Ryan
9:16pm November 5th
Hey Jill I just wanted to tell you that I will not be going to the Board of Trustees meeting this Thursday at Carbondale. I have been following the Poshard Scandal since the beginning in September. I spoke out at the last Board of Trustees in Sept when they were in Evergreen Hall and at the Student Senate meeting and at the Faculty Senate Meeting Im just real tired of this BS and I want it to be over with. I encourage you to keep this momentum going when you go to the meeting with your friends but its over for me so I am glad to pass the Torch to you. Im so glad that there are other kids on this campus that care about this issue and even better that you and your friends are freshman so good luck this Thursday let me know how it goes you can call me on my cell to let me know what happens the # is 555-555-5555[number has been changed for Ryans privacy] also if you want to speak at the meeting call the Secretary asap and get your name and your friends on the list or they wont let you speak the # is 618-536-3357
Jill
Today at 4:44pm
I will not be going to Carbonadale either, I would love to still be able to go but I am very sick and have been dragging myself to class even though I feel totally rotten and miserable.. but this battle against plagiarism will not be over until a.)Poshard decides to be a man and take full responsibility for his actions and resign or b.)a revised policy about plagiarism is issued stating a student will not be failed or expelled upon first account of plagiarism. I believe this is setting a double standard, if Poshard can get away with plagiarism and is only told to correct his mistakes without facing any other consequences, students have this same right. Its not saying we as students have the right to plagiarize, just saying if the same situation arose with a student within the SIU system they should be able to have a 2nd chance before facing a harsher consequence. I do not believe anyone else from my class is still planning to go due to gas prices and some kids do not have cars with them here on campus. I just wish people would get smarter and get Poshard out of office or change the plagiarism policy to make things fair.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Friday, November 2, 2007
Something to Consider
Editorial in the Chicago Tribune from October 22, 2007
Plagiarism with an Asterisk
There is no firm consensus on the defining features of plagiarism."We're quoting here from a memo by R. Gerald Nelms, an associate professor of composition and rhetoric at Southern Illinois University who was asked for an opinion on whether SIU President Glenn Poshard plagiarized parts of his 1984 doctoral thesis.Nelms conducted his review at Poshard's request, while a separate faculty committee was assessing allegations, first aired by the student newspaper, the Daily Egyptian, that Poshard's dissertation contained at least 30 examples of text lifted from other sources.
Neither Nelms nor the committee found much to be concerned about. Acting on the committee's recommendation, SIU's board of trustees decided Poshard was guilty of "inadvertent plagiarism" and asked him to fix his footnotes and resubmit the paper. He'll keep his job, unless he yields to a faculty revolt: Last week, the faculty senate at SIU's Edwardsville campus voted 45-5 to ask Poshard to resign.We've been scratching our heads about this debate ever since we examined a copy of Poshard's thesis alongside the materials he's accused of copying. Though it's possible to chalk up any single infraction to carelessness instead of theft, there are too, too many of them -- and too little original material left, once the cribbed passages are subtracted. It walks like a duck, and it talks like a duck. It's a duck.But things are rarely so simple in academia. At SIU in particular, there's a great deal of confusion about what constitutes plagiarism. A professor at the Edwardsville campus who was fired for copying another instructor's teaching philosophy statement is suing SIU, saying he was unfairly singled out. His supporters have formed a truth squad to root out other plagiarists. Even before they trained their sights on Poshard, the president appointed a task force to develop a plagiarism policy.The oft-stated premise throughout this exercise has been that, gosh, nobody really knows what is or isn't plagiarism. That surely comes as a surprise to the legions of students worldwide who have been flunked for forgetting to footnote, accidentally or on purpose.Is there really no clear definition? Let's try Webster's New World Dictionary: Plagiarize: to take ideas, words, etc. from another and offer them as one's own. SIU's student code of conduct says plagiarism is "representing the work of another as one's own work."Even the task force Poshard appointed begins its working definition with a straightforward declaration: "Plagiarism is defined as presenting existing work as one's own." It should have stopped right there.By the time the task force was finished equivocating, though, the faculty committee reviewing Poshard's dissertation had plenty of wiggle room to declare the president guilty of "inadvertent plagiarism" -- carelessness, in other words. This is not to be confused with "uneducated plagiarism," which suggests the writer truly didn't know better, or "intentional plagiarism," which might as well be defined as stealing someone else's work and admitting it once you're caught. Anyone smart enough to get into college ought to be smart enough to exploit the "inadvertent" loophole.The task force draft policy and Nelms' memo are both loaded with excuses for the next SIU plagiarist to employ in a lawsuit against the university. If you think plagiarism is plagiarism is plagiarism, then you don't know about "cryptomnesia," which is what happens when a writer internalizes someone else's ideas so completely that she forgets she didn't think them up herself. Another writer, in striving to imitate the lingo of his subject matter, might lift too much verbatim wording, but that's not plagiarism -- it's "patchwriting."Nelms' memo -- and the work of the task force, of which he is a member -- argues that plagiarism isn't 100 percent black and white, and that zero tolerance isn't always the best policy."We must always balance our high standards for research and scholarly publication with our need to not impede the free exchange of ideas," Nelms wrote. "The world can withstand a few unprosecuted citation infractions."Yes, it probably can. But 30 of them, from a doctoral student -- who is now the university president? Absolutely not.
