As Yale's primary goal is education, cheating holds this principal spot presumably because it represents a serious threat to the "advancement of learning" to which Yale is so dedicated.
In fact, of the 68 students brought before the Executive Committee in 1994-1995, 19 of them were there for cheating or plagiarism - more than double that tried for any other offense.
Does this fact mean that cheating is one of Yale's most pressing problems, or does it simply mean that the few cheaters at Yale are just easy to catch? According to the Dean of Yale College, Richard Brodhead, BR '68, GRD '72, the answer is neither.Brodhead said that there is "quite little cheating" at Yale, and, as to the ease of catching cheaters in the act, he commented that professors have no reason to be overly suspicious because they all "assume the Yale student to be honorable." Brodhead said of Yale faculty, "It's not that it doesn't occur to them to distrust [the students'] work. It doesn't occur to them to distrust [the students themselves]."
When Shelly Kagan, the Luce Professor of Social Thought & Ethics, was presented with the executive committee numbers he was quick to point out that those 19 cases of cheating, "represent only a fraction of a percent of the students at Yale."
In order to curb cheating, some schools implement explicit honor codes which students are forced to sign or swear to. At these instituions, the students promise not to cheat, and in some cases, promise to turn in people they see cheating. Brodhead commented on such honor codes, and said, "I don't believe that ceremonializing an honor code makes people any likelier to obey it. Yale students are told that they must obey the undergraduate regulations, and that covers cheating."
Perhaps the most common form of cheating, and the least easily detected, is plagiarism. Appendix F of the Undergraduate Regulations explicitly defines plagiarism as "the use of someone else's work, words, or ideas as if they were your own." This of course extends to citing sources in essays but also includes the "submission of work prepared by another person."
Kagan, who came to Yale this fall from the University of Illinois at Chicago, told all of his classes at the beginning of the semester that "I will prosecute any acts of plagiarism, and bring my complaint before whatever committee is appropriate." According to Kagan, such a strong policy is appropriate. "I have seen plenty of cases [of plagiarism] at other institutions," he said. "If I had never seen plagiarism I wouldn't feel the need to mention it to my classes."
Kagan was pleased to report that he has not yet encountered plagiarism at Yale, but that's not to say that it won't happen. At institutions such as Yale where students have "greater intellectual training," he said, "the pressures to perform at a higher level might tempt students [to plagiarize] who wouldn't ordinarily be tempted." He said, though, that he considers Yalies to be "honorable" and would tend to avoid plagiarism. In a June 1995 issue of Harper's , an article appeared on the problem of ghostwriting, which is a form of plagiarism where students hire third parties to write their papers. The article is a first-person narrative by an anonymous woman who says quite bluntly, "I write college kids' papers for a living." Orders for her work come from all over the United States and Canada, and among the schools whose students she worked for were Brown, Cornell, and Harvard.
Michael Della Rocca, director of undergraduate studies for philosophy, is unaware of any such ghostwriting services in New Haven, and as to plagiarism in his department, he said, "I am not aware of any cheating going on, and haven't personally dealt with any cases."
Students see it a bit differently. While test cheating is admittedly rare, an anonymous junior said, "People cheat on homework all the time." Another anonymous student said, "plagiarism is often so subtle, that I fear I have done it unintentionally."
Brodhead, stressing that he didn't mean to "trivialize the issue," concurred saying that many cases evolve from an "innocent misunderstanding." On the whole, Brodhead said he believes "the incidents of really frank, blunt cheating are few."
Graphic by Jon Lucas.
Copyright 1995, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
This article may be freely distributed electronically, provided it is distributed in its entirety and includes this notice, but may not be reprinted without the express written permission of The Yale Herald, Inc. Write to herald@yale.edu for additional details.