sounds more like you're just making-up crap to try to make America look bad.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

> What upsets me most personally about the United States is that we've developed a culture where doing the right thing is NEVER rewarded and doing the WRONG thing usually is.

During my last year of high school, I worked for one of the well-known U.S. burger chains. The adult manager wasn't there that day; one of his younger subordinate managers was running the show. She ordered pizza using cash from the register and later, at the end of the night, an employee loaded up his book bag with various desserts from the refrigerator.

I reported it the next day. Either the manager let my name leak or they quickly figured out it was me - I don't remember. Point is, they knew I ratted them out for stealing. An employee who wasn't even involved didn't like the fact that I ratted out his friends, and brought some of his hooligan buddies to wait for me in the parking lot. Several times I had to be escorted to my car under police protection.

It didn't take long for me to determine that it wasn't worth it, and I quit. On the day I returned to turn in my uniforms, who did I see behind the counter, now working my job at my station? The kid who stole the food.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

GP mangled the name. The intended reference is the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire).

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Its just the little rich brats. I was one of the poor kids at my university, and I never got over how much the rich kids cheated. None of them would have made it to university on their own merit. Only reason any of them are not living in the gutter/prison is because mommy and daddy spend the money to make sure that doesn't happen.

Unfortunately, it is these same rich losers who also inherit all the power, and run things.

As income and wealth disparities grow ever larger in this country (US), with wealth concentrated in a smaller and smaller elite, it is only a matter of time before we have a great societal purge of these parasites. Long overdue.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to reply to myself, but I meant to close with this:

As a result of this experience, I always look the other way now.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

What upsets me most personally about the United States is that we've developed a culture where doing the right thing is NEVER rewarded and doing the WRONG thing usually is. We've got a political culture right now where a politician MUST be a huxster or they can't compete.

What on earth makes you think that's unique to the US?

I witnessed a case of mass cheating at a prestigious University in Australia. About 25% of students (many from influential families) were given the full set of answer to an exam on a difficult and important subject, and were discovered. But instead of giving out justice, the University just took the exam out of the overall scoring for all students, exonerated the responsible examiner and let the students off with a caution.

The reason for this is that money talks.

Re:My Theory

[hairyfeet]

I really don't know how much of Bush's was "playing" friend, ever watch a collection of "Bushisms"? One can't just butcher the living hell out of basic speech THAT badly and fake it easily. I have a feeling its more like TFA, Bush was a rich kid that majored in keg tapping and hiring other people to do the work and hey! He got to be POTUS so that's cool, right?

Lets face it, there really is no difference between the current system and the feudal system of old, only difference is you are given your title by big corp instead of the state. The rich didn't really have to work to get the cushy life back then, they don't have to really work to get the cushy life now, the Harvards and Yales might as well be handing out titles of count and baron since its insider track means anybody that graduates there will be among the top 5% of the country as far as lifestyle. Notice they didn't throw anybody out? Can't piss off the elite ya know.

Re:My Theory

[Alomex]

Maybe, but let's not forget that Obama is a Harvard (Law) Graduate too.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice guys finish in the shower.

Re:My Theory

[phantomfive]

Look at Lance Armstrong. Do you think *nobody* in his inner circle knew he was doping? Sure they did. But they also knew fame and fortune would come from Armstrong's wins, and they could bask in that to considerable benefit.

They were also harassed, threatened, and sued every time they did accuse him of doping. There have been a lot of people who knew, who accused him of it over the last 10 years.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

>I'm guessing they've never seen european politics or canadian

In my country, most of the huckster type stuff happens in the actual campaign from the parties, probably because we're not electing the politicians themselves. The politicians themselves are criminally incompetent blowhards who brush it off when they get accused of embezzling millions from the government. But at least they're not hucksters...

I think that's one nice thing about the US government. Most governments have shitty people, but personal corruption isn't a widespread accepted phenomenon in the US (corporate lobbying on the other hand...) and when they catches a politician doing seriously wrong things, he doesn't generally get to walk free.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

False. First off, you are rewarded by being able to look at yourself in the mirror every day. Second, there are politicians who have been elected and have stood on principle, such as Ron Paul.

We live in an "entitlement" society - whether that means a handout from govt or that you "deserve" that brand new 60" tv on your already maxed out credit card. Basically the whole of society in the western world is morally in bad shape (and no, this isn't a suggestion that we need more God in our lives)

Re:My Theory

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The heartening result is that Harvard takes cheating seriously. They suspended about 60 students over it and a bunch of others are on probation -- probably because they couldn't prove those students cheated.

You call that 'serious'?

Harvard admits somewhere in the range of 5-6 percent of those who apply. Even if we assume that the bottom 75% or so of the applicant pool are just deluded optimists, Harvard could replace its entire class two or three times over with people who would love to have been admitted. If they were remotely serious, they could have banhammered everyone involved in cheating and called it a day. Instead they are being 'temporarily asked to leave'. That's crazy lenient given how trivial it would be to replace them, and how meaningful a degree from Harvard is supposed to be.

Re:My Theory

[Bing Tsher E]

You've pointed out nothing that doesn't reinforce the example.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

"I am guessing the people getting off in this case are getting off more for lack of evidence rather than exoneration. ...
  We've got a political culture right now where a politician MUST be a huxster or they can't compete.

Two comments. (1) No, the people getting off are getting off because as enrolled students they are worth a lot of money and, on average, their families are probably very well connected.

(2) A politician "can't compete"??? You make it sound as though "politics" is a real, worthwhile "job" which somehow adds value to the world instead of extracts it and "good guys" should be able to extract just as much as the bad guys or it isn't ...what?...fair?? What kind of person goes into "politics" as a career or money-making "job", anyway? What is the necessary belief system of such a person?

Re:My Theory

[ATMAvatar]

It's cute that you want to make this a liberal-only issue. Clearly, god-fearing conservatives never have a faulty moral compass. I just get confused when I read stories about clergy exposed for molesting children and their churches spending all their effort on covering it up rather than fixing the problem. I get more confused when I read about gerrymandering, affairs, and kickbacks related to Republicans.

Let me help you: cheating and lying are endemic to our culture as a whole. It is not limited to particular groups as you would like to believe.

This shouldn't come as any surprise. It's simple evolution: the bad guy who doesn't get caught, wins. The bad guy who does get caught but only gets a slap on the wrist wins. If the risk versus reward equation comes out so that the unethical course of action is always a winning proposition, we shouldn't act surprised when people act unethically. The truly unfortunate thing is that those in a position to change the balance of that equation are the same cheats and liars who benefit most from sitting on their hands.

Re:My Theory

[DNS-and-BIND]

Thinking people don't set up strawman arguments where they get to make the other side look like idiots.

Awkward...

Re:My Theory

[Sarius64]

I thinking he didn't get his ObamaPhone. Jealous.

Re:My Theory

[DNS-and-BIND]

Nah, that doesn't fly. When West Point had its cheating scandal, that was proof positive that the entire military structure was corrupt from top to bottom, baby murderers, etc. They got zero credit for totally expelling the offenders. Likewise, this scandal is also proof positive that Harvard is corrupt from top to bottom, and Harvard hasn't even taken the firmest action against the offenders.

Re:My Theory

[Sarius64]

ROFLMAO! Let me show up and surveil the place for a semester. We'll see how serious they take cheating.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a witness for grade change by a chairman and the supporting dean so that the university can get more money from the state. Wife of a dean of another part of the school and her daughter took class with me and always sat together and copied from each other , refused to move to other seats and when I had reported, the chairman fired me and also the chairman changed all Cs and Ds to As so that they can maintain A- average for the whole class. Many students gott 5 or 6 out of 100 and I had 130 students in two classes merged together to save money. I told in the class that they (students) should take their studies seriously, else all the jobs will be transferred to China. This was resented by the chairperson and told me 'You cannot tell negative things even if they are true'. The administration's rational was by giving away A- grade they can get more students can be attracted to the program and that will generate more money to the department. One student sent me an email saying "it is our understanding that once we paid our fees, we ill be given "A" and it is true I did not take your exam, etc. I sent the copy of the email to the chairperson, it was ignored. By the way it was a Computer Science department. No one can save USA with this type of over riding instructor and fairness to honest students. Universities (most of them) are dens of corruption. I am glad I am not teaching to morons any more.

Re:My Theory

[rtb61]

Consider a take home exam, is it cheating if you try to google your answers. Type in a similar search query and all the students will end up with similar answers. Still the mind boggles at would could be considered cheating in a take home exam. Here is a list of questions, take them home and look for answers. How is it cheating if you find them all in the one place? A take home exam is really an exercise in pointlessness.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

their employee's, customers

Three words, one apostrophe, AND IT'S WRONG! Why? It was correct the second time, yet not the first! WHY? It's not that hard!

Re:My Theory

[LordLucless]

One of the problems with Capitalism is it can force Managers to compete with each other to screw everyone; their employee's, customers and ultimately the environment; the best. The classic method of constraining it has always been to involve government.

The result of this was a "general strike" and hundreds of laborers unionizing overnight as everyone came to the realization they were putting up with something they aught not to put up with.

