Signing absent students into class is still cheating

Anyone who has ever been a student knows about the rules regarding academic misconduct, or cheating, as it is more commonly called. Plagiarism, copying others’ answers and “cheat sheets” are unacceptable in academia and face severe punishment. By the time the majority of students reach college, they are aware of unacceptable scholarly behavior and work conscientiously to avoid these types of situations.

But there are other forms of cheating less obvious to most students. Many people are oblivious that the simple and seemingly harmless act of signing in an absent student constitutes as a form of academic misconduct for both involved. What seems like an easy way to avoid penalties for missing class is actually cheating and punishable as such.

It may seem silly: How could a little white lie be considered one of the most severe acts of academic wrongdoing? The fact is, any falsification of records that count toward a student’s final grade is considered cheating. This form of academic misconduct is a sizeable problem in Boston University classrooms – and one with largely unrecognized consequences among BU’s student population.

College offers a freedom from the administrative and parental rules that regulated individual attendance behavior in high school. One of these freedoms is the choice of whether or not to attend class. In an effort to encourage presence at lectures, discussions and labs and thus maximize the amount of information that students learn, some professors make attendance a percentage of the final course grade. This is usually documented either directly by the professor or teaching assistant, or in a form more convenient for large class sizes ,by passing around a sign-in sheet. Unfortunately, this method of record keeping, which is easier for the professor, also makes it easier for students to alter the attendance sheet. The result? An easy and hard-to-detect form of cheating that runs rampant through Boston University classes.

The simplicity and inconspicuousness of the act frees even the most conscientious culprit of guilt and makes it an almost impossible behavior to catch. Both of these factors facilitate the spread of this form of cheating and contribute to an underestimation of its severity. In turn, students lose, or perhaps never fully grasp, awareness of the possible consequences.

Cheating, no matter what form it takes or how serious it seems, is still considered an act of academic misconduct, and professors are authorized to take the necessary steps towards official judiciary measures, as mandated by Boston University. A cheating student gives control of his or her academic career to the college’s administration and even faces the possibility of its end at BU through expulsion.

Getting caught is just one of the consequences that a student should think about when he or she decides to cheat. Not only do people put themselves and their friends in positions of dishonesty and deceit when they falsely claim their presence, but cheaters also disrespect the professor and their classmates who tell the truth about attendance. In addition, cheating in this way discounts your own abilities as a scholar. Will lying about a single missed class make that much of a difference in the overall outcome of the final grade? You should be confident enough in your own intellectual abilities to know that it won’t ruin the overall course grade and that getting caught could have a more extreme effect.

It is important that BU students fully recognize that what seems like a harmless lie in an attempt to effortlessly boost a grade is actually a fraudulent alteration of academic records. The act of signing other people in or having someone sign you in is cheating, whether it seems like it or not. Are you a cheater? Think about it the next time you contemplate the easy way out.

Cristina Hilbert is a sophomore in the College of Communication.