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Question of Ethics
Ellsworth Barnard, W. C. Meecham, Robert T. Crow
To the Editor:May I comment, from a background of forty years of teaching English at various colleges and universities, on "Honesty and Honor Codes," the article by Donald McCabe and Linda Klebe Treviño in the January–February issue? First, we need to distinguish between courses aimed at helping students acquire verbal and organizational skills and those aimed chiefly at imparting factual knowledge, and to note the corresponding difference between plagiarism, that is, the unacknowledged use, in compositions prepared outside of class, of another writer’s words and ideas, and cheating, in various ways, on in-class examinations.
Though the authors of the article are chiefly concerned about the latter, their stress on the importance of institutional tradition, of a shared loyalty to an "honor code," is applicable to both kinds of cheating, and is certainly justified. But equal attention should be paid to the relationship between students and their teacher. If students feel that a teacher likes them, trusts them, and wants to help them, they will naturally wish to justify that trust, just as they will respond in kind to an instructor’s perceived indifferent, or even confrontational, attitude.
In addition, the method of evaluating student performance must be considered, and here the subject matter is significant. In humanities courses, it is more natural to ask "thought questions" on examinations, that is, questions that call for the application of particular facts to general concepts. In science courses, on the other hand, an instructor is more likely to feel that "objective" methods—multiple-choice or fill-in questions—are adequate (although, in my personal view, thought questions are equally practicable and desirable).
A final comment is that, unfortunately, a different kind of practicability enters into the picture. "Objective" examinations take less time and energy to "correct," and that makes possible larger classes, fewer staff, and less expense. And, especially in publicly supported institutions, those who supply the funds are likely to be less concerned about quality than cost.
A complete study of "cheating" on college campuses would take a book. But the main question to be asked is obvious: how much do we value honesty on the campus, and how much are we willing to pay for it?
Ellsworth Barnard
(English, emeritus)
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
To the Editor:The January–February issue of Academe includes articles that assume that student cheating is on the increase. I’m not sure that my observation bears this assumption out, but if it is true, some thought should be given to the condition of ethics in the United States. All, including students, have seen most of our legislators bought by rich corporations, the "election" of a president who in fact lost, and the gross hypocrisy of our rulers in foreign affairs, now threatening the world with the use of nukes. This we all know has the effect for many of breaking the social contract. Multitudes will wonder why they should hold to personal ethics in such a society.
W. C. Meecham
(Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering)
University of California, Los Angeles
To the Editor:I am deeply disturbed that Wendy Wassyng Roworth’s commentary on professional ethics in the January–February issue made virtually no comment on one of the great ethical failings of our profession: grade inflation.
The AAUP Statement on Professional Ethics encourages professors to "make every reasonable effort to foster honest academic conduct and to ensure that their evaluations of students reflect each student’s true merit." To do anything less than that sends a clear message to our students: that hard work is unnecessary and that mediocrity is not only acceptable but also praiseworthy. Is this really what they should be learning from us?
Roworth correctly asserts that we "have a special responsibility to hold before students the best scholarly and ethical standards of [our] disciplines"; this responsibility begins and ends with honesty. Any teacher who has neither the time nor the stomach to be truthful in his or her assessment of a student’s work has no business being in the classroom.
Robert T. Crow
(Chemistry)
St. Louis College of Pharmacy
Roworth Responds:Robert Crow raises an important point in his letter, and I agree that grade in-flation is another aspect of professional ethics that demands serious attention from faculty. My comments, as I stated in "Professional Ethics, Day by Day," were my personal thoughts and were "not intended as an exhaustive list of issues within the profession. . . . I simply want[ed] to highlight some of the ethical considerations that underlie our daily interactions with students and colleagues." My intention was to provoke further consideration of professional ethics, and I hope the article will prompt faculty to think about other areas of concern.
Wendy Wassyng Roworth
(Art History and Women’s Studies)
University of Rhode Island
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