This isn't an example of government intervention; this is an example of capitalism working. Unionisation isn't anti-capitalistic; governmental backing of unionisation (making use of strikebreakers illegal, etc) may be anti-capitalist, but no more than governmental backing of companies (LLCs, laws promulgated via lobbyists, etc).

Re:My Theory

[happyhamster]

offtopic shameless repuglican TROLL.

Re:My Theory

[joelville]

What upsets me most personally about the United States is that we've developed a culture where doing the right thing is NEVER rewarded and doing the WRONG thing usually is. We've got a political culture right now where a politician MUST be a huxster or they can't compete.

What on earth makes you think that's unique to the US?

What on earth makes you think that's unique to today? It's always been this way, you are now finding out about it.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

What on earth makes you think that's unique to the US?

What on Earth makes you think that he thinks that it's unique to the US?

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like roman_mir is back...

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

I am guessing the people getting off in this case are getting off more for lack of evidence rather than exoneration.

I am guessing the people getting off are just lucky. Everybody cheated, but suspending everybody is impractical, so they tossed a coin. A fair coin, as it seems:

Smith said the inquiry [...] resulted in about half of the students implicated in the high-profile case being asked to leave the college for “a period of time.”

And then they tossed it again:

The rest of the students were evenly split between those who received disciplinary probation or had their cases dismissed, he said.

So there you have it, it was only fair!
Sort of like they determine exam results. A given percentage has to fail, so they tweak the grades accordingly.

Re:My Theory

[Skuld-Chan]

Government could have intervened with things like fire safety codes, and those people at the mill would still be alive. You know whats really sick - people jumped out of the windows and got impaled on the iron fence below.

Re:My Theory

[Nefarious Wheel]

You think it's only relevant to your planet? Or to people with knees?

I blame the Draenei.

Re:My Theory

[Nefarious Wheel]

ROFLMAO! Let me show up and surveil the place for a semester. We'll see how serious they take cheating.

I don't think they'd let you do that, unless you could prove you had a relevant degree from an institution they recognise, such as (oh, just pick one) Harvard.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

In residing in Japan and cheating in schools seems rampant.

Re:My Theory

[nobodie]

This is not true of all the universities in the US: check out my alma mater, UVA. Still has a single sanction (expulsion) student run honor system. You cheat in any way at any time and you are out, period. It works.

Re:My Theory

[Anonymous Coward]

I am guessing the people getting off in this case are getting off more for lack of evidence rather than exoneration.

Hahaha. No. The people "getting off" in this case are well connected individuals. As if actual evidence had anything to do with it. It is to laugh.

Re:My Theory

[grantspassalan]

While there may be some conservatives that subscribe to the idea of relativism in morals, I would be hard-pressed to name a liberal university or college that does NOT subscribe to the idea that there are no absolutes in morals. It is liberal groups like the ACLU that litigate against displaying absolute moral codes such as the 10 Commandments. I have never heard of a conservative group agitate against moral absolutes like that.

That said, you are right, our culture as a whole has lost its moral compass. The 10 Commandments have now become 10 suggestions. It is now unfortunately true, that the majority of the people don't care anymore, at least to the point of doing something about it, to call our leaders in government and in other institutions to task for lying and cheating. If university presidents and politicians were thrown out of their jobs, when lying and cheating and when other unethical activities take place which they could've stopped, then whose fault is that?

The theory of evolution has no place for moral absolutes. It is strictly the survival of the fittest. You are indeed right, those that can lie and cheat and do other wrong things and get away with it do win and survive. Fortunately there still is justice in the universe. Everybody will one day stand before the Creator God of the universe and give an accounting of how they have lived here on earth.

Completely Predictable

[Anonymous Coward]

Put people in a position where they will benefit from cheating, and feel likely to get away with it, and most of them will cheat.

Few and far between are the people who will play fair, to their own potential detriment, when able to get away with it and competing against others who do not play fair.

Re:Completely Predictable

[russotto]

Few and far between are the people who will play fair, to their own potential detriment, when able to get away with it and competing against others who do not play fair.

Even fewer are those who will continue to do this after the first few times. After a while you begin to believe that the real rules and the stated ones have little to do with each other, and anyone following the stated rules isn't any more moral or ethical or in any way better; they're just a chump.

Re:Completely Predictable

[tibit]

And how on Earth do you benefit from cheating in school? Aren't you there to learn or something?

Re:Completely Predictable

[icebike]

And how on Earth do you benefit from cheating in school? Aren't you there to learn or something?

Collaborative learning (study groups) are ok, and often encouraged, sometimes required. Why: Because they AID learning.

Since the test was a take-home exam, I could see where the students, in the absence of any instructions to the contrary might thing it was just another co-op assignment. (Not saying there wasn't any warning not to work in groups, just tossing that out there).

In any university testing environment the test answers are usually stored under lock and key. Even most essay style exams have bullet point lists (again secret) that have to be mentioned in passing in the composition in order to be score-able on anything scale other than a whim. So throwing this exam out there to "take home" seems pretty reckless, if not hopelessly naive on the part of the professor.

Re:Completely Predictable

[Pinky's Brain]

You're there to get a good job too and with the job market as it is you can't really afford being filtered out on GPA.

Re:Completely Predictable

[Anonymous Coward]

And how on Earth do you benefit from cheating in school? Aren't you there to learn or something?

I think most people are there to win documentation necessary to move on to the next stage. Everybody knows that you'll never use the information or skills learned in school. Everybody knows that employers don't care nearly as much whether you know geometry as whether you know Microsoft Word. Everybody knows that school is for theory and job is for practice. No, no one goes to school to learn anymore: it's just one more ritual roadblock the old people have placed to keep the next generation from competing with them.

Re:Completely Predictable

[CurunirAran]

Usually, in most cases where co-op studying is allowed, students are told that while discussing ideas is OK, verbatim (or similar enough) answers that are used by multiple members of the group will be considered cheating.

Moreover, when you take an exam, the questions are meant to be thought about, and the answers to those questions have to come out of your own ideas, or so I'd imagine would be the case for a PoliSci class.

If the students in question did anything like what has been mentioned in the summary, then they deserve harsher punishment than what they are currently getting.

Re:Completely Predictable

[Sarius64]

MBAs do what at Uncle Harold's conglomerate?

Re:Completely Predictable

[Anonymous Coward]

You're there to get a good job too and with the job market as it is you can't really afford being filtered out on GPA.

Sad thing is GPA isn't checked 99.9% of the time. Even 'Did you graduate?' rarely gets checked.

Re:Completely Predictable

[Sigg3.net]

Yes. But with integrity comes an air of cool indifference of what "others" think.

I have some of that too. Just ask my mother. Still, the coolest stuff I have experienced people do, didn't care for praise nor blame. I hope I can inspire someone the same way.
So University is more of a self-challenge to me. That's _learning_. Social manoeuvering is simply strategy, and lost when you are alone or in front of a mirror.

Re:Completely Predictable

[russotto]

So University is more of a self-challenge to me. That's _learning_. Social manoeuvering is simply strategy, and lost when you are alone or in front of a mirror.

You're probably not at Harvard. At Harvard, social maneuvering is one of the major skills you're there to polish.

Re:Completely Predictable

[Sigg3.net]

Not in the US at all.
If this is a school of strategy and politics, then I don't understand why they call it cheating. Pragmatically, a good politician is a good actor.

Does anyone not cheat anymore?

[SternisheFan]

Sports figures, politicians, business leaders, Ivy college students... all cheat to get what they want. At least Beyonce wouldn't lie to us. Oh, wait...

Now thats FUNNY

[flyneye]

Ha-vahd students too lazy and ignorant to get a clue about Congress. What will they do when Daddy buys them a seat? (besides feel up the interns?)

Re:Now thats FUNNY

[MickyTheIdiot]

With respect, I don't think has to do with east coast liberal elites. I think this has to do with culture and elitism in general.

Look at our leadership in congress for instance in both houses. I doesn't take much effort to figure out the meritocracy isn't in play.

Re:Now thats FUNNY

[flyneye]

Damn, we had to learn the functions of Congress back in grade school and Middle school. By high school I had two classmates intern.
Makes me question the quality of school today. The quality of Congress hasn't been a question in my lifetime.

Re:Now thats FUNNY

[melikamp]

If you cheat and fail you’re a cheater. If you cheat and succeed, you’re savvy. ~Eric Cartmanez, The White Person Method

Re:Now thats FUNNY

[Enry]

I work for Harvard (but not FAS, another school), but getting into FAS is no longer strictly about having money or connections. A large portion of the students that go there get some sort of financial aid, and a family making less than $120k gets a massive amount of financial aid if they are accepted.

FAS Financial Aid Office

Re:Now thats FUNNY

[__aaltlg1547]

Damn, we had to learn the functions of Congress back in grade school and Middle school. By high school I had two classmates intern. Makes me question the quality of school today. The quality of Congress hasn't been a question in my lifetime.

It could be the college course is a little more detailed.

