Alison Kostelisch would rather have a C on her transcript knowing she worked for it than cheat her way to a diploma.

“I think students think cheating is not a big deal,” said Kostelich, the student vice president for academic affairs. “I think an honor code would be great. I am a junior and this is the first semester a teacher explained the whole syllabus.”

On Tuesday, Faculty Senate and Student Government hosted the annual faculty forum in the Grand Ballroom of the Martin Luther King Jr. Union at 2 p.m. This year’s forum addressed the issue of academic integrity, which focused on both faculty and student concerns. The forum also talked about issues that focused on intellectual property of students, plagiarism, cheating and issues associated with technology.

The faculty forum committee originally planned to break up the audience into four discussion groups. However, because of inclement weather conditions, the audience turn out had low numbers and only one group was formed.

The committee provided a list of eight questions they wanted to focus on or use as a guideline into discussion.

Keith Kohanzo, assistant to the vice president for student affairs, distributed a report of academic misconduct cases, which led to the first discussion.

According to this report, there were 124 admitted or determined academic misconduct violations during the 2006-07 academic year, compared to 146 cases in the 2005-06 academic year.

“Evidence shows that academic misconduct is an increasing problem at Eastern,” said Lynne Curry, Faculty Senate Chair.

Perception of academic integrity was an issue brought up in the discussion.

Robin Murray, a faculty senate member, stated because perception has changed, ignorance might be a cause of academic integrity.

Erin Volk, a student representative for Faculty Senate, said she would not be able to cheat because she is guilty-driven. She feels guilty even if she doesn’t report someone who she saw cheating.

“One issue is that there is a perception, by not just students, that everything on the Internet is free and it’s very convenient to cut and paste, and perception that a Web site doesn’t have an author,” said Ann Brownson, Faculty Senate’s Vice Chair.

Sue Songer, an International student adviser, said students claim to have strategies to cheat.

“Academic integrity as a whole is more than plagiarism,” Brownson said.

However, several faculty and staff members disputed whether or not to fail a student due to plagiarism.

“Judicial Affairs doesn’t get involved, only in cases of burglary, a second offence, or factual disputes,” Kohanzo said. “We urge professors to fail the student from the course.”

In most cases, Curry believes it makes sense that the sanction be severe. But Songer believes that failing a class can cut education short for students.

“It won’t hurt me if the report goes from 124 cases to 500,” Kohanzo said. “It shows faculty is reporting, but they must do something about it.”

Because of academic integrity, several staff members insisted a university honor code be instituted.

“Start a culture of honor code where we can trust students; it’s done elsewhere,” said John Stimac, chair of the faculty forum committee. “We need to be on the same page what sanctions would be.”

Kohanzo said schools are finding modified honor codes are a work in progress, but do work.

“It’s for the university to frame students and Eastern is able to do that,” Eastern President Bill Perry said.

Stimac will now take the notes taken at the forum to the Faculty Senate and discuss and make this an online forum to hopefully get recommendations and feedback from more students, faculty and staff.

“There should be a line you can’t cross,” Stimac said.

2006-2007 Academic year

124 misconduct violations

Freshmen: 32

Sophomores: 20

Juniors: 32

Seniors:36

Graduate students: 4

Biological sciences professor Kip McGilliard (left) speaks about his thoughts on the academic integrity of the science department as College of Sciences Dean Mary Anne Hanner (right) and other faculty senate members look over a paper detailing statistics

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