Research shows that Texas A&M, like other large public universities, experiences high levels of academic dishonesty, and more than 200 representatives from schools across the country will gather at A&M Thursday to address the dishonesty problems plaguing higher education.
The Center for Academic Integrity, an association composed of administrators, faculty and students from colleges and universities, is holding is annual conference at A&M and Bill Kibler, president of the center and associate vice president for student affairs at A&M, said the University will benefit from the ideas discussed at the conference to help curb cheating.
Although A&M is known for its strict honor code — “Aggies do not lie, cheat or steal, nor do they tolerate those who do so” — extensive research has shown that Aggies are academically dishonesty, Kibler said.
Dr. Donald McCabe of Rutgers University, founding president of the Center of Academic Integrity and leading researcher on the topic for the past decade, has found that schools showing the highest incidents of cheating are large public universities.
A 1998 survey conducted by Texas A&M and coordinated by Kibler reported very high incidents of Aggies engaging in academic dishonesty.
“Texas A&M is a large public university, and the results we got when we did this survey 3 years ago were what you would expect,” Kibler said. “We have a lot of work to do here at Texas A&M to draw awareness to the problem and then do some things to try to address that problem.”
Faculty and students are welcome to attend the conference, which will include a variety of workshops and sessions over a four-day period.
Today, the conference will host a discussion on academic integrity and the Internet, addressing issues of plagiarism, challenges in distance education and effects on the traditional classroom that result from the use of the Internet.
The regular conference begins Friday evening.
Several A&M faculty members are scheduled to either speak or participate in the conference sessions on Saturday and Sunday. Murphy Smith, an A&M professor of accounting, will speak on ethics in business Saturday morning. Dr. Smith will discuss the importance of personal integrity in the business world and society in general.
Smith has collected data from students around the country and concludes that Texas A&M students are more ethical than the average college student in America. Aggies do not have a problem addressing the second part of the honor code, tolerating others who lie or cheat.
“To have the courage to confront somebody else who is not acting ethically is a real challenge, but I think that’s the key to the future of academic integrity on Texas A&M’s campus or anywhere else,” Smith said.
Kibler and David Parrott, A&M’s Dean of Student Life, will also speak.
McCabe has found cheating to be a nationwide problem in both large and small institutions, yet schools like Texas A&M that have honor codes and a sense of tradition are less likely to experience high levels of academic dishonesty.
“A well-run, well-implemented honor code does significantly reduce the level of cheating,” McCabe said. “Being in College Station, you tend to orient your life towards the campus, so it’s much easier to develop a community ethic.”
The conference lasts Thursday through Sunday at the George Bush Presidential Conference Center. Students interested in attending the conference may register until Friday evening. The office of the Vice President for Student Affairs will waive the registration fee for all students.