Plagiarism with an Asterisk
There is no firm consensus on the defining features of plagiarism."We're quoting here from a memo by R. Gerald Nelms, an associate professor of composition and rhetoric at Southern Illinois University who was asked for an opinion on whether SIU President Glenn Poshard plagiarized parts of his 1984 doctoral thesis.Nelms conducted his review at Poshard's request, while a separate faculty committee was assessing allegations, first aired by the student newspaper, the Daily Egyptian, that Poshard's dissertation contained at least 30 examples of text lifted from other sources.
Neither Nelms nor the committee found much to be concerned about. Acting on the committee's recommendation, SIU's board of trustees decided Poshard was guilty of "inadvertent plagiarism" and asked him to fix his footnotes and resubmit the paper. He'll keep his job, unless he yields to a faculty revolt: Last week, the faculty senate at SIU's Edwardsville campus voted 45-5 to ask Poshard to resign.We've been scratching our heads about this debate ever since we examined a copy of Poshard's thesis alongside the materials he's accused of copying. Though it's possible to chalk up any single infraction to carelessness instead of theft, there are too, too many of them -- and too little original material left, once the cribbed passages are subtracted. It walks like a duck, and it talks like a duck. It's a duck.But things are rarely so simple in academia. At SIU in particular, there's a great deal of confusion about what constitutes plagiarism. A professor at the Edwardsville campus who was fired for copying another instructor's teaching philosophy statement is suing SIU, saying he was unfairly singled out. His supporters have formed a truth squad to root out other plagiarists. Even before they trained their sights on Poshard, the president appointed a task force to develop a plagiarism policy.The oft-stated premise throughout this exercise has been that, gosh, nobody really knows what is or isn't plagiarism. That surely comes as a surprise to the legions of students worldwide who have been flunked for forgetting to footnote, accidentally or on purpose.Is there really no clear definition? Let's try Webster's New World Dictionary: Plagiarize: to take ideas, words, etc. from another and offer them as one's own. SIU's student code of conduct says plagiarism is "representing the work of another as one's own work."Even the task force Poshard appointed begins its working definition with a straightforward declaration: "Plagiarism is defined as presenting existing work as one's own." It should have stopped right there.By the time the task force was finished equivocating, though, the faculty committee reviewing Poshard's dissertation had plenty of wiggle room to declare the president guilty of "inadvertent plagiarism" -- carelessness, in other words. This is not to be confused with "uneducated plagiarism," which suggests the writer truly didn't know better, or "intentional plagiarism," which might as well be defined as stealing someone else's work and admitting it once you're caught. Anyone smart enough to get into college ought to be smart enough to exploit the "inadvertent" loophole.The task force draft policy and Nelms' memo are both loaded with excuses for the next SIU plagiarist to employ in a lawsuit against the university. If you think plagiarism is plagiarism is plagiarism, then you don't know about "cryptomnesia," which is what happens when a writer internalizes someone else's ideas so completely that she forgets she didn't think them up herself. Another writer, in striving to imitate the lingo of his subject matter, might lift too much verbatim wording, but that's not plagiarism -- it's "patchwriting."Nelms' memo -- and the work of the task force, of which he is a member -- argues that plagiarism isn't 100 percent black and white, and that zero tolerance isn't always the best policy."We must always balance our high standards for research and scholarly publication with our need to not impede the free exchange of ideas," Nelms wrote. "The world can withstand a few unprosecuted citation infractions."Yes, it probably can. But 30 of them, from a doctoral student -- who is now the university president? Absolutely not.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Good Men Make Mistakes Too
Glenn Poshard, a three-degree graduate of SIU and former member of the Illinois Senate is a truly good man. After he left Congress, Poshard and his wife founded the Poshard Foundation for Abused Children which raises more than $100,000 annually to fund care for abused children and other victims of domestic abuse throughout Southern Illinois. The Poshard Foudation even led efforts to construct a $600,000 women’s shelter in Cairo that opened December 2003. Poshard also has a deep understanding of higher education since all three of his degrees are in education. With all his congressional leadership and public service after congress, it is a proven fact that Glenn Poshard is a really good man. Also SIU has grown significantly and prospered since he was selected to serve as President of the SIU system.