Re:Now thats FUNNY

[sandytaru]

Somehow, though, I don't think the scholarship students are the cheaters. The valedictorian at my high school was accepted for a free ride to Harvard (her father was an Army sergeant, not exactly rolling in the dough there.) She was smart as a whip, scored perfect on the SAT, played the violin at nearly professional level, and was somehow pretty humble and a nice person despite all that. I cannot imagine her being involved in a cheating scandal - she wouldn't need to cheat. Hell, for someone like her, cheating is probably more effort than actually studying.

Re:Now thats FUNNY

[LordLimecat]

Inconceivable! Surely their math classes go into no more details on "numbers" than the ones I took in 5th grade!

Re:Now thats FUNNY

[flyneye]

I see,. a course in the finer points , like money laundering and where to get hookers that won't "tell all".

Re:Now thats FUNNY

[__aaltlg1547]

Clearly. Most of the hookers the Congressmen get never tell anything.

Re:Now thats FUNNY

[flyneye]

I think they have them "chipped" like a dog, just in case...

Re:Now thats FUNNY

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what a typical non-government major at Harvard is like (I went there)

Re:Now thats FUNNY

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who has been in school probably too long, my experience has been the person you know may not have cheated because of ethics and the type of person she was. There is much less correlation between intelligence and cheating. The smarter people usually tend to be better at distinguishing where people will turn a blind eye. I think this is close to what happened in the Harvard incident. The students knew discussing a take-home exam (and/or notes from recitation about the exam) was questionable. However, it probably seemed unfair that the class changed from easy to difficult and so there was a collective disgruntlement that emboldened people to discuss.

My understanding is that there was a difference in the quality of recitations. It is not fair for one recitation section to be given substantially more help than another. The honorable solution is to work your a** off and still do well. That is what I have always done and have often ended up with answers that are correct but different enough than expected that the TA trying to rush through grading (and understandably get back to research) does not evaluate them well and I have to discuss with the professors. This has always been frustrating, but in the long run worked out better since I learned more and got to know my professors better. However, for someone (including very smart people) who is thinking more towards higher grades or minimizing the amount of work, it would be easy to discuss with others even where there is a gut feeling that this may be considered wrong.

Basically, my feeling is that at any top institution, you were accepted with enough of a background that you should be able distinguish right from wrong and various gradations in-between. If you have questions, you ask for clarification. At the end of the day, you may occasionally get screwed by those that cheat. However, at the end of the day, other people generally prefer people with intelligence and integrity. Cheating might have slightly helped my grades--but I feel like I have a lot more to "sell" in the workplace by not cheating.

(To head of oncoming trolls there is a big difference between being honorable and being a self-righteous pain. No one likes a self-righteous pain.)

Re:Now thats FUNNY

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who has been in school probably too long, my experience has been the person you know may not have cheated because of ethics and the type of person she was. There is much less correlation between intelligence and cheating. The smarter people usually tend to be better at distinguishing where people will turn a blind eye. I think this is close to what happened in the Harvard incident. The students knew discussing a take-home exam (and/or notes from recitation about the exam) was questionable. However, it probably seemed unfair that the class changed from easy to difficult and so there was a collective disgruntlement that emboldened people to discuss.

My understanding is that there was a difference in the quality of recitations. It is not fair for one recitation section to be given substantially more help than another. The honorable solution is to work your a** off and still do well. That is what I have always done and have often ended up with answers that are correct but different enough than expected that the TA trying to rush through grading (and understandably get back to research) does not evaluate them well and I have to discuss with the professors. This has always been frustrating, but in the long run worked out better since I learned more and got to know my professors better. However, for someone (including very smart people) who is thinking more towards higher grades or minimizing the amount of work, it would be easy to discuss with others even where there is a gut feeling that this may be considered wrong.

Basically, my feeling is that at any top institution, you were accepted with enough of a background that you should be able distinguish right from wrong and various gradations in-between. If you have questions, you ask for clarification. At the end of the day, you may occasionally get screwed by those that cheat. However, at the end of the day, other people generally prefer people with intelligence and integrity. Cheating might have slightly helped my grades--but I feel like I have a lot more to "sell" in the workplace by not cheating.

(To head off oncoming trolls there is a big difference between being honorable and being a self-righteous pain. No one likes a self-righteous pain.)

Well on their way

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

To becoming the controlling elite of our country. Somehow I'm not surprised.

Ummm.

[Skiron]

1+1=2 they all had. Obviously cheats.

First reaction was...

[Anonymous Coward]

No wonder.. take home exams... open book exams.. what do you expect from the low level colleges... Then it actually hit me that this is Harvard.edu we are talking about.

I guess I was just lucky to finish eng and comp sci from a place where they filtered us from 450 in first year to 5 with diplomas in fourth, without ANY of this open-book-exam nonsense.

Then again, I'm unemployed at the time and work is tough to find... if I only went for a bigger name university... had the grades, didn't have the money... ah the ways of the world :)

Re:First reaction was...

[Anonymous Coward]

No wonder.. take home exams... open book exams.. what do you expect from the low level colleges... Then it actually hit me that this is Harvard.edu we are talking about.

I guess I was just lucky to finish eng and comp sci from a place where they filtered us from 450 in first year to 5 with diplomas in fourth, without ANY of this open-book-exam nonsense.

Then again, I'm unemployed at the time and work is tough to find... if I only went for a bigger name university... had the grades, didn't have the money... ah the ways of the world :)

If you got accepted to Harvard you would've had a free ride if you're poor. Poor people don't pay tuition there.

I didn't go there either but I'm not bitter about it or making up excuses for why my life sucks.

Did you even apply? Did you actually get accepted? Odds are: zero.

Re:First reaction was...

[Cinder6]

The funny thing (sad thing?) is how lenient the punishments were. Suspension? At my school, a lowly community college, cheating usually results in expulsion, with a 0 in the course being the minimum consequence.

Re:First reaction was...

[DarkOx]

well sure your community college does not have an outraged parent who just cut a $45k check to answer to; there is little in the way of them having standards.

Re:First reaction was...

[Anonymous Coward]

You pay a lot less to go to community college than they pay to go to Harvard... You know how it goes!

Re:First reaction was...

[demonlapin]

Truly poor people pay no tuition, true. I'm not sure what the room and board policy is (fairly safe bet it's not cheap) nor about books, etc., but even if they are covered there are substantial costs associated with college that do not have to do with the college itself, such as transportation to and from (e.g., dorms aren't open over holidays). Most students in that situation are better off taking a proper full ride from a slightly lesser school, since it will not be taken out from under them if they or their parents make some extra money one year (unlike need-based aid, which will be affected by expected family and student contribution).

Yes, I was admitted, no, I didn't go, and that is why. I needed security, something my parents were ill equipped to provide. Why do you think high expectations Asian father macros (just making a point, I'm not from an Asian or immigrant family) all talk about med school or engineering? Reliable professional jobs are a great place for middle class kids with brains; they can send their own kids to the big name schools. Was it the right choice? I aimed too low for my lesser school and although I made about $5000 a year from excess scholarship money and graduated without debt I probably could have gotten the same offer from a better place, so it is hard to tell - but then I make mid six figures in an area with a very low cost of living, so it's not like I ended up in the gutter.

Re:First reaction was...

[Anonymous Coward]

You realise that open-book exams give a lecturer a much better insight of what students have actually learned, rather than what they remember from cramming the night before? Open-book exams test insights. If you can recite of the books and other literature for a course, but you never actually did anything, you're highly likely to fail it. Fact memorisation exams don't show that you learned something: rather, they show you memorised things: most students tend to forget those things before the next semester is over. And then you have to teach it to them all over again when they need it.

Re:First reaction was...

[Anonymous Coward]

The parents SHOULD be outraged, at their kids for wasting their money. Unfortunately, even a suspension won't be enough for these kids to have trouble finding high-paying jobs after graduation. For people at the top there are no consequences.

Re:First reaction was...

[Anonymous Coward]

Some years ago if you got bad grades your parents would get mad at you for being lazy, etc.

Nowadays all I see are parents getting mad at the teachers. The first thing they dream up is that the teacher is doing something wrong and their poor kids are suffering from it. Then they all get together (the parents) and synchronize their stories, call the school director and request a meeting. If enough kids got really bad grades the teacher risks being fired.

Re:First reaction was...

[Cederic]

In the UK we call them 'papers' and 'essays'. Write 1250 words describing X.

Exams on the other hand are exams. They don't ask you to repeat facts, they require you to demonstrate understanding of the underlying concepts, approaches and context. No memorisation needed, just a clear understanding of the subject.

Re:First reaction was...

[quarterbuck]

I believe some of the students were indeed expelled.
The case is more complicated than simply copying.
1) This class used to be easy, but this year it was very hard
2) A lot of athletes etc. got in the class so that they could pass. When it was tough they panicked
3) They went to teaching assistants with questions about "interpreting" the exam. The TA's helped them freely. This was considered cheating in exams and resulted in suspensions.
4) Some cheated outright. Many resulted in expulsions with grades for the year getting set to zero and tuition for the year being refunded.
5) A few students copied class notes, but did not copy in the exam. This was looked at on a case by case basis and resulted in punishments (some expelled, some not)

Re:First reaction was...

