Repeat after me: “We, the members of the University of Florida community, pledge to hold ourselves and our peers to the highest standards of honesty and integrity.”
If you’re a member of the UF Student Body, that pledge should be part of who you are by now.
That is the Honor Pledge of the Honor Code, the fundamental commitment to academic integrity that aligns our visions of honor as academics.
According to a professor, that pledge was “irrefutably” violated by a troubling amount of UF students on an exam this semester. To be exact, the College of Engineering caught 97 students cheating in CGS2531, which is a required course for many degrees at UF.
Upon hearing about this blatant violation of academic honesty, even a moderate academic would consider the penalty of expulsion for these students.
But these students will not be expelled. Nor will they be referred to the Dean of Students or the Student Conduct Committee if they admit to cheating. As long as they admit to cheating, they will not even fail the course.
I can accept that students will sometimes cheat. What I cannot accept is administrators showing indifference and leniency to irrefutable cheating.
We do not want cheaters to be part of our academic community. Cheaters hurt everyone. They put honest students at a disadvantage. Their cheating encourages other students to cheat. Moreover, widespread cheating undermines the academic integrity of the entire university, which devalues all degrees bearing the university’s name.
It’s a shame that UF administrators show such indifference to blatant cheating, but the UF Code of Conduct allows this inadequate punishment. It states that this punishment is acceptable as long as the faculty member contacts the Dean of Students to ensure that “no circumstances require the imposition of a sanction other than a reduced or failing grade, an educational requirement specified in University of Florida Regulation 4.047 and/or a reprimand.”
Are reduced grades or a reprimand acceptable penalties for cheating? No. Every one of these students should be referred to the Dean of Students and the Student Conduct Committee, and the convicted cheaters should be penalized accordingly. It doesn’t matter how much time or how many resources it takes. What is more important for the university to invest in than the academic merit of its students?
This widespread act of cheating and the response of UF administrators indicate that something is seriously wrong with the value we place in the Honor Code.
Academic achievement is something that most students take pride in. Being a successful academic gives you access to an exclusive club. Being a successful academic shows that you used the key factors of success — discipline, focus, determination and ambition — to realize knowledge that the mass of humanity never had the opportunity to.
But widespread cheating and leniency toward cheating devalue what should be the honorable achievement of completing a university education.
Give these students one more chance, but do so only after each one demonstrates he or she realizes the gravity of cheating in academia. Show some semblance of care for the Honor Code.
Once these students are dealt with, our university has a more serious problem at hand. It is abundantly clear that cheating is a problem in academia.
Platitudes tend to be avoided in academia, but here’s one we should remember: Actions speak louder than words. The actions of academic administrators should match their pledges. If cheating has no place in academia, then show it by taking serious action against cheaters.
Abdul Zalikha is a biology and English junior at UF. His column appears on Wednesdays.