My point that Poshard is a good man is that sometimes good people make bad choices. He may be a great leader for our university but he did make the mistake of plagiarism. With Poshard making the mistake of plagiarizing on master's thesis and his doctoral dissertation, I feel that he should step down and take full responsibility for his mistake.
This past week in the news, there was a girl from my high school who graduated a year ahead of me accused of first degree murder. She had even been in a couple of my classes during high school and I got to know her fairly well. I found her to be a goody goody who would never do anything wrong or dare to harm a fly, I found myself to be very wrong about her. You can not underestimate any person ever, no matter how good of a person he or she may be. I believe she made a mistake, the mistake of hanging around the wrong people. Now here is my question, have we underestimated Glenn Poshard's leadership because of how good of a man he is? What resolution should come out of this issue about plagiarism? Should the plagiarism policy be changed so that students can have a second chance to revise their work before they recieve a failing grade or should we be able to take Poshards PhD away from him? What is a good resolution for the outcome of this?
I wrote this blog not in support of Poshard, but to recognize some of his great deeds. As I said earlier good men can make bad choices as well and I believe Poshard made a bad decision and didn't think twice before he did it.
Erik I got to tell you that this blog was created by us students as well as maintained by us. We did it with the support of our instructor. He is not "tarnishing" our minds of us "fresh out of high school kids." Not every person in English 101 is necessarily fresh out of high school. I know of adults who go back to college in their middle ages that have to take English 101. Also Keith encourages us to think objectively about this issue. The assignment was to write about our thoughts on plagiarism, he did not tell us to write about Poshard. Also he told us to research, he did not feed us "cherry-picked facts" we made our own judgment from all the facts we found in our research.
J.L.
My point that Poshard is a good man is that sometimes good people make bad choices. He may be a great leader for our university but he did make the mistake of plagiarism. With Poshard making the mistake of plagiarizing on master's thesis and his doctoral dissertation, I feel that he should step down and take full responsibility for his mistake.
This past week in the news, there was a girl from my high school who graduated a year ahead of me accused of first degree murder. She had even been in a couple of my classes during high school and I got to know her fairly well. I found her to be a goody goody who would never do anything wrong or dare to harm a fly, I found myself to be very wrong about her. You can not underestimate any person ever, no matter how good of a person he or she may be. I believe she made a mistake, the mistake of hanging around the wrong people. Now here is my question, have we underestimated Glenn Poshard's leadership because of how good of a man he is? What resolution should come out of this issue about plagiarism? Should the plagiarism policy be changed so that students can have a second chance to revise their work before they recieve a failing grade or should we be able to take Poshards PhD away from him? What is a good resolution for the outcome of this?
I wrote this blog not in support of Poshard, but to recognize some of his great deeds. As I said earlier good men can make bad choices as well and I believe Poshard made a bad decision and didn't think twice before he did it.
Erik I got to tell you that this blog was created by us students as well as maintained by us. We did it with the support of our instructor. He is not "tarnishing" our minds of us "fresh out of high school kids." Not every person in English 101 is necessarily fresh out of high school. I know of adults who go back to college in their middle ages that have to take English 101. Also Keith encourages us to think objectively about this issue. The assignment was to write about our thoughts on plagiarism, he did not tell us to write about Poshard. Also he told us to research, he did not feed us "cherry-picked facts" we made our own judgment from all the facts we found in our research.
J.L.