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you think I passed my high school examinations? Memorization was necessary for 95% of the courses. And I forgot the material and the examination questions within 10 minutes of leaving the examination hall.

Re:First reaction was...

[Cinder6]

It occurred to me after writing this that a community college also has extra incentive to take a hard stance against cheating. If the college is known for allowing students get away with cheating, it might hurt prospective transfers to 4-year colleges.

Re:First reaction was...

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was in university, I took an English class. The prof. was quite strict about annotations and citing references. After the first paper, he explained: every paper being returned does not cite references properly (there were a huge number, more than 90% of the class, including mine). He explained it this way: if you turn a paper in again without properly citing references, you will be investigated for plagiarism, and if charged with academic misconduct (likely), you will get zero on the paper, zero on the course, be expelled not just from the class but also the university, and a note will be placed in your university record so that if other universities look at your transcripts, they will see why you were expelled (and may be barred admission elsewhere).

Re:First reaction was...

[tibit]

WTF is wrong with copying class notes?! It was a normal part of growing up: you missed class, you had to copy class notes, at least for material that was not sufficiently covered in the textbook. I did it in the elementary school, as early as 2nd grade, for crying out loud. I do not mean copying the notes into the exam, of course.

Re:First reaction was...

[sandytaru]

There's a study compiled each year that ranks schools based on value, the ratio of tuition paid versus the amount a graduate can expect to earn. Usually it's the Big State Us that give that value, since they have the Research I cred but also receive some state funding to keep tuition costs down. The Harvard brand name on a degree can tack on an extra $10,000/year for the starting salary, but if someone had to fork out over a hundred thousand dollars in student loans, it'll be ten years before they recoup that cost, and by then the earnings will have evened out with graduates from other colleges.

Re:First reaction was...

[Anonymous Coward]

No wonder.. take home exams... open book exams.. what do you expect from the low level colleges... Then it actually hit me that this is Harvard.edu we are talking about.

I guess I was just lucky to finish eng and comp sci from a place where they filtered us from 450 in first year to 5 with diplomas in fourth, without ANY of this open-book-exam nonsense.

Then again, I'm unemployed at the time and work is tough to find... if I only went for a bigger name university... had the grades, didn't have the money... ah the ways of the world :)

Clearly you do not know anything about the proper application of Open Book exams and take home exams. They are not necessarily easier than a conventional test. I had a class which every test was open book, in fact it was open everything the professor said you could bring anything you wanted to the exam. On every one of those exams a 30% was an A. They were that hard. I was told this is the common method in South American education systems. I also had classes with take home Exams and problem sets, which allow the professor to give questions that require significantly more thought. Students were encouraged to discuss and work together on the concepts but strict copying would be considered cheating. These exams typically took 24+ hours of work and those who were able to eek out half the available points were the elite. So there is nothing wrong with these test methods, and they are very common in high level classes where conventional exams are not useful considering the complexity of the subject matter. If the professor designs the problem well, and pays attention for signs of cheating there is nothing wrong with them at an elite school.

Re:First reaction was...

[quarterbuck]

NY Times reported that some students were asked to produce class notes 6 months after the incident. If they had them, they were let off, else it becomes unprovable...(or that's what I got from the newspaper)

Re:First reaction was...

[Anonymous Coward]

The financial aid package actually covers tuition, room and board, and "estimated expenses" (to the tune of ~$3,000 extra) to cover travel, books, etc. If you are very low-income, they cover it 100%, giving you the extra essentially as a check to pay for those extra expenses you talked about.
I don't think you should be talking about what "most students in that situation are better off" doing when you don't seem to even know what the situation really is.
Also, the aid package might be reduced a bit if they or their parents made more one year, but it's not "taken out from under them;" they're just asked to give a bit (but still while receiving an enormous amount of aid) according to what would be reasonable for their newfound income. Because that is the reasonable thing to do.

Source: I am a Yale undergraduate who came from a family where my father is a long-haul truck driver and my mother cleans houses. I get full ride, and it really is a full ride, not the incomplete psuedo-help you painted it as. I'm grateful.

Re:First reaction was...

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, they're grants, not loans: of all the schools I was accepted to, Yale was the cheapest option, because not a cent of the aid package was loans. I will graduate completely debt-free.

Re:First reaction was...

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, Harvard's financial aid is exceedingly generous, covering all fees and travel expenses for students whose family income is less than $70k per year. Families with income up to $190k per year are guaranteed that the total outlay will not exceed 10 percent of their annual income.

Re:First reaction was...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Truly poor" = 60k/year; I believe this free-ride financial aid program started in 2007. That income is middle-class in a lot of places. There are a lot of students at Harvard who are getting the free ride. Hell, there was a homeless student in a recent freshman class.

It's true, if your family is making like 30k/year, then things like transportation and textbooks become a concern, and then a nearby state school might be an alternative to consider. But frankly, the student should be able to work enough to pay for these things themself--it's easy to get $10/hr+ jobs on campus. It's really hard to have a financial excuse not to go to Harvard nowadays.

Re:First reaction was...

[demonlapin]

Glad to hear things have improved. It was quite hairy twenty years ago. "Giving a bit" back then was approx 40% of your (the student's) assets as expected contribution per year.

Re:First reaction was...

[demonlapin]

What's funny is that not going to an Ivy was for me the sort of experience Maugham wrote about in The Verger, which has always been one of my favorite short stories. If I'd gone there, I'd almost certainly make quite a lot less money than I do now.

Hmm

[koan]

Anyone else looked at the syllabus for some of these classes? I was looking at one online and I thought it looked more like it belonged in a community college.
I was surprised at the poor quality of classes I found, maybe actually being there in the class with the other 150 students makes a difference.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Not surprised. I am told that Harvard is actually not that great a school. I am also told that UPenn is nothing too special. Of course, I am probably being told this because I attend Princeton, which I can ASSURE you is nothing special (academically tough but not worth it due to the number of douchebags you need to interact with here and the poor quality of professors).

Re:Hmm

[ceoyoyo]

There's this weird worship for big American universities. In some cases they have excellent research and graduate programs but undergrad is undergrad. Except where you're paying big bucks and being a "legacy" makes some kind of difference. In that case there's a profit motive to make things easy enough for everybody to do well.

Cheating in Congress

[HybridST]

The course is Government 1310: "Introduction to Congress" so I'd think cheating was required.

Re:Cheating in Congress

[Common Joe]

The course is Government 1310: "Introduction to Congress" so I'd think cheating was required.

It is. It's also required in Congress that you don't get caught or if you do, you pay off the right people. Obviously, these students have some maturing to do before they are ready to graduate.

Fight Fiercely, Harvard!

[Okian Warrior]

Fight fiercely, Harvard, Fight, fight, fight!
Demonstrate to them our skill.
Albeit they possess the might,
Nonetheless we have the will.
How we shall celebrate our victory,
We shall invite the whole team up for tea (how jolly!)
Hurl that spheroid down the field, and Fight, fight, fight!

Fight fiercely, Harvard,
Fight, fight, fight!
Impress them with our prowess, do!
Oh, fellows, do not let the crimson down,
Be of stout heart and thru.
Come on, chaps, fight for Harvard's glorious name,
Won't it be peachy if we win the game? (oh, goody!)
Let's try not to injure them, but Fight, fight, fight!
And do fight fiercely! Fight, fight, fight!

(by Tom Lehrer)

Lots of geniuses

[Anonymous Coward]

The first rule of cheating: Don't get caught. If you're going to copy, just get ideas from each other then rewrite it how you want. At least then its tougher to prove.

The second rule of cheating: Cheat off someone smarter than you. Be amazed how many people don't follow this one.

Vice Presidential material!

[Vinegar Joe]

For sure!

Not Surprising

[RearNakedChoke]

The new generation of kids cheat as if that's how things get done.

I was talking to a 15 year old kid, how his grades suffered because he decided he wasn't going to cheat anymore. He admitted he previously cheated freely and openly, without shame. Why? EVERYONE cheated, so there was no shame in it. But he realized that cheating was shortsighted and sooner or later, he would have to actually learn stuff. So he resolved to stop cheating, but at the cost of his previous good grades.

HE is an encouraging example. But the rest of his classmates aren't. Cheating is the norm and our future is screwed.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what generation you were from. But the only reason my generation didn't cheat is because we were too lazy to do it.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

The other side of the coin is when you find out most of the "work" you have to do in class is simply busy-work which has no value after the exams. At that point, there's no point in bothering to memorize useless formulas and the like.

The most annoying thing though is seeing at one high school graduation, the principal bragging about how 2/3 of the class has 4.0 or better GPAs. That's telling me just how bad grade inflation has gotten.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you had to walk up hill both ways too.

Sounds like it's past time for your medication gramps - better hope the new generation doesn't vote down medicare (assuming we can afford to continue to pay for it for you since we are all cheats)!

Time to get off your lawn.

