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CMU’s Center for Professional and Personal Ethics received a three-year award of $40,302 in CMU 2010 funding for a Priority V project that will educate the CMU community about the university’s current policy on academic integrity.
Earlier this fall, Don McCabe, a world-renowned expert on academic integrity and a professor of organization management at Rutgers University, evaluated surveys testing academic honesty for CMU students and faculty.
At a presentation in November, McCabe shared the survey results and addressed issues such as how much student cheating occurs at CMU, how faculty respond to student cheating, and what CMU can do to promote a positive climate of academic integrity.
The survey found 19 percent of CMU sophomores, juniors, and seniors reported cheating on tests, and 42 percent said they’d engaged in written cheating.
McCabe said the national average is 22 percent for test cheating and 46 percent for written cheating.
“We learned that there is a desire here at CMU to make the policy on academic integrity stronger and that faculty are vital in helping students to know the policies on cheating,” said Hope May, associate professor of philosophy and director of the Center for Professional and Personal Ethics.
“Our students and faculty believe that punishments for cheating here at CMU are not as harsh as they should be. We have many plans to continue this project in order to enrich CMU’s culture of academic integrity.”
Survey data will be used in the creation of a student handbook on academic integrity as well as a Web site that provides resources for students and faculty.
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