We weren't censored
Apparently the censorship issue mentioned earlier was not censorship. A spray chalk was used and the university assumed our chalking wasn't chalk, but paint. That is why it was removed. Just thought I'd update everyone on the issue.
-Colby Gower
-Colby Gower
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Censorship at SIUE?
Someone posted a comment in colby's last post about two of the three chalk spots we had being washed away and a third being "gaurded" by a cop. A few hours later colby and I went out to see what had happend, and all three spots were washed away. So this does lead me to believe that we are trying to be censored for what we are doing. We were going to go to Kimmel office to see what had happend, but when we had gotten there it was already closed, so we will have to wait until tommarrow to see what has happend. If anyone has futher information on what happend with this, respond so we know what is really going on.
-Kevin
-Kevin
Board of Trustees Meeting On the 8th
Some of us are planning on going to the BOT meeting at SIUC on the 8th of November and welcome anyone who wants to go and support our cause. It is a two and a half hour drive from SIUE, so if anyone wants to volunteer to carpool that would be awesome. Some of us going want to make shirts so if anyone is interested in doing that let me know. If you want to email me, cgower@siue.edu. If you aren't at SIUE but want to go, any support would be appreciated.
-Colby Gower
-Colby Gower
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Higher standards
The professors and teachers employed in any school or university are expected to be held to higher standards than those of their students. They need this to have the moral authority to judge a students work. The rules concerning plagiarism are recited to all students when we are given a writing assignment. The teachers make sure that we understand that – whether it is intentional or not – plagiarism will not be tolerated, and that we should take great care to avoid it when writing our papers. This year, students have received failing grades for plagiarism and the rules do not permit them to revise their original submitted work. It is expected that a university student should have taken the extra time to review her paper and correctly cite all sources.
It is unethical to plagiarize according the SIUE web site:
“Philosophically, it is morally wrong to claim to do work that one has not done. One goal of the University is to encourage students to consider issues of ethics when making decisions. Thus, it is only fair that we uphold this goal by enforcing rules about plagiarism” (http://www.siue.edu/~lmarkow/plagairsm.htm).
The website also provides detailed examples of different ways of committing plagiarism. For example:
“Here is an example:
1. Russell Schutt of Investigating the Social World defines a survey as, "Research in which information is obtained from a sample of individuals through their responses to questions about themselves or others" (p. 592: 1996).
A student would be plagiarizing if they did … the following in a paper:
2. According to Russell Schutt a survey is research in which information is obtained from a sample (p. 592). I did a survey on University Faculty in 1999. I asked the faculty whether they use the Vadalebene Center…
This is plagiarism because the student did not put quotes around the passage that was used in her paper.” (http://www.siue.edu/~lmarkow/plagairsm.htm)
I read the review of Dr. Poshard’s dissertation by Professor R. Gerald Nelms, and in it he goes over the different types of plagiarism that were found there. Some of these seemed to correlate with the example above: “Of the forty infractions noted, twenty-five are cases where citations to the allegedly plagiarized material are present but quotation marks around copied material were not included” (Nelms, http://news.siu.edu/PoshardDissertationReviewfinal.pdf). He later stated that “These passages, then, despite their length, do not represent serious citation infractions” (Nelms, http://news.siu.edu/PoshardDissertationReviewfinal.pdf). In our classes it doesn’t matter about the seriousness of the plagiarism infraction, the consequences are still the same. As stated above, “…it is only fair that we uphold this goal by enforcing rules about plagiarism”. Not enforcing these rules goes against the professed ethical standards of our school.
Where can we draw the line to excuse plagiarism? Dr. Poshard sent a letter to all the students and faculty members associated with SIU school system to explain what the final decision was, and why. To me it seems as though Dr. Poshard was trying to make excuses for his behavior, alleging that he had no intention of plagiarizing. The same goes for Dr. Dussold. He also claimed that his mistake was unintentional, and gave rationalizations for his behavior. Dr. Poshard fired Dr. Dussold for the very same offenses he had committed in his own work. Dr. Dussold was "fired in 2004 for plagiarizing his teaching statement", and was not given a chance to revise his mistakes (http://newshound.de.siu.edu/fall06/stories/storyReader$309). Both Dr. Poshard and Dr. Dussold plagiarized ducuments of similar importance to their careers, but yet the punishments were vastly different. This is a double standard. This situation would not be as extreme if a professor had not gotten fired for a violation of a school rule of which our president has been accused.
