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Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

nytimes.com

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Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#21

Post by matwood »

beloch wrote: post #7
SagelyGuru wrote: post #4

Good god! Final exams at Harvard are 'take home'? I really thought that at least Harvard was a little more testing than that... Aside from the standard that sets, it is naive to the extreme to suppose that students allowed to take an important exam home will still write it just off the top of their head.

Take home exams can actually be quite brutal, but are rarely encountered in large (i.e. 100+ student) classes because they usually result in an correspondingly brutal amount of marking. I've had them only in a few senior undergrad courses and grad school. Why are they brutal when you have your notes, books, the web, etc. available? They're usually not based on spitting back answers you were given or can look up. You…

Bingo. I had an Automata class where the final was a 5 question take home exam. It took me about 15-20 hours to complete all 5 proofs, and I still only received a 98. I jumped over what I thought was an obvious step in one of the proofs :/

The only stipulations for the exam was no collaboration and show all work.

Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#22

Post by pretoriusB »

Eliezer wrote: post #13

So half of 279 (=~140) students cheat, and 70 are forced out. Gosh. It makes you wonder what sort of privilege the other 70 cheaters invoked. Who was sacrificed? Who was spared? Selective enforcement of the "law" is no law at all.

>Selective enforcement of the "law" is no law at all.

Actually it's very much a law. And it's how the law works in the real world. It might not be "justice", but it's law alright.

From the kid who the local cop knows his family and lets him walk on something that would land someone else in juvenile prison to the rich guy literally getting away with murder. And there are stuff that cops selectively enforce everyday, e.g ignoring someone selling dope small-time, because he snitches bigger fishes for them.

A law can still be effective, if the selective enforcement prevents the majority of the people of breaking it.

Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#23

Post by michael_miller »

I find it a little disingenuous that students who are subject to "forced withdrawal" are allowed to re-enter after 2-4 semesters. This sends a horrible message to students - that you can cheat, and the worst case scenario is taking a couple semesters off. No mar on their transcript of starting a degree at Harvard, and suddenly transferring to another, probably academically inferior, school. No explaining to employers why they suddenly decided to pack up and leave during a large cheating scandal. Just a forced vacation.

I'm also pretty appalled that students supplied the same answer down to typological errors. When the scandal first broke out, it sounded much more mundane - that there was little guidance, and that students asked their TAs for help. At least then, it's possible to rationalize the situation by saying that students genuinely did not believe they were doing something wrong. I don't think there's any way to justify multiple students submitting the same typos. This indicates blatant cheating, which any Harvard student should readily recognize as being morally wrong, and clearly violating any reasonable academic honesty standard.

Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#24

Post by officemonkey »

>One implicated student, who argued that similarities between his paper and others could be traced to shared lecture notes, said the Administrative Board demanded that he produce the notes six months later.

If I were accused of cheating and I argued that my notes would exonerate me, I would have no problem producing them six months later. Heck, I still have notes from a class I took in 1982.

Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#25

Post by [deleted] »

michael_miller wrote: post #23

I find it a little disingenuous that students who are subject to "forced withdrawal" are allowed to re-enter after 2-4 semesters. This sends a horrible message to students - that you can cheat, and the worst case scenario is taking a couple semesters off. No mar on their transcript of starting a degree at Harvard, and suddenly transferring to another, probably academically inferior, school. No explaining to employers…

[deleted]

Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#26

Post by sigkill »

beloch wrote: post #7
SagelyGuru wrote: post #4

Good god! Final exams at Harvard are 'take home'? I really thought that at least Harvard was a little more testing than that... Aside from the standard that sets, it is naive to the extreme to suppose that students allowed to take an important exam home will still write it just off the top of their head.

Take home exams can actually be quite brutal, but are rarely encountered in large (i.e. 100+ student) classes because they usually result in an correspondingly brutal amount of marking. I've had them only in a few senior undergrad courses and grad school. Why are they brutal when you have your notes, books, the web, etc. available? They're usually not based on spitting back answers you were given or can look up. You…

This is true. When the professor asks, if you want a take-home or an open book it's usually a trick question, and you always supposed to ask for a closed book test. Grad school, doubly so.

Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#27

Post by cynicalkane »

michael_miller wrote: post #23

I find it a little disingenuous that students who are subject to "forced withdrawal" are allowed to re-enter after 2-4 semesters. This sends a horrible message to students - that you can cheat, and the worst case scenario is taking a couple semesters off. No mar on their transcript of starting a degree at Harvard, and suddenly transferring to another, probably academically inferior, school. No explaining to employers…

If so many kids, proportionally, are cheating, the reasonable conclusion is not that there's an abundance of 'bad seeds' but perhaps that Harvard isn't very good at getting students to take ethics seriously.

At your typical university, cheating on take-home exams is common, pressure is high, and ethics are underemphasized--is it your place to say a student reacting in the obvious and ordinary way deserves expulsion? Are kids trying to sink or swim in such an environment really deserving expulsion? Besides, more effective cheaters are less likely to be caught. The moral Harvard sends its students is not "don't cheat on a take-home exam" but "don't be caught by copy-pasting answers". The people who work together and tweak their answers to look different get A's.

Honestly, I think it's an overreaction; an institution that has been so poor at imparting academic ethics to its students is now harming the same in order to save face.

More generally, it is an anti-pattern to paint large groups of people as wrong and deserving of punishment, even if you feel the underlying ethics are correct.

Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#28

Post by GabrielF00 »

michael_miller wrote: post #23

I find it a little disingenuous that students who are subject to "forced withdrawal" are allowed to re-enter after 2-4 semesters. This sends a horrible message to students - that you can cheat, and the worst case scenario is taking a couple semesters off. No mar on their transcript of starting a degree at Harvard, and suddenly transferring to another, probably academically inferior, school. No explaining to employers…

My understanding is that forced withdrawals at Harvard work like this:

1. If you want to come back you have to leave Cambridge and get a job for something like 6 months, and it has to be a real job, not a job at your Dad's company or something.

2. Any letter of recommendation that Harvard issues will note that you've been required to withdraw.

I don't see this as a forced vacation. The intent is that you have to have some understanding and appreciation of the real world before you are allowed to come back. Compared to many other schools, Harvard's penalties for cheating are actually very harsh.

Re: Harvard Forced Dozens to Leave in Cheating Scandal

#29

Post by gaius »

cynicalkane wrote: post #27
michael_miller wrote: post #23

I find it a little disingenuous that students who are subject to "forced withdrawal" are allowed to re-enter after 2-4 semesters. This sends a horrible message to students - that you can cheat, and the worst case scenario is taking a couple semesters off. No mar on their transcript of starting a degree at Harvard, and suddenly transferring to another, probably academically inferior, school. No explaining to employers…

If so many kids, proportionally, are cheating, the reasonable conclusion is not that there's an abundance of 'bad seeds' but perhaps that Harvard isn't very good at getting students to take ethics seriously. At your typical university, cheating on take-home exams is common, pressure is high, and ethics are underemphasized--is it your place to say a student reacting in the obvious and ordinary way deserves expulsion?…

perhaps that Harvard isn't very good at getting students to take ethics seriously

The current financial crisis would support that hypothesis.

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