Cheaters still
don’t prosper

Cheating has gone high-tech, forcing educational facilities around the nation to come up with high-tech methods of catching students. SUU makes it clear that any form of academic dishonesty is not to be tolerated and requires that each class syllabus include a statement about academic integrity. Nevertheless, we are certain that some students at SUU are cheating and getting away with it.
While some students may not view creative efforts to avoid actual learning and writing in one’s own words as cheating, we believe it is. Several instructors agree with us and have included detailed definitions of the term “academic dishonesty” in their syllabi.
We believe the most commonly used form of academic dishonesty at SUU is plagiarism. The syllabus for Library Media 1010 defines plagiarism as “a form of academic dishonesty in which a student takes credit for someone else’s words, ideas, style of expression, research, etc.”
“It does not matter whether this ‘someone else’ is dead or alive, published or unpublished, a famous author or a fellow student, or whether he or she gave permission for the material to be used,” the syllabus adds. “Plagiarism is intellectual larceny — the theft of ideas or their manner of expression.”
We believe students should seek higher education to become better educated, well-rounded individuals. When students avoid the learning process to receive an easy grade, they only cheat themselves out of the valuable opportunities SUU provides for them to grow. They also cheat whoever pays for their education — parents, taxpayers and other benefactors — out of money that could be used for better causes.
While students who cheat in any form may believe they are helping themselves by increasing their respective GPAs, the consequences for their actions far outweigh the possible benefits.
Some SUU professors go to great lengths to catch plagiarists. Kenny Laundra, assistant professor of sociology, said he and other professors use the Web site www.plagiarism.org, to catch students who plagiarize papers off the Internet. The site assistsprofessors in matching a paper’s content with information

 

published on the Internet or in the Web site’s data base, which contains hundreds of thousands of papers.
Students caught in any form of academic dishonesty at SUU can be disciplined a number of ways up to and including expulsion. Even if students aren’t caught when they cheat, we believe they doom themselves to fail in the future. If students find themselves in jobs where they are required to perform functions they have avoided throughout their education, they are less likely to succeed than those students who actually went through the learning process.
We ask students at SUU to look at education as an opportunity and not a burden and refrain from academic dishonesty — if not for the pure honesty of it, then for the sake of their own futures, as well as people who will depend on them in the future.

The opinion expressed above is the collective perspective of the University Journal and its editorial board. The editorial board meets every Wednesday at 11 a.m. in Room 172 of the Sharwan Smith Center. Visitors are welcome.

Letters to the Editor

I want to know
In response to the Sept. 23 article “On Liberty,” I would like to know the “whole truth” as (Paul) Husselbee so eloquently quotes. The public has a right to know the entirety of the situation so it can better assess the current issues and work toward fixing the damaging restraints.
It is true that it’s easy to judge from the cheap seats, but if those are the only tickets sold, students will buy them and comment on the game from that perspective.
I demand to know who these influences are that are limiting free speech and applying immense pressure from the outside. I want to know who will not offer me front-row tickets so I can understand the game from a larger and better perspective.

Aimee Oberg
Editor’s note: Copies of letters sent to Paul Husselbee, Journal managing director, are posted at www.sltrib.com in the Sept. 26 archive.

SAFE petiton
We the undersigned believe that all student clubs and organizations have the right to run themselves free from pressure applied by Southern Utah University administration and individuals outside the campus. Administration and individuals may advise, lend their experience and speculate about the wisdom of decisions made by students. However, if the decision made by students or their respective organizations is legal, it is ultimately up to the student to make the final decision.
We condemn any act made by University officials that would threaten the employment of an adviser or a scholarship held by a student because they disagree with the administration on what the best course of action may be with regard to their club or organization.
We as students will not sit by and let one man, or small group of individuals who donate to this school, dictate what our college experience will be. As adults, we now can vote, participate in the political process and even serve our country in the military to protect the freedoms other have died for. It is now up to us to make decisions, right or wrong, and learn from those decisions.

213 signatures

Shame on you
Shame on the Journal. Wasn’t this the same group of people demanding the ROTC be censored for its paintball event? Isn’t this the same staff who said that the ROTC should be mindful of people who might be offended by its actions?
Everyone is arguing the Journal’s rights under the First Amendment. Here is it’s text, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
This amendment only applies to Congress, not the SUU administration.

David Fryer
Cedar City
Editor’s note: There’s a difference between “censor” and “censure.”

Protection
If only they made prophylactics large enough to shield gutsy newspapers from a few small-minded administrators and benefactors . . .

Brent Israelsen
Salt Lake City

Time to choose
When big money talks (the governor’s brother is an SUU trustee and does hold a purse string or two), it’s tempting to let it be the arbiter in matters of journalistic taste. But, dear Journal editors, don’t be confused on that point — the complaints raised against the offensive pieces had nothing to do with “good taste” and everything to do with power and politics. The message sent was

 

loud and clear: “Don’t overstep your bounds in expressing opinions critical of this policy, or your budget will be cut.”
Either the principal of free speech still has meaning and is worth defending — even if it means going up against powerful forces — or just drop the charade and admit that as far as you’re concerned, the First Amendment is obsolete, an artifact of some cushy pre-9/11 era when people could still afford the luxury of free speech. It’s one or the other. Time to chose.

Franklin Seal,
Moab

 Respect students
Although I no longer work at SUU, having left in 1993, I am struck by the adage: The more things change, the more they stay the same. SUU has never, I believe, been the poster-child for open discourse between opposing sides of an issue.
I encourage the students and advisers at the Journal to maintain their stand, for how can we all know what kinds of choices to make unless we are given all of the information necessary to make such choices? I’m perfectly capable of deciding for myself what to read, what to look at, what to listen to, and what to believe. I don’t need a college president or board of trustees member acting paternalistically, patting me on the head, and sending me off with the newspaper that “they” want me to read. The students at SUU deserve more respect than that — more respect for their intelligence, more respect for their maturity, and more respect for their individual choices.

Valerie A. Kidrick
Sacramento, Calif.

Beggars banquet
I used to be employed at SUU. I asked the question a couple of times as to whose paper was it? The answer I received was plain enough for me to know to mind my own business and stay out of an issue that was not my concern.
Well, they don’t sign my checks anymore, so I can offer my opinion and encouragement to the students who should be the rightful owners of the publication to keep on keeping on. Your biggest foe will be those way-too-affluent-contributors who pull strings on the university’s direction so tight, it all seemed like a “beggar’s banquet” to me as I watched it go down.

Fred Lee Wilbur

Tasteless
If this article were carried in a normal newspaper, outraged subscribers would cancel subscriptions. That is the natural consequence of reckless journalism. What the Journal staff promotes using its own money and resources is no one else’s business. However, when you use taxpayer funds to promote an agenda at the expense of decency and fairness, there must be accountability. I hope the Journal will try to (restore) its credibility by abandoning one-sided, tasteless journalism.

Rick Warne
Editor’s note: The Journal is funded via student fees and advertising sales.

Student organ?
I couldn’t help but chuckle at Dr. Bennion’s choice of words in defending his position — that newspaper is “an organ of the campus student body.”

Pat Dustin
Idaho Falls, Idaho

Getting resolve
I would like to praise the Journal for rocking the boat with the safe-sex matter. I, for one, loved the pictorial. If this is what it takes to draw attention, then you did the right thing. Maybe now you will get the resolve you are looking for with the school policies, but are you really surprised that the school (or state, in this matter) doesn’t make efforts to educate and provide the goods without having to jump through hoops?
As for Leavitt’s complaint, what else would you expect from a Leavitt? Maybe he’ll show up at your local fight club.

Chris Raemer
South Jordan