The rules established by an institution should apply to everyone associated with the institution, including those who wrote and/or enforce them. Even the faculty code of ethics and conduct states: “...there is need for the faculty to assume a more positive role as guardian of academic values against unjustified assaults from its own members. The traditional faculty function in disciplinary proceedings has been to assure academic due process and meaningful faculty participation in the imposition of discipline by the administration. While this function should be maintained, faculties should recognize their stake in promoting adherence to norms essential to the academic enterprise.” (http://www.siue.edu/policies/1q1.shtml). I have serious concerns about the disciplinary actions both taken and not taken with regard to the conduct of the faculty members at the center of this controversy. What message will they send to both students and faculty with regard to academic, professional, and ethic conduct at SIUE? Is there a double standard here? And if not, what is the standard and to whom does it apply?
It is unethical to plagiarize according the SIUE web site:
“Philosophically, it is morally wrong to claim to do work that one has not done. One goal of the University is to encourage students to consider issues of ethics when making decisions. Thus, it is only fair that we uphold this goal by enforcing rules about plagiarism” (http://www.siue.edu/~lmarkow/plagairsm.htm).
The website also provides detailed examples of different ways of committing plagiarism. For example:
“Here is an example:
1. Russell Schutt of Investigating the Social World defines a survey as, "Research in which information is obtained from a sample of individuals through their responses to questions about themselves or others" (p. 592: 1996).
A student would be plagiarizing if they did … the following in a paper:
2. According to Russell Schutt a survey is research in which information is obtained from a sample (p. 592). I did a survey on University Faculty in 1999. I asked the faculty whether they use the Vadalebene Center…
This is plagiarism because the student did not put quotes around the passage that was used in her paper.” (http://www.siue.edu/~lmarkow/plagairsm.htm)
I read the review of Dr. Poshard’s dissertation by Professor R. Gerald Nelms, and in it he goes over the different types of plagiarism that were found there. Some of these seemed to correlate with the example above: “Of the forty infractions noted, twenty-five are cases where citations to the allegedly plagiarized material are present but quotation marks around copied material were not included” (Nelms, http://news.siu.edu/PoshardDissertationReviewfinal.pdf). He later stated that “These passages, then, despite their length, do not represent serious citation infractions” (Nelms, http://news.siu.edu/PoshardDissertationReviewfinal.pdf). In our classes it doesn’t matter about the seriousness of the plagiarism infraction, the consequences are still the same. As stated above, “…it is only fair that we uphold this goal by enforcing rules about plagiarism”. Not enforcing these rules goes against the professed ethical standards of our school.
Where can we draw the line to excuse plagiarism? Dr. Poshard sent a letter to all the students and faculty members associated with SIU school system to explain what the final decision was, and why. To me it seems as though Dr. Poshard was trying to make excuses for his behavior, alleging that he had no intention of plagiarizing. The same goes for Dr. Dussold. He also claimed that his mistake was unintentional, and gave rationalizations for his behavior. Dr. Poshard fired Dr. Dussold for the very same offenses he had committed in his own work. Dr. Dussold was "fired in 2004 for plagiarizing his teaching statement", and was not given a chance to revise his mistakes (http://newshound.de.siu.edu/fall06/stories/storyReader$309). Both Dr. Poshard and Dr. Dussold plagiarized ducuments of similar importance to their careers, but yet the punishments were vastly different. This is a double standard. This situation would not be as extreme if a professor had not gotten fired for a violation of a school rule of which our president has been accused.
The rules established by an institution should apply to everyone associated with the institution, including those who wrote and/or enforce them. Even the faculty code of ethics and conduct states: “...there is need for the faculty to assume a more positive role as guardian of academic values against unjustified assaults from its own members. The traditional faculty function in disciplinary proceedings has been to assure academic due process and meaningful faculty participation in the imposition of discipline by the administration. While this function should be maintained, faculties should recognize their stake in promoting adherence to norms essential to the academic enterprise.” (http://www.siue.edu/policies/1q1.shtml). I have serious concerns about the disciplinary actions both taken and not taken with regard to the conduct of the faculty members at the center of this controversy. What message will they send to both students and faculty with regard to academic, professional, and ethic conduct at SIUE? Is there a double standard here? And if not, what is the standard and to whom does it apply?
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