Ethics of Deadlines in Education

I recently attended a day-long workshop at the Jefferson County Community and Technical College-Southwest in Louisville, KY. GeoEd 2012 targeted two-year college staff and faculty looking to incorporate geographic information sciences (GIS) in their coursework. My primary employer is a 4-yr institution but the presentations were not especially directed to universities, which is good; otherwise the trip would have been a waste.

I'm a nosy person when it comes to education. I want to know how the classrooms are outfitted with technology, make/models of computers, brands of data projectors, podium-based devices or multimedia podiums, and how the seats are arranged. I want my program to be attractive and I'm constantly looking for new ideas.

On one hallway a poster was taped instructing anyone who saw a student cheating to "turn in the cheaters." I was amused, yet appreciative of at least a superficial attempt by the administration to support academic honesty. Peeking into a classroom I noticed taped to the whiteboard and offset from the projection screen so as not to be hidden was a sheet of paper printed with the words "Do Your Own Work. Don't Cheat." I checked another classroom and in the same location was an identical announcement. Cool, I thought; every student needs a reminder.

I can understand why someone would want to cheat. Laziness. The student sets some other activity above doing the requisite work for the course, like fishing, hunting, golf, XBox, etc. Then, the student tries to find a short-cut to a better grade and in doing so undermines the instructor, other students, and his/her own education. Usually, cheating is also accompanied by a bad attitude about having to take the course. "I don't see why I have to take this course?" The lack of understanding creates a sense of justification for cheating.

Personally, if you don't understand the Importance of Education, then, please, stop consuming financial aid and educational resources, leave school, find yourself and discover why an Education is important. When you can appreciate the knowledge you are gaining then, and only then, should you re-apply.

Education is not merely training. Education is immersive, holistic, and never-ending. Education is about understanding the milieu, the ecosystem of a problem, using critical and creative thinking, logic, reason, and tapping into other disciplines.

Training will provide some education, but training is task-oriented. Training provides a specific set of skills, installing, setup, and administration of a computer server, for example. Or, learning how to program in Python or C++ or F#. Plumbing, roofing, electrical work are skills and while people trained in such occupations become educated about the details of those endeavors, reading Plato and Democritus and learning about Golden Hordes is not a prerequisite for installing a circuit breaker.

I do not understand why some students help other students cheat. The Accomplice does the work and assumes as much risk as the Cheater. The Cheater does little to no work while the Accomplice carries the weight with no real return. Maybe money changes hands, or a form of quid pro quo relationship develops, then each student undermines their own character and ethics. How else will the behavior manifest? In what other ways will the Cheater and Accomplice rationalize their behavior, i.e. "this is too expensive, so I'll just take this;" or "my boss doesn't pay enough, so I'll take a few office supplies home." Cheating is simply the rationalization of the theft of a grade and perpetrating fraud upon other class members and the college and university.

Get to the point, you say; your post is about Deadlines!

Cheating is out in the open. An entire section of most higher education syllabi is devoted to Academic Honesty, Academic Ethics, and Plagiarism. There is another ethical issue in education, a behavior which is silent and insidious. And, admittedly, I have been guilty of the behavior but no more.

At the conference, a presenter discussed the attitude of current (and probably future graduates) of being dismissive of Deadlines. Employees show up late, leave early - those are deadlines. Contracts and legislative dollars usually come with timelines and deadlines, or at least benchmarks. Some contracts are written to force payback of money if work is not completed by certain deadlines.

"At West Point, if a student does not submit homework on-time, that is disobeying a direct order."

Stew on that for a while.

Faculty set deadlines. "The paper is due on April 27th" or "make sure your Powerpoint is ready-to-go by March 17th." Deadlines are typically provided well in advance of a due date. Usually, deadlines and due dates are included  on the syllabus. All students are responsible for reading a syllabus regardless of whether a syllabus is covered during class time or not. Therefore, there are no surprises, only choices.

Students are obligated to read and know the syllabus. Faculty are obligated to stand beside their deadlines. Being faculty, sometimes deadlines need to be modified. Inclement weather can interfere with class time. The complexity of the material can impact uptake of information and students may need an additional class period. However, when a deadline is extended, the deadline is extended for all students.

Ethical issues arise when a single or a few students are allowed more time to submit homework for reasons falling outside of the traditional "Act of God." For example, a student who decides to spend the weekend in St. Louis watching a Cardinals home stand does not get more time. A student who opts to practice for the GED does not get more time. A student who decides to cruise the Caribbean does not get more time. For me, only the death of an immediate family member constitutes an occasion of changing a deadline. Or, a serious illness which requires extended hospitalization. Even then, if something so life-altering occurs, the student must make a decision regarding near-term education and not place the burden on the faculty or university. Student are people, and people are responsible for their own lives. Not me. Everyone gets to decide how they react when poked. Reaction is choice.

