The recently formed Academic Integrity Office is open and functioning, but it is still unclear whether the university will provide the infant office with the resources it needs to reach its intended purpose.

The office is the result of several years of hard work by an academic integrity committee made up of professors, administrators and students, who extensively researched academic integrity violations and policies at Syracuse University and provided recommendations as to how the issue could be better addressed.

Academic integrity, it seemed, was finally an especially big deal on campus.

More than eight months after the AIO’s July 1 opening, committee members and campus officials involved with the office express excitement for its creation and progress. Yet they also leave questions unanswered regarding future plans to help the SU office fulfill its many responsibilities.

Conversations with committee members, SU officials connected to the office and academic integrity administrators from similar universities, along with a close look into the committee’s May 2006 final recommendations on student academic integrity, show:

One full-time director and an administrative assistant are responsible for almost three pages of outlined duties in the committee’s recommendations.

Academic integrity offices at similar universities are often of similar size, but have fewer duties and responsibilities, as well as more help from other related offices.

With only four months left in the office’s first year, who will head it after the one-year mark in July is yet to be determined.

The committee is greatly in favor of a national search for the permanent director, which it believes will bring national attention to SU’s focus on academic integrity. But it is not yet clear whether a search will actually occur.

Eletta Sangrey Callahan, chair of the Vice Chancellor and Provost Committee on Academic Integrity (VPCAI), said she believes addressing academic integrity should be made the highest campus priority.

‘There are a lot of other competing priorities on campus – I realize that,’ she said. ‘But I think it’s the most important thing. I think that we need to build everything else we do on a foundation of academic integrity. And if we don’t, we risk significant problems because we don’t have the foundation that we need.’

Though there are 17 members on the committee, Callahan said it is the committee’s policy that she is the only person who can officially speak on behalf of the committee’s findings and intentions.

‘We decided very early on that only one person could speak for the committee and that it made the most sense for that person to be me,’ she said.

The beginning

The path to the creation of the AIO began three years ago when then Vice Chancellor and Provost Deborah Freund formed the VPCAI, a small committee of students, professors and administrators, to study academic integrity violations and policies at SU and to make recommendations of how they could be better executed.

Fears were confirmed when a January 2005 study revealed 74 percent of SU students admitted to cheating of some form.

After nearly two years of work, in order to combat the startling figures, the committee recommended a uniform campus academic integrity policy, as well as the creation of the AIO, which would supervise the new policy. The University Senate and Chancellor Nancy Cantor adopted their spring 2006 final recommendations – creating the new policy and opening the office on July 1.

The VPCAI saw the AIO as a means for keeping track of all violations, as well as educating students about both academic integrity and SU’s new policy.

Previously each school and college had used separate and often very different policies, which made it confusing for students who took classes in different schools, said David Potter, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Results from the study conducted by the VPCAI showed students were indeed confused of cheating policies and procedures.

While 89 percent of students said they had one time been informed of SU’s cheating policies, only 12 percent ranked student understanding of these policies as very high, according to the 2005 survey.

‘Fairness to our students really dictated that we have one system, that it wasn’t reasonable, it wasn’t fair,’ said Potter, who sat on the committee.

All by herself

Ruth Stein, who was working at SU as a teaching consultant in the Center for Support, Teaching and Learning, was chosen to serve as the interim director for the office’s first year. Stein serves full time following the committee’s recommendation.

‘All of a sudden I was asked to be the director of this office,’ said Stein, who began at SU in 1985 as a teacher in the writing program.

As a teaching consultant, Stein, who has a Ph.D. in instructional design and development and evaluation, had advised teachers on various academic issues, but she has no extensive background in academic integrity.

‘You’ve got to love Ruth – she jumped into this,’ said Sandra Hurd, associate provost, who oversees the AIO. ‘It very much connects with her professional life, but it’s not something that she was a professional in.’

The AIO is a key component to the committee’s 26-page final recommendations. The recommendations devote almost three pages to the office’s duties and responsibilities, which some suggest may require several staff members.

