Staff Editorial: Emphasizing honesty

Academic integrity is a term that gets kicked around an awful lot at this university.

Recognizing that a disturbingly high number of college students admit to cheating and the fact that under 10 percent of Penn undergraduates know the code of academic integrity, the University pulled out all the stops for last semester's academic integrity week. They even brought in Erin Brockovich to tell us about the importance of honesty.

And although one can question the validity of the methods Penn employs to emphasize the importance of academic integrity, recent events have shown that one cannot criticize the message.

This week, renowned historian Stephen Ambrose acknowledged lifting lines from a book by Penn History Professor Thomas Childers. The University of Notre Dame's head football coach, George O'Leary, resigned last month after it was revealed that he had claimed academic and athletic achievements he had not earned. In August, Mount Holyoke College suspended history professor Joseph Ellis for lying about his service in Vietnam.

Academia is a marketplace of ideas, but it cannot survive without honesty and shared trust. The high profile instances of plagiarism, lying, embellishment and falsification serve as reminders that academic dishonesty is not something committed exclusively by student cheaters. Rather, it is a widespread phenomenon, and too often, it goes unnoticed.

One study showed that about three-quarters of college students admit to cheating. Most of these cheaters do not know that they are cheating, or worse, do not think that they have done anything wrong. The time has come to address this serious issue in a serious manner.

It is absolutely imperative that the University redouble its efforts to impress upon its students, and indeed, all members of its community, how important academic integrity is and how serious an offense it is to be dishonest in academic work.

Penn, as a marketplace for ideas, has no choice but to do everything it can to ensure the probity of the scholarship it produces.

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