Re:Not Surprising

[tibit]

I'm also amazed at how differently one can define cheating, depending on where you went to school. In most of former Eastern Europe, for example, cheating in exams meant that you had small pieces of paper with painstakingly "minimized" equations, facts, etc. These things were memory aids, and should not have been forbidden in the first place because unless you knew how to apply them, you wouldn't pass anyway. Verbatim copying of papers made little sense unless the teacher was very unobservant. Some things, such as lab reports, could be used as a guide, but it was usually very obvious if it was a copy. People who understood their stuff each had their own insights in their reports, copies all had same insights (or none at all).

Re:Not Surprising

[bananaquackmoo]

I'm not sure why you think this is unique to the new generation of kids.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

"These things were memory aids, and should not have been forbidden in the first place"

This is why kids cheat, because they rationalize like this. The erroneous premise here is that an exam is supposed to be a teaching moment. It's not. It's a demonstration moment. All that matters is your _relative_ performance.

Cheating means not following the rules. Pure... and... simple. The rules themselves are beside the point.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

I had one biology teacher who allowed us to take one hand-written post-it note to tests. He explained that this was the ideal study aid because it forced his students to go through all the information and make decisions on how to condense all of it.

Re:Not Surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to Lake Wobegon!

Being Caught is Unforgivable

[Baldrson]

Harvard, Yale, etc. are the source of our leaders -- our elites -- and as we all know the first rule of an elite is to never get caught screwing the little guy.

Clearly these esteemed institutions have failed in their mission.

Re:Being Caught is Unforgivable

[CodeBuster]

Harvard, Yale, etc. are the source of our leaders -- our elites

And what has it gotten us? The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and a president who doesn't know his asshole from his elbow when it comes to economics. You'd be hard pressed to find less common sense or street smarts anywhere else than in the average Harvard class.

Re:Being Caught is Unforgivable

[EngnrFrmrlyKnownAsAC]

never get caught

That is the operative phrase. Hard to say if it's the rate of cheating or rate of detection that has changed vs 10, 20, 30 years ago.

Introduction to Congress

[EmagGeek]

Seems to me that cheating would be a requirement to pass that course.

Details would be nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

One has to be careful with these sorts of stories. A few years back at my University, newspapers went wild when an entire engineering ethics class was given an F for cheating. The reality of it? The professor gave no instructions on how to properly cite things, gave an assignment, and 'taught everyone a lesson' by failing them all for plagiarism when they didn't follow the exact standards of reference citing. These were engineers- imagine how little they know or care about perfection in reference citing. Nobody was intending to cheat the system, except for a professor who wanted to make some kind of point, by ruining the GPAs of a hundred students.

In this situation, I see certain similarities- one professor, one paper, and few details.

Re:Details would be nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Learning proper citation is relatively easy and there are manuals written specifically to show the correct citation to be used for various information sources. I had to learn APA and MLA citation rules during my undergraduate studies. Besides any time you use someone else's words or ideas in a written assignment you are supposed to acknowledge the source. Is that too much to ask of engineering students?

Re:Details would be nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here are some details, from the various Harvard Crimson articles on the topic.

The cheating occurred on a take-home exam. The instructions for the exam stated that it was open notes, open book, and open Internet, but that talking to other people about the exam was forbidden.

The exam was a different format from previous years' final exams. Previously, the only questions on the exams had been essay questions. This year, short-answer questions were added to the exam. Many students thought the short-answer questions were more difficult than the essay questions. In fact, in previous years, the course had been widely regarded as easy, in part because of the easy exams, but students in the year in question did not find it to be easy. Many students also thought the short-answer questions were confusing. During the period in which the exam was assigned, the professor sent out at least one email providing clarification on the short-answer questions due to mass confusion.

After the exams were collected, it was noted that many students turned in very similar answers on the short-answer questions. This suggested that they had collaborated, in violation of the exam instructions.

Re:Details would be nice...

[sandytaru]

What is entirely possible is that they all found the same paragraph in the text book that seemed to answer the question, and paraphrased it in the same way.

Re:Details would be nice...

[SourceFrog]

Let me guess, that's your story and you're sticking to it?

Re:Details would be nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Intro to Congress class is said to be a really, really good class, and my friends who have taken it have nothing but nice things to say about it. The unfortunate aspect of all this is that as a result, Professor Platt's class has now been canceled for the upcoming semesters, at least in the near future.

Re:Details would be nice...

[Palinchron]

The professor gave no instructions on how to properly cite things, gave an assignment, and 'taught everyone a lesson' by failing them all for plagiarism when they didn't follow the exact standards of reference citing.

How does that work, exactly? Not following the citation standards is not plagiarism. As long as a person denotes in any way whatsoever that a given thought / phrasing is not his own, it is not plagiarism, no matter how wrong the form or how limited the information in this declaration. It doesn't matter if the title of the original book, or the publisher, or hell even the author's name is missing -- as long as one writes "this is not mine" it is not plagiarism. It may not meet the requirements set by the course and therefore warrant a failing grade, but academic honesty violations are out of the question.

Re:Details would be nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, this one doesn't pass the smell test. Got a citation for any of that GGP? Or are you just full of shit?

Anyway, you're adults when you get to college - your professor shouldn't have to hold your hand anymore. If you don't know how to do something, many universities have a large building full of books that might have some information about it - you should check that out sometime...

Re:Details would be nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you're right. Of course! All those people, all that investigation at Harvard and no-one thought of this! Oh, if only the world could have you brilliant insight into everything, thinking at a third-grade level, it would be such a better place!

Re:Details would be nice...

[EuclideanSilence]

You also have to wonder what they were supposed to cite. Engineering isn't literature. In engineering, things are true just because they are true, not because someone said so. You don't constantly cite Fourier when doing DSP work.

Re:Details would be nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's quite a few sources via library and the internet on properly citing sources. This is something I recall covering in High School english and in various college gen ed courses including Intro to Composition.

Usually in college there's quite a few classes that build upon each other so you don't have to spend half the semester covering prerequisite topics.

Seems like your adviser is more to blame than the college professor and educational choices made along the way to blame more so than your adviser.

Take-home exams?

[CRCulver]

on a handful of take-home exams

There's your problem right there.

I wonder why oral exams aren't more common in the United States. When I came to do graduate studies in Europe, they really forced me to shape up and learn my stuff. Not only do they make cheating impossible, but when you are judged on how fast you provide the answer, you also internalize it better.

Sure, written exams are the norm for science fields where one must note down specialist notation like mathematics or chemistry, but in the humanities -- and the "political science" of this article -- they seem an excellent way of judging student progress.

Re:Take-home exams?

[ceoyoyo]

Graduate studies in North America make use of oral exams as well.

Nobody wants to listen to a thousand undergrads stumble over the same questions.

Re:Take-home exams?

[Fnord666]

I wonder why oral exams aren't more common in the United States. When I came to do graduate studies in Europe, they really forced me to shape up and learn my stuff. Not only do they make cheating impossible, but when you are judged on how fast you provide the answer, you also internalize it better.

Because giving hundreds of students oral exams would require effort on the part of the faculty and they believe that they have better things to do.

Re:Take-home exams?

[Improv]

Are you trying to say this is Harvard's "fault"? Surely I'm misunderstanding somehow.

To me, this is just a happy filtering out of some students who needed a lesson in humility and ethics. No fault to Harvard or the professor.

Re:Take-home exams?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oral exams waste a tremendous amount of time for both students and faculty. For a half-hour exam with 20 topics, good students have to prepare 10 hours of exactly perfect presentation. Do you have any idea how much time that takes to do? That time is on top of the time you need to actually learn the material, which is all you need to do for a written exam. To make matters worse, a good exam presentation is nothing like a good non-exam presentation, so you are not learning to present well in that time.

Re:Take-home exams?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oral exams don't happen because its a huge mess if the students contest the grade. You don't want some kid with a lawyer helicopter parent claiming that you had it in for him in an oral exam. There is no paper trail and the grading is subjective. Or hell, if you are a male professor, a female student can always claim that you gave her a bad grade because she refused sexual favors. You are in DEEP trouble if that accusation gets made, even if you are complete innocent.

You can mitigate that by doing exams in groups and all that, but it's still a big risk.

Written stuff leaves a paper trail, which provides a lot of protection from students claiming nonsense.

Re:Take-home exams?

[Anonymous Coward]

They do have better things to do, their career is dependent on research and not on teaching basic things to some undergrads.

Universities give them assistants but those are merely other students who again won't advance based on how well they teach. There's also never enough TAs.

Re:Take-home exams?

[Milharis]

Here in France in the Classes Préparatoires, students have written and oral exams. And it's not only in humanities, but in science as well.
Basically, you've got 20 minutes to prepare 3 exercises on paper, and 20 minutes to present them. And unless you're really good, you don't have the time to prepare everything before going to the black board, so you have improvise.
It works quite well, people are rarely contesting the grades, and there's no way a student can cheat.

Re:Take-home exams?

[tibit]

If you think you know something and can't give reasonable "exam grade" presentation about it without much preparation, you don't really know it. That's my humble opinion. Once I consider to know something, I probably don't have the best ways researched to teach it, but presenting it well enough off the bat to convince a professor that I know it -- meh. Of course some people can't present anything so that's an obstacle on its own, whether they know the subject cold or not.

Re:Take-home exams?