‘I think that academic integrity should be the highest priority for this institution and that there should be more than adequate staff to support the educational and programmatic responsibilities for the responsibilities that we outlined in our recommendations,’ Callahan said.

In order to carry out all the committee’s recommendations, ‘there must be support’ for the main administrator, Potter said.

‘It’s not quite clear to me how much,’ he said, but added that a similar office, the Office of Judicial Affairs, has a ‘decent size staff.’

The Office of Judicial Affairs has a seven-person staff, including a director and associate director, according to its Web site.

The AIO currently consists of Stein and her full-time assistant Nancy Greer. Stein said she does not know of any current plans to hire more support staff members.

Future expansion of the office is a possibility, but there are no current plans, Hurd said.

‘One of the things Ruth has been charged with for this year is helping us understand what resources are necessary,’ Hurd said. ‘Whether this is a task that is going to take another half-time source or a full-time source, and exactly what are the time demands – so that we can start thinking about space and resources into the future.’

Looking beyond SU

While individual academic integrity offices are still fairly uncommon at universities, they often only consist of a few staff members.

George Washington University’s Academic Integrity Office, which was formed in the fall of 1996, consists of director Tim Terpstra and his assistant, Terpstra said.

GWU’s office, however, appears to have less duties and responsibilities than those set out for SU’s office by the VPCAI.

‘Our main duty is to ensure most faculty and students charged with academic integrity violations follow the terms of our codes,’ Terpstra said. ‘We serve as the record keeper for all of the cases as well.’

In terms of education, GWU’s AIO supervises the Academic Integrity Council, a group of faculty and students responsible for promoting academic integrity, said Terpstra, adding other offices often help with education efforts.

‘Increasingly, we are seeing related offices getting involved with education of academic integrity,’ he said.

Similar to GWU, Duke University has an Academic Integrity Council, made up of students and faculty, which focuses on academic integrity education efforts, said Judith Ruderman, Duke’s vice provost, who chairs the AIC.

But at Duke, academic integrity violations are handled by the dean of students and associate dean for judicial affairs, Ruderman said.

Duke also houses the Duke Honor Council, a student-run group that promotes academic integrity around campus.

Hurd said SU does not currently have any sort of student-run group that promotes academic integrity education, but she thinks it’s a great idea.

‘I think peer-to-peer education is superior,’ she said.

Bentley College in Boston, which has approximately 4,000 undergraduates, also has several academic integrity entities, including the college’s Academic Integrity Office, a student-run Academic Integrity Council overseen by Coralee Whitcomb, the office’s academic integrity coordinator, as well as an Academic Integrity Board made up of university faculty.

The AIO works to coordinate Bentley’s academic integrity system, as well as work with ‘departments, faculty and student organizations across campus to implement proactive education and prevention programs and activities related to issues of academic integrity,’ according to the college’s Web site.

Multiple responsibilities

Unlike other academic integrity offices, Stein is in charge of both record keeping and all education of both students and faculty on academic integrity.

‘A university Academic Integrity Office, located in Academic Affairs, would coordinate educational programs to raise awareness toward increased academic integrity, offer training for all segments of the university community and provide consultation to all members of the campus community,’ the committee’s recommendations stated.

Indeed, the primary purpose of the AIO is to create innovative, effective educational programs to inform the entire campus about academic integrity issues, Callahan said.

This means the office is in charge of educating more than 12,000 students and more than 1,000 professors – not a small feat.

The AIO is in charge of training all hearing participants and chairs, according to the VPCAI final recommendations. The AIO is also the coordinating office for confidential records of academic integrity policy violations.

This means that Stein is in charge of cataloging all violations reported to the office so as to keep an updated database of cheaters on campus.

On top of these outlined duties, Stein meets individually with each student, who is reported to the AIO for an academic integrity violation, to counsel them and help them avoid future offenses.

‘For me, having 40 was a lot because I met with all the students,’ Stein said.

When asked if her office may eventually handle non-student academic integrity violations as well, another topic researched by the VPCAI, Stein said she was not sure, since USen had not yet made a decision on the committee’s findings.