Faculty need to pay attention to their deadlines. Faculty need to stiffen their backbones and prevent manipulative people from undermining the work of other students. A student who receives even an extra day extension receives an unfair advantage over those students who practiced due diligence in getting assignments completed before or on the deadlines. In essence, faculty who allow themselves to be manipulated are also an Accomplice to aiding and abetting cheating. I also know occasions when faculty have adhered to deadlines and have been overruled by ineffectual chairs and deans. Then, the institution undermines their own Academic Standards and the institution itself becomes an Accomplice. See what I mean by "insidious?"

Yes, I was a bit of a pushover, years ago. Then, I realized being "flexible" was not fair to the other students. Why should a student who "forgot" to do an assignment get an extra week to finish an assignment other students did on time? Now, when I go over a syllabus, I have two categories, the "Act of God"-type problem, which needs to be handled on a case-by-case basis, and the "I-forgot"-type problem. I tell students:

"If you forget about a deadline, test, quiz, or assignment, don't ask me about turning it in late. Just do not turn it in. Life is about deadlines. The IRS has deadlines, your job has deadlines, etc., and this class has deadlines. Miss a deadline and you might as well keep whatever you have. Learn from your bad choice. Buy a calendar or an appointment book."

The effects of my rigid policy have been fascinating, actually. Students simply choose what grade they will settle for in the course. To illustrate, a student will choose between showing up for an exam and going to a concert.

"When will I get a chance to see Def Leppard again? I don't care about the exam; I'll take a zero. I figure I'll end up with a C. It's all I need to keep my financial aid, anyway."

The only part of the above I am making up is Def Leppard. I had a student take a cruise in the middle of the semester one year. I do make exceptions for events I deem important, such as high-profile people who occasionally grace our cultural wasteland, like Maya Angelou, P.K. Botha, and the late Prime Minister of Pakistan, Bennazir Bhutto. I do not make exceptions for cruises, deer-hunting, the season premiere of The Mentalist, or Mylie Cyrus concerts.

If you cannot attain a grade on your own then suck it up and figure out how to improve your study and research skills. Stop using the events in other people's lives as an excuse for not being in control of your life.

Most faculty will take some time to help an honest student figure out how to improve study skills. Most new faculty have no idea, not the ones I have run across. Over the course of 3-5 years, then their ability to foster student learning improves immensely. New faculty receive little to no education on how to teach, by the way. They learn the nuances of teaching on-the-job. By working with you, and you them, each will learn from the other about what is needed to communicate knowledge.

If you are faculty, or know someone who teaches, ask yourself if you (or him/her) have ever bent on a deadline. Now, ask yourself,

"If you were a student in a class and you discovered another student received another week to take a test or to submit a paper, how would you feel?"

Would you feel cheated? I hope so.

Students might lie to a professor or a teacher but students are proud of pulling the wool over on the System and will boast of getting more time, or boast of cheating to fellow students. When you see students in the hallway, congregating and swapping stories, one or two of them are bragging about how (s)he used a phone to cheat, or how she manipulated the instructor  into getting extra time to turn in the assignment.

Faculty, chairs, deans, and provosts are all responsible for maintaining the educational integrity of all courses. Cheating can be flagrant and typical, as when students collaborate and scheme to exploit others or technology to steal a grade. Cheating can be abetted by faculty who cave on deadlines, the mistake belief of being "a nice guy" or thinking she will earn the accolades of students for being "nice." The only thing you'll be known for is being a sucker.

PAX

Gamification of Higher Education

I can't stand cheating, academic dishonesty, and plagiarism. People who spend more time trying to figure out how to subvert an exam, cheat, plagiarize, or pay someone else to do their homework. Fail. Simply fail on your own merit. Contemplate what led to your failing grade and change your behavior. Not everyone can, should, or does deserve an "A." Get over yourself. Merely because you have a busy Life with two jobs, three kids, a mortgage, a lawn to mow, and you still want time for fishing, hunting, golf, or shoe shopping does not give you the right to snake your way through a class. If you cheat because you have a busy life, your life is the problem, not the course.

Academic dishonesty is not a victimless crime. First, you have essentially stolen a grade by committing fraud. You did not pay for any grade. Your tuition dollars were tendered in return for contracting with the college or university for them to provide the academic resources, the classroom, projector, and faculty for you to learn something, not for a grade. Thus, you have defrauded the college or university and also any student loan or grant organization who awarded you money. When your child cheats you can tell them not to; of course, you will be a hypocrit.