[tibit]

HD video recording and editing equipment is cheap these days. You can go to a large grocery store and buy everything you need -- a photo camera and some editing software, memory cards, perhaps an external hard drive or two. It's a trivially solved problem to record exams from even multiple angles. 20 years ago things were different, of course. These days, there's no excuse.

Re:Take-home exams?

[argStyopa]

Because oral exams are as much work for the teachers as the students?

Re:Take-home exams?

[OutputLogic]

I studied in both Eastern Europe and US. I absolutely hated oral exams back there. One can frequently talk himself/herself out of difficult questions, even in science classes like Physics or Math. When you take a written exam, it's totally unbiased and relatively anonymous. When you talk to an examiner, a lot of things can come into play in addition to student's knowledge and influence the results.

Re:Take-home exams?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be fucked. Huge IQ, but I'm a little Asbergers, which makes that kind of Q&A fucking murder for me. I have to pause and think about what I'm saying for several minutes before I start. I often need to pause mid-sentence and consider my choice of words.

Re:Take-home exams?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oral exams discriminate against anxious students and Aspies, and they unduly favor those who are good at rhetoric and social engineering.
Of course this is a Government class, not a math class. You could argue that these (plus a little blackmailing) are the exact skills required for a Government career.

On a take-home exam?

[edibobb]

Cheating on a take-home exam is just plain lazy!

Re:On a take-home exam?

[dunezone]

Even though the students should not be cheating its stupid for the professor to not expect this when handing out a take home exam. I remember in 7th grade my teacher giving us all a take home. She also sent home a letter that our parents had to sign saying we didn't use any class room material or the books on the exam. My father was laughing his ass off when he was signing that document.

Re: On a take-home exam?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, e,scrotum do you think that's stupid? Do you think learning is bettered measured in 45 minutes?

Re:On a take-home exam?

[Anonymous Coward]

You, and anyone modding you insightful, have clearly never taken a take-home exam.

Those have without contest been the hardest ones I've ever had to do. Detailed questions demanding equally long and detailed answers, stuff that really makes you dig in the theories, and little time to boot. It has been days when I've barely had time to eat or pretty much do *anything* but work, from early morning to late at night to make deadline. Otoh, I'm not american, so what do I know..

Re:On a take-home exam?

[tibit]

Well said!

Re:On a take-home exam?

[SwedishPenguin]

I agree that is stupid, but that's not usually required of a good take-home exam. I've never had a take-home exam where you're not allowed to use course material or any kind of material you want to really, for some it was even allowed to discuss the questions with other students (but the answer still had to make clear that you understood the question and the answer obviously). Any take-home exam that you can finish by simply copying a few lines from a book is not a take-home exam (or a classroom exam for that matter) worth the name.

Re:On a take-home exam?

[SwedishPenguin]

Mod parent up!

No

[Anonymous Coward]

And most colleges and universities ape Harvard and other Ivy League institutions. I went to State and many of our materials had Harvard copyrights all over them. The courses were identical to what they offered.

Getting an Ivy League education is no better than State, BUT because they are so selective, it means more because you were accepted there.

I think it's quite telling that many got rich relatively quick people were drop outs from Ivy League schools.

Tells you something, doesn't it?

I'm beginning to think the optimal education plan is to:

1. get accepted to Harvard or Yale.

2. Drop out.

3. Profit! (then quietly get a degree at state - you DO want to be educated.)

I think it's kind of short sighted that VCs and other money people just focus on Harvard, Stanford, Yale, MIT, etc .... There is plenty of talent locked away at Flyover State U. that goes unnoticed - and you got the whole hardworking farmboy thing going to.

Re:No

[Cederic]

Or maybe - just possibly - the Ivy League universities continually turn out entrepreneurs because they teach the same material better.

Maybe it's because they foster a culture of exploration and innovation.

Maybe it's because people are surrounded by other self-starters.

Maybe it's because people wanting to kick something new off have access to wealthy individuals.

It's definitely there, I suspect it's a combination of several of those things, and I know that if I were seeking a university in the US I'd be applying straight to MIT and fuck the cost.

But I went to university in the UK, at one of the top five business schools in the world (when I was there - only in the top 20 or so now). I did fuck all on my degree but gained skills I'm still using personally and professionally two decades later.

A university education is almost nothing to do with the details of the subject matter.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize that someone picking up cans can call themselves an entrepreneur right?
What a stuck up bunch of shit this 'title' is. Like directors of 2-person companies calling themselves CEO, CTO, CFO, etc.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

"But I went to university...at one of the top five business schools in the world..."

"I did fuck all on my degree..."

Color me surprised...

Make some calls Daddy!

[Anonymous Coward]

I see some new, expensive buildings being donated to Harvard in the near future.

Re:Make some calls Daddy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Harvard does need an international airport. I know its Yale who really needs one, but its apt here too.

When cultural icons like Lance Armstrong ....

[The Living Fractal]

Look, how surprising is this really? I'd say about as surprising as the sun rising. Our cultural icons don't just cheat (think performance enhancing drugs) but when they are caught the repercussions are so minor (at least as portrayed by the media) that it makes cheating almost mandatory because everyone does it and when things are competitive or, say, graded on a curve, you're kind of screwed into following suit.

Re:When cultural icons like Lance Armstrong ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Armstrong was more like the kid who cheated to get into Harvard, and yeah, there's been at least one verified case of that too.

Re:When cultural icons like Lance Armstrong ....

[Anonymous Coward]

That confirms my long-held suspicion that Suits is a documentary. Whew, thanks.

Re:When cultural icons like Lance Armstrong ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Lance Armstrong used artificial stimulants to enhance performance. Armstrong shouldn't be punished for it, he should be rewarded, his face should be put on the 100 USD bill. The entire US economy is based on the same exact principle.

Here is that point made in a form that an average American can understand.

These Harward kids are doing exactly the thing that their government and the entire leadership is doing, so why all this fake outrage?

sig

Re:When cultural icons like Lance Armstrong ....

[SternisheFan]

Yeah, Lance Armstrong used artificial stimulants to enhance performance. Armstrong shouldn't be punished for it, he should be rewarded, his face should be put on the 100 USD bill. The entire US economy is based on the same exact principle.

Here is that point made in a form that an average American can understand.

These Harward kids are doing exactly the thing that their government and the entire leadership is doing, so why all this fake outrage?

sig

There are, believe it or not, good and honorable people in this life, they just don't make headlines like the others.

The reason you shouldn't cheat in life is this: You need to face that person in your mirror every morning, and like and respect that person. And if you can't respect that person you'd best change up your act.

So what

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of the most notorious mass murderers graduated from Harvard and it's all about wealth and influence anyway. In other words, Harvard's reputation is highly overrated.

Half suspended, the other half - not so much.

[Anonymous Coward]

more than half of the cases heard by administrators in the scandal, which erupted last year, had resulted in suspension orders.

Translation: More than half the cases heard involved last names we didn't know and resulted in suspension. Other punishments included funding the library expansion and building a new athletics center.

What did he expect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your forced to cheat on those damn things because EVERYBODY else does and the professors make them insanely long. I really hate take home exams for that reason. I failed a course because of one (and humorously passed the exam part with a B the first time, but then had no time to actually study for the final, so handed in a basically empty final, the 2nd time I took the course I did get an A on my final and had the same professor, he didn't give us a take home exam, or if he did it was MUCH MUCH MUCH shorter, like 1/10 of the prior courses, and I did have a B average the first time I took the course going into the final).

What about Difficult Courses?

[littlewink]

If so many cheated on a gut intro to Congress course, it must be rampant for difficult courses.

Re:What about Difficult Courses?

[Anonymous Coward]

If so many cheated on a gut intro to Congress course, it must be rampant for difficult courses.

Not likely. The mediocre / poor students who are there for other reasons than actually learning will all lean toward the gut courses. Anyone who has gone to any U.S college will know this. When I attended it was well known what the easiest degrees, courses, instructors were. With higher relative costs and added pressures today I'm sure it's worse.

Re:So did Barack

[Anonymous Coward]

Or rather, as we all know him, BaQUACK ObamAILURE, cheat when he took this corse? Of corse he done did! He wanted to be white just like him masters! He be nothing but an ORE EE OH.

I'm sorry for your loss. SOME administration certainly failed at public education.

Cheating 101

[penntimes]

Harvard forgot to offer the course: Cheating 101 - How to cheat without getting caught

well real IT is open book and not based on crammin

[Joe_Dragon]

well real IT is open book and not based on cramming for tests.

Most Students Don't Cheat

[Roger W Moore]

Actually most students do not cheat. While the number of cheating incidents is sadly on the rise - probably by about a factor of 2-3 since I started as a prof 10 years ago - the vast majority of university students do not cheat. So while it is always bad to hear of cases like this it is worth getting a little perspective: many students work extremely hard for their degrees and we should not devalue that because some idiots insist on cheating.

