Bed Head
In an upper division engineering class, a student was reported to Student Judicial Affairs (SJA) after she did not attend class but had a friend sign the attendance sheet for her anyway. The course required attendance and each student was responsible for signing in at the beginning of class. The junior claimed that she was planning on going to class and was simply running late, so she texted her friend to sign the attendance sheet for her. However, she claimed that she fell back to sleep after texting her friend and never came to class. The professor then noticed the forged signature by counting the present students and the number of signatures. After meeting with a Judicial Officer, the student agreed to disciplinary probation, meaning that if she commits misconduct during her probation, she will likely be suspended or dismissed. The situation with the student who signed in for her friend was handled separately.
Weird Science
A second-year student was referred to SJA because it became apparent to her chemistry TA that she had used another student’s data to complete her post-lab. The TA noticed that she was absent during the lab and had not made up the experiment, which is required in the case of an absence. However, when she managed to turn in a post-lab report, the TA recognized that because she never actually did the lab, she must have used someone else’s data. When confronted about the situation, the student admitted that she had completed her report using fabricated data that she copied from a lab partner. As a result, she agreed to disciplinary probation and 10 hours of community service.
A Friend Indeed
A case was recently addressed by SJA which involved an upper division student who loaned her completed reports from Fall Quarter to a friend taking the same math class during Winter Quarter. The TAs became suspicious of academic misconduct when they noticed a number of similarities between the students’ reports, and saw the name of the Fall Quarter student on some of the current student’s work. Because of the outstanding similarities, the Fall Quarter student met with a Judicial Officer to discuss why she lent her friend the reports. She said she wanted to help him understand what the professor’s grading was like, but had not anticipated that he would copy directly from her work. The Judicial Officer explained to her the risks of loaning classmates completed work, as it is often tempting for a struggling student to copy from it. In the end, she received an administrative notice and was warned that if she was later found in violation of the same policy, the consequences could be more severe. The case with the current student was handled separately.