But she added, ‘I’m not sure I can handle a lot more.’

Education

As for the AIO’s education initiatives at SU, Potter said he does not believe there is enough being done yet, but acknowledged, ‘They are just getting started.’

‘Ruth Stein was put in a very difficult position,’ he said.

Callahan agreed she would like to see more extensive education efforts coming from the AIO. Stein has had to deal with a lot of the initial technical aspects of setting up the office, which probably took up most of her time, Callahan said.

‘I haven’t heard a lot about educational efforts and I hope that as time goes on there will be more educational efforts, including those directed towards faculty, administrators and staff,’ Callahan said.

Stein has dealt with obstacles during her first months as the head of the office, Hurd said.

When Stein switched from her position as a teaching consultant to the interim director of the AIO, she did not even move from her off-campus office at 400 Ostrom Ave, which houses the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment and the Center for Support of Teacher and Learning.

Students coming to see Stein were alerted they had found the building by a simple sign with the words ‘Academic Integrity Office’ printed on an 8.5-by-11 piece of white computer paper haphazardly taped by the door of the office building, a former fraternity house.

‘I know it has been a challenge for her to do this while not being physically located on campus,’ Hurd said. ‘It was a hardship on Ruth.’

In February, Stein moved her office to Holden Observatory, which is located near Steele Hall and the College of Law.

‘I think it is a statement about the importance of the centrality of the office,’ said Potter of the move, adding he was always against her former off campus location.

But even the new office lacks any sort of a sign to alert people that the AIO is housed within the university’s second oldest building – a small stone structure, buried on the far end of campus.

Looking to the future

Additionally, though July and its one-year anniversary is fast approaching, the future of the office still seems hazy.

Hurd said she had not yet had a conversation with Stein about what will happen in July.

‘We do need to start attending to those matters,’ she said.

The VPCAI fully supports a national search for the office’s permanent director, Callahan said.

‘We hope that if there is a national search that the provost will include members from the VPCAI on the search committee,’ she said. ‘And we would also welcome the opportunity to meet with the search committee to talk with them more about the work we have done and where we see the AIO fitting into the process.

‘This group of people has spent the last two and a half years immersed in this topic and so we hope the university will take advantage of that as an informational resource in going forward in selecting the permanent director,’ she said.

As to who he would like to see in the permanent director seat, Potter said experience is important but so are many other personal qualities of character which cannot be taught, such as disposition, personality, character and integrity.

‘Would I like to see someone who has already done this before? Of course,’ Potter said. ‘But I wouldn’t hire that person over another person who has all these qualities of person to a higher degree than the person who has all the experience.

‘Whoever sits in this seat needs to be someone who need not be a faculty member, but who has the experience and the intuition and the ability to relate to faculty on their own terms, to command their respect and their cooperation,’ Potter said.

Hurd said she did not know if a national search would occur and said it would be the decision of Vice Chancellor and Provost Eric Spina.

Spina recognized the committee had called for a national search but could not confirm whether one would occur.

‘What I am committed to is strong leadership in that office,’ he said. ‘I have asked the current interim director, Ruth Stein, to provide me with a report on lessons learned in the office that can help inform the next step as to the type of person the office needs.’

Stein will present Spina with the report sometime in early April and the process will go from there, he said.

‘I am committed to making certain that we find the right person whether it be from inside or outside the university,’ he said.

Hurd said she could not speculate on Spina’s decision, but offered advice of her own.

‘If I were making the decision,’ Hurd said, ‘I think I would want to look at where are we in the implementation process – what’s been done, what’s left to be done and are we ready to think about the next step. And I don’t know the answer to that question.’

Many factors show that it is yet to be seen when the stated hopes of the committee will be realized.

But Callahan described the university’s current climate as a time of tremendous opportunity for progress – as long as resources are utilized.

‘I think with the new policy, with all the work that has been done by a very representative group of the university community for such a period of time that Syracuse University has an opportunity and the credibility to really take a national leadership position in this area,’ she said. ‘And I hope that is what we will do.’

Published on March 6, 2007 at 12:00 pm