Re:Most Students Don't Cheat

[SternisheFan]

You know what bugs me, in the U.S. there are all these cheating types who apologize AFTER they get caught, then go on talk shows to try to explain themselves away. Lance Armstrong saw the walls closing in from the Dept. of Justice, THEN he 'fesses up, to try to get to keep as much ill-gotten money as possible. CEO's get caught, usually get little or no jail time, and pay back 'some' of the total amount stolen, and can be free to live out their lives afterward in comfort. And our culture is okay with this, thereby condoning it. When there are real real-life penalties for all forms of cheating in life, only then can we truly be as moral as we tell people we are.

Re:Most Students Don't Cheat

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the examination was open-book and take-home what ever possessed these students to cheat? If you cannot formulate articulate responses to a take-home, open-book examination there is something lacking in the students themselves. While take-home examinations tend to be more difficult than auditorium-examination hall examinations, they usually allow students the opportunity to take the examination in a more comfortable setting and with the ability to take numerous breaks over the course of one or more days before submitting their work.

Re:Most Students Don't Cheat

[tibit]

No kidding. Cheating on a take-home is like killing puppies or something.

Re:Most Students Don't Cheat

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe you are too optimistic. Catching people cheating is like seeing roaches in the kitchen. There are many, many more hidden in the walls that you didn't see or catch.

Re:Most Students Don't Cheat

[McGruber]

You know what bugs me, in the U.S. there are all these cheating types who apologize AFTER they get caught, then go on talk shows to try to explain themselves away. Lance Armstrong saw the walls closing in from the Dept. of Justice, THEN he 'fesses up, to try to get to keep as much ill-gotten money as possible.

Sports Illustrated magazine pointed out that Armstrong waited until the five-year statute of limitations (on federal perjury charges) ran out before be confessed to Oprah: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/more/news/20130118/lance-armstrong-legal-implications/

Re:Most Students Don't Cheat

[ogrizzo]

When I was a graduate student at Brown in the 90s, we gave it as a fact that students would have been cheating in hw assignments, so that the largest part of the final grade had to come from written examinations. On the other hand, we had to give HW assignments some influence on final grade, otherwise most students would have skipped them. 5% sounded about right.

Re:Most Students Don't Cheat

[SternisheFan]

You know what bugs me, in the U.S. there are all these cheating types who apologize AFTER they get caught, then go on talk shows to try to explain themselves away. Lance Armstrong saw the walls closing in from the Dept. of Justice, THEN he 'fesses up, to try to get to keep as much ill-gotten money as possible.

Sports Illustrated magazine pointed out that Armstrong waited until the five-year statute of limitations (on federal perjury charges) ran out before be confessed to Oprah: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/more/news/20130118/lance-armstrong-legal-implications/

And he let Oprah interview him for damage control, since a lot of orginizations will be suing him for the money he sued them for when they said he was taking enhancing drugs. He even shed a tear on Oprah, crying for the money he might lose, not for the reason he said, his son's belief in him. He's a pathological liar who got caught in his web of lies, and he's probably convinced himself he can still get out of any future problems by lying. A sad example of greed and lust for fame, and nothing he says should ever be believed. I've known his type in my own life, con artists who think their sh*t doesn't stink,. Eventually people catch on to their game, and honorable people will have nothing to do with them, because once trust is blown, it's usually blown for good.

Re:Most Students Don't Cheat

[volmtech]

How much is a Harvard degree worth? How much would flunking out of Harvard cost you? Of course many cheat!

They Cheated on a Take-Home Exam

[pscottdv]

Who could have seen that coming?

and with loads of theroy as well that does not rea

[Joe_Dragon]

and with loads of theroy as well that does not really help you in a real job. Also lot's of the fluff and filler classes are loaded with BS busy-work.

need hands on based tests and they test unstaindin

[Joe_Dragon]

need hands on based tests and they test understanding of a topic and not just cramming.

Their real error

[rknop]

Getting caught!

Our colleges are supposed to train our students to succeed in society. That means, we need to wee out the ones who are going to get caught when they cheat. The truly successful in our society are the ones who cheat without getting caught.

I feel so cynical today.

Re:Their real error

[Anonymous Coward]

Deja vu... Look up Sparta.

Re:Their real error

[Anonymous Coward]

we need to wee out the ones who are going to get caught when they cheat

I think I'll leave that to you. Passing kidney stones is meant to be bad enough.

Re:Their real error

[Anonymous Coward]

That means, we need to wee out the ones who are going to get caught when they cheat.

I was gonna make a correction here, but then I realized the imagery is better your way.

Re:Their real error

[Legion303]

we need to wee out the ones who are going to get caught when they cheat.

That sounds incredibly painful.

Take the course on line

[Animats]

You can take this course on line. for $1,045 to $2000. At Harvard, I would have expected "Introduction to Congress" to be taught by an former member of Congress, but it's just an ordinary instructor.

I'm watching the first video. At the beginning, the instructor says that all you need to know to start this course is that "Congress" exists. At 00:02:35, he's talking about the proposal to change the rules to prevent filibusters from stalling Congress (only the Senate, actually). The speaker is interesting, but if you don't already know a lot about American politics and the structure of Congress, you'll be totally lost.

Re:Take the course on line

[10101001 10101001]

At Harvard, I would have expected "Introduction to Congress" to be taught by an former member of Congress, but it's just an ordinary instructor.

You talk to a[n] [ex-]Congressman to learn how to be elected. You talk to a lobbyist to see how Congress works. You talk to a citizen to learn how Congress doesn't.

Re:Take the course on line

[Anonymous Coward]

And you come to Slashdot for random babbling.

Grade inflation

[Gothmolly]

With rampant grade inflation going on these days, especially at the high end schools (where everyone is above average, remember) these kids didn't have to cheat - just wait for the As to roll in.

Re:Grade inflation

[blanchae]

I agree whole heartedly. When I went to college and to a post secondary institute, you needed 90%+ to get an A, 80-89% got you a B. Now in the institute, I work at,
an 80% will get you an A-, then 85% gets you an A and 90%+ gets you an A+. This marking scheme makes it almost impossible to get a poor grade.

Well on their way

[Anonymous Coward]

Lying and cheating in a course on Congress? Sounds like they're well on their way...

U.S.A., Incorporated

[Anonymous Coward]

Too late for you. Your government has been incorporated since first world war, and finished by world war II. How else could Bushes profit off IG Farben during WWII.? If it weren't for Trade With Enemy Act, you could have as well been incorporated into the Final Reich. If it weren't for Shoal of certain lesser brethen, counted in millions, supplied from upper west Ukraine and Russia.

no and no.

[Anonymous Coward]

If what you say were true, then dropouts wouldn't succeed - would they?

My premis

[Anonymous Coward]

Then they don''t need those schools.

Dropout and make a living.

Ivy league schools are a waste of money.

Thanks for proving my point.

CTTDBRATO

[kreyg]

Can't Tell The Difference Between Reality And The Onion.

The problem with cheating is...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with cheating is that now you you don't really have the option of lying on your résumé. It was so much easier in the old days when they just believed you when you would lie in interviews and résumés.

What were the exam instructions/restrictions?

[blanchae]

What were the instructions to the students taking the exam? What restrictions or instructions?

I'm a teacher in a post secondary institute and all of my quizzes are take-home 'do it at your own time" within a specificed time frame using whatever resources you can find. It allows me to create exams that test more than just rote memorization and I can ask higher level questions that require an understanding of the problem. If you can't understand the question then you won't even know what to google for. I also expect that there will be collaboration between students. This is real life testing, in the real world (job/career), you are asked to solve problems with whatever resources are available to you: google, library, references, friends, colleagues, etc..

There is an added bonus, in that if you don't know the answer, you have the opportunity to research and learn about it. In my assessments, you are assessed on your ability to come up with solution and you have the opportunity to learn while you are doing it.

The final exam is open book, open computer, randomized questions, randomized answers, online with a limit of 3 questions per page in a monitored environment - no friends or colleagues to help you. The exams typically span about 20 pages which makes collaboration very difficult in the limited time frame. The final exam mark is the real indication of your abilities.

Open book exams are always harder than closed book. I've found that the struggling students will do just as poorly in an open book exam as a closed book exam. They figure that all they have to do is look it up in their notes or text. Unfortunately, it is usually the first time they crack open the text and the first time they realize that they were too busy checking facebook, playing world of warcraft, instagramming, etc. to take good notes.

On the lab side, you receive 0% for doing the actual lab work. It triggers an online quiz that tests your understanding of the lab and the lab results. The lab quiz is worth 100% of the lab work. I've found that giving marks for the actual lab work artificially raises the student's grade, it becomes a mark for attendance. I feel that it separates the learning (lab work) from the assessment. I also feel that it is not fair to evaluate someone's ability on the first time that they attempt a procedure or lab. Do the lab, do it right then get graded on how well you understand what happened.

Re:What were the exam instructions/restrictions?

[Anonymous Coward]

“The exam is completely open book, open note, open Internet, etc. However, in all other regards, this should fall under similar guidelines that apply to in-class exams. ... More specifically, students may not discuss the exam with others—this includes resident tutors, writing centers, etc.”