Honest students also have the potential of being victimized. Any course grade "adjustment," i.e. "curve," offered by an instructor has the potential of being affected by your dishonesty. Higher grades artificially inflate grades and taint any statistics generated which might benefit the class as a whole. And, as cheaters often work as a team, the effect can be much worse on honest student the more people cheat.

Academic dishonesty taints the department's reputation, the university, and you own degree. Degrees are often reputation-based.

"Oh, you went to Ivory Tower State University? They have a really good program."

On the other hand,

"We do not hire anyone from the University of Mordor. Programs there lack credibility and rigor and their students must cheat, receiving high grades yet have no useful skills or are marginally trainable. We've been burnt by students we have hired from there as they never seem to know what the hell they are doing."

In a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, a person referred to only as Shadow Scholar admitted to earning $60,000 in one year writing term papers. No wonder students today cannot write nor correctly process and analyze what they read. Someone else is doing the heavy lifting. Cut-and-paste operations in writing requires no thought. Summarizing requires a little more thought, but not much more. People simply do not understand eduation.

Another student, Bob Smith, anonymity protected by a psuedonym, is noted in the same article as being proud of his cheating. He never read a damn thing throughout his online course and spent less than an hour a week prepping for exams. By "prepping" I mean "figuring out how to cheat." Mr. Smith argues the lack of consideration given to cheating in the course means the university does not care if a student cheats or not. I suppose if Mr. Smith had to use a thumbprint scanner, and a webcam for facial recognition, and only be able to take the exam in a proctored environment, only then I guess would Mr. Smith believe the university was serious and academic integrity.

What bothers me is the idea which he has adopted: "If there are no measures to prevent me from cheating, lying, or stealing then it must be OK."

For U.S. students brought up with video games, attaining an education is little more than "Angry Birds" or "Farmville." Some students want to experience the gamut of education and immerse themselves within, like players of Skyrim. But, what about those players who cheat, who do not "pay their dues" so to speak and buy their World of Warcraft characters on Ebay yet cannot play worth a damn? Or, the players who take advantages of glitches to assassinate others players, or use cheats to attain "god-mode?" Most gamers have integrity and despise those who cut corners or cheat.

We live in an era where open attacks on Education, especially Higher Education, are frequent and common. Around the world, people both respect and admire U.S. education, at least Higher Education. Those sentiments are changing, however, as the U.S. Congress continues to defund academic research, higher education, and is increasingly dismissive of science and engineering. Compounding the diminishing respect of U.S. Higher Education are the increasing numbers of foreign students educated here who return to their home country and use their education to teach and train others. Countries whose populations are becoming more educated, Vietnam, India, China, Ghana, and Brazil are then able to achieve greater incomes allowing them to invest in education. A positive feedback loop is then established to continue educational progress.

Meanwhile, U.S. students, rather than work hard and honestly on their education, find themselves distracted by the opening of deer season, fishing seasons, shoe buying season, taking a cruise in the middle of the semester, video games, binge drinking, whatever-makes-me-feel-good-now-because-my-parents-have-been-too-indulgent-of-my-poor-behaviors.

Academic honesty policies are in place and well-posted. That should be enough. Society doesn't place police at every stop sign to ensure you stop, nor at every speed limit sign to prevent you from speeding, nor place police at every shopping market to prevent you from shoplifting. The absence of police does not give you the right to steal.

I tell my students a few details about cheating. First, you will never get a Letter of Recommendation from me if you cheat in my classes. Furthermore, faculty talk. If I find you have cheated in ANY OTHER COURSE, mine or not, I will not give you any recommendation. Additionally, most faculty will not give a dishonest student any recommendation, either. In small to medium-sized departments, a student branded as dishonest might as well change majors or go to another school. When the most any student has to prove competency in an area of study for a job is a Letter of Recommendation from faculty, the effects can greatly diminish the chances of getting a good job, or getting into graduate school.

I have frequently been interviewed by military security personnel, the FBI, and Special Investigators regarding students attempting to earn a security clearance. I am perfectly honest with investigators and will inform them of all relevant details pertaining to a student's integrity. Fortunately, all of my students who have chosen a line of working requiring a security clearance are ethical people.

Academic dishonesty may seem like nothing. Academic dishonesty is anything but. Cheaters set a terrible example for family, friends, children. Cheaters undermine institutional integrity. Cheaters undermine national academics and economic potency.

The same attitude of despising cheaters should carryover to education. We do not trust cheating spouses, cheating politicians, cheating police, or cheating athletes. Why should be trust students who gamify education by cheating?

PAX