Two proposed revisions to the College of Communication’s plagiarism policy have drawn fire from faculty members who say they are worried about creating a climate of fear and suspicion within the school and among students.
The proposals – one that would require students working on group projects to report suspected plagiarism within their group to the faculty, and one that would require them to confront the alleged plagiarist and correct the plagiarized content – were drawn up by a committee in the Mass Communication department at the suggestion of COM dean John Schulz, who said it was in response to incidents of plagiarism in a group setting that were brought to his attention by Mass Communication department chairman T. Barton Carter.
The proposals were presented to the faculty at a meeting on April 4 and were immediately tabled by journalism professor William Lord, who recommended that the two versions be sent to the school’s Academic Affairs committee for review, according to meeting minutes.
The Academic Affairs Committee hears cases of alleged plagiarism and determines punishment based on the severity of the offense.
Current Academic Affairs committee chairman Ray Carney, a film professor at BU for 17 years, said the plagiarism proposals, if passed, would be the first at the university that would punish students for plagiarism committed before any work was turned in for a grade.
As a result, he said, “students would be turned into policemen of other students, and that might create an undesirable climate for study and coursework.”
The committee has tabled discussion of the proposals for “more study and more time to consider,” Carney explained, although he added that several current and former members of the committee oppose the revisions.
Carter, a lawyer whom Schulz said he consults to help craft policy language, said the proposed rule changes would not create an environment of fear but would rather protect those students in group projects who are confused about what to do if they suspect a classmate of plagiarism. The revisions, he said, would affect students in Mass Communication more than any other department because there is a greater focus on group work.
“[The proposals are about] clarifying the rights and responsibility of students involved in this so that they can protect themselves as well as the integrity of the system,” Carter said. “It’s being very slowly and carefully thought out and analyzed. We recognized a problem and we’re attempting to find the best solution.”
Schulz, who has been the COM dean since 2003, defended the policy proposals as “giving students more power to enforce their own honor code.”
In an interview with The Daily Free Press last Friday, President Robert Brown said there may be merit in considering whether the “university as a whole should have a well-formed policy” regarding plagiarism, rather than having each school set its own rules.
“There’s been a lot of discussion about this,” he said.
Some students, including public relations junior Sandy Kalik, say the new proposals, if implemented, would create an “atmosphere of mistrust” among fellow students.
Kalik, who said that in one of her classes, group work constitutes 65 percent of the grade, explained that most professors in the Mass Communication department already tell students to report suspected plagiarism. Amending the plagiarism policy to include either version of this new policy would be “unnecessary,” she said. By codifying the proposals, students would have to face the academic affairs committee on plagiarism charges rather than deal directly with the professor.
But advertising freshman Dena Lewittes said that a rule requiring students to confront group members who commit plagiarism would help students practice interactions they would need to use in a real-world job setting.
“[In a group setting] you have the responsibility to keep people on track,” she said.
Lewittes suggested that for students who are unclear about what constitutes plagiarism, COM make counselors available to examine situations that arise and advise the group on what to do.
The renewed focus on plagiarism has highlighted COM’s history of high-profile plagiarism.
In 1999, Schulz, then head of the Mass Communication department, stepped down from the post after revelations that he had quoted a 64-word sentence from weekly news magazine The Nation during a COM101 lecture without attribution. Several faculty members leapt to his defense, arguing that in his rush to finish the lecture he simply forgot to attribute the magazine. This led to a debate about whether there was a double standard for students and faculty regarding the application of plagiarism punishment.
But as Schulz noted when the incident occurred, the school’s plagiarism rules do not distinguish between oral or written plagiarism and intentional or unintentional plagiarism, and thus he resigned the position.
In 1991, COM dean Joachim Maitre resigned his post after he was found to have lifted more than a dozen paragraphs from a movie review by Michael Medved.
Maitre and Schulz still teach at BU and are members of the COM faculty.