While this seems abundantly clear, a lot of people have argued that it was incomprehensibly vague, since it the "open internet" and "don't discuss with others" could be interpreted as "so you can discuss the exam with others as long as you do it over the internet." (See Slate.com's forum if you don't believe people really argue this). Thankfully, this wasn't the argument the Harvard cheaters advanced, because it's stupid. :-)

Take Home Exam. What could possibly go wrong?

[icebike]

Plus logic dictates that with this number of people it's not the first time it ever happened.

When you realize that the discovery was made because of:

similarities on a handful of take-home exams in his spring course Government 1310

you have to wonder if this professor was clueless, idealistic, or engaged in an "honesty" research project of some kind.

Re:Take Home Exam. What could possibly go wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

Honest people doesn't cheat simply because they can. Take home exams are a great way to weed out bad people.

Re:Oral exams?

[rotenberry]

You wonder why oral exams are not more common?

There were 279 students enrolled in this class. Assuming a ten minute oral exam for each and two minutes to grade the answers it takes 55.8 hours to examine all the students. This oral exam would take at least two weeks in a 14 week semester, and ten minutes is really too little time to judge the work of an entire semester.

If anyone other than the professor grades the student, then they cry foul.

If the exams begin in the fifth week of the 14 week semester, the students examined last cry foul since they must study significantly more material.

There should be only twenty students in a class? Good luck with that. I suppose you could raise tuition and hire more professors or have the classes taught by lecturers.

Actually, in the USA most classes are taught by lecturers, and the classes are still huge.

Chinese?

[drwho]

I wonder how many of the suspended students were from China. Having papers ghost-written, paying for smuggled out exam questions and answers, is quite an industry there. Then, they come to the US, and expect to be able to game the system the same way. In some schools, that works. Harvard is a bit more careful, generally, though this take-home exam was a really bad idea.

Re:Chinese?

[Anonymous Coward]

I always wondered why all the Chinese foreign students got As in English and Tech Writing when they couldn't form a complete sentence. I realized about 10 years later the institutionalized extent of cheating among foreign students.

Re:Chinese?

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably not very many. Chinese students do serious classes, like math, physics, chemistry, biology, etc. This is government. It's popular with the football team.

so where do you get 100% wrong from?

[Anonymous Coward]

because that sad tale (one of thousands, mind you) does nothing to disprove the parent posts' point.

I guess you want to pretend that if government without visible corporate corruption can do something illegal, then it "proves" corporation never does something illegal?

Does not follow.

Isn't cheating one of the labs for that course?

[John Hasler]

n/t

Re:and with loads of theroy as well that does not

[Anonymous Coward]

*work* is a load of busy-work which offers no value after completing and investigating possibilities that never get used again.

so i would call this good training for work.

on 2 Harvard is not a sports school

[Joe_Dragon]

on 2 Harvard is not a sports school or a place with people who are there for sports to take easy classes.

Re:on 2 Harvard is not a sports school

[Anonymous Coward]

Harvard recruits many athletes who otherwise would not be accepted on academic grounds alone. (I went there.) The ivy league has rules on minimum SAT scores and such, which mitigates the effect a bit, but athletes still have much lower academic prerequisites for acceptance. If you look at the football roster, you'll see most are ec, psych, or gov majors (the easiest programs). Of course, a Harvard athlete is still typically much smarter than a state school athlete, but that doesn't mean they are up to the academic standards of the rest of the student body. So they seek out easier classes/majors.

Re:on 2 Harvard is not a sports school

[Anonymous Coward]

Harvard is not a sports school in the sense of say Alabama or Ohio State, but it does have a strong sports program, in part, because of the networking opportunities it provides to former players - alumni love to help out that star player who brought prestige to the school after all.

Re:Oral exams?

[Anonymous Coward]

at $45K/year, they can hire someone to do just that on *one* student's tuition check.

what mass confusion?? and what clarification?

[Joe_Dragon]

what mass confusion?? and what clarification?

Did most of people all hit the same errors? and did they do about the same with what the clarification said?

Re:Oral exams?

[Anonymous Coward]

Huge class sizes are leading to substandard educational practices? I'm not sure what the solution to this problem is. Hmm... Hmm... Tax cuts for the rich and budget cuts for the university systems? No? Wait, let me check my cheat sheet.

oral exams

[Anonymous Coward]

"I wonder why oral exams aren't more common in the United States."

Is that where you pass if you suck the professor's dick?

Bullshit! cultural icons don't do it

[Anonymous Coward]

The icons don't show it is ok. Usually their impact has been done and the kid has grown up a bit before they find out the icon cheated. The modern media loves to knock down celebrities from legit crimes to minor stuff and down to stupid shit that is just rumor. There are no perfect idols today that are not knocked in some way - there is always something negative to highlight to get some ratings. Hell, today we have losers who are popular because they are so openly flawed their fame is their well known character flaws due to reality TV.

The CULTURE creates this mess. If one learns something from the news it is that you have to be HUGE AND POWERFUL and the more power you have the less consequences there are for anything you do. Don't rob a bank and go to jail, run a bank and get promoted when you steal from everybody. Those real world lessons show that you need POWER before you can risk getting caught. it makes all the difference between punishment and reward.

Re:Oral exams?

[SwedishPenguin]

279 students seems a bit extreme to me, but whenever we had large classes, the lectures were complemented with exercises run by other teachers or TAs with around 20 students/excersie. Of course I studied engineering, but even with the humanities I can imagine smaller seminars to discuss the material from the lectures would be useful, the lecture is very much a one-way street in terms of learning, there's not much room for discussion, at least for the vast majority of the class.

Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem 1: A take home exam

Problem 2: Trusting students

How are they surprised there was cheating?

Re:well real IT is open book and not based on cram

[Anonymous Coward]

Would be really awesome if real world interviews are like that too. :)

Not every job benefits from online searches. Sometimes you just need to have the brainpower to remember things.

But there is remember stuff and not even having

[Joe_Dragon]

But there is remember stuff and not even having command /? to look up commands. airplane pilot have checklists or do you want them to have to remember the full checklist?

Re:But there is remember stuff and not even having

[Anonymous Coward]

airplane pilot have checklists or do you want them to have to remember the full checklist?

They do have checklists, but if I'm in the plane I do hope the pilot know what he's doing well enough to not need to consult Flying Planes for Dummies.

"Elite"

[hessian]

These are your new elites, America.

We got tired of upper middle class white kids. That's gauche.

Now, we have a multicultural empire of elites, who are selected for their obedience as much as anything else.

It seems they cheat a lot. When you prioritize obedience and detail-memorization above the ability to think, that's what you get: little robots that do anything to get the grades.

That's your future, America.

Now transferring my investments to Europe and Asia...

More importantly, no one is willing to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

for the time it will take to do so.

If this is true for the tenured prof at Harvard, it goes double for the *majority* of undergraduate instructors (by classroom hours) that are adjuncts making $12-$36k annually for full teaching loads whose written grading is already cutting into after hours time.

Well it was obvious they were all using the same

[NotSoHeavyD3]

cheat sheet. I mean when there were 60+ papers that said the speaker of the house was hooked up to the stereo system of the house you know something is up.

Umm. Do the reading?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, like in Paper Chase - reading list was posted on the bulletin board. Probably online and in an email today.

But I jest. College students today don't do the reading. I doubt many can read at a college level, or even 8th grade level, at that.

captcha: jackass

Me, my students, or all of us?

The real problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tests don't teach anything. They test. They are purely a creation of the diploma-mills, having nothing to do with education.

There's no such thing as cheating, when everyone is encouraged by a system of testing to do whatever it takes to succeed -- there is only such thing as getting caught.

The moral outrage about this is quite astounding, really, when no one seems up in arms about the totally fucked system of testing.

The best is yet to come

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that the Harvard elite have decided to invite Mexico's sorry-ass former Presidente Calderon, he should become hugely popular with the less-than-ethical student body, after all he's got an impressive resume. Got over 70,000 people dead in a vindictive war that had no planning whatsoever but managed to even get funding from the USA. Yet managed to screw up ONE SIMPLE ARREST that resulted in a convicted kidnapper, Florence Cassez, walk free like a heroine thanks to procedural errors. Ran a crony government, placing all his relatives, friends, pals in all high places, with insane salaries, no matter how incompetent. When the juicy spots ran short, quadrupled the number of mid-to-high level administrative positions to fit ALL his pals, no matter that they were not needed and only made more of a mess. Looked aside while his cronies got richer with paybacks from WalMart and Siemens that is known; and these came to light till the SEC had to turn whistleblower. Ran the most corrupt campaign to get his chosen successor the Presidential Chair, fortunately that fell flat on its ass and his party got dumped to the bottom of the heap. But as a parting gift to the mafias so they'll remember him fondly, he dished out permits allowing known criminally linked operators to duplicate the number of gambling casinos to operating legally, all during the last two minutes of his administration.

Oh, yeah, Harvard's got a real winner there! Enjoy!!

Crime does pay

[Stormthirst]

The truth of the matter is that crime does pay (and I don't just mean drug dealers or the thieves on Wall Street).

This happens all the time, everywhere

[DSS11Q13]

I finished my Master's at Harvard last year, and it seems like the name is the only reason this made the news. I bet most people are just happy to see the smartest and often hardest working students in the country fail.