Four Two Oh No
Two Resident Advisors (RA) were doing their rounds in a residence hall when they smelled marijuana wafting through the halls of the floor they were on. They followed their noses to one particular room, and after pinpointing the source of the smell they proceeded to call the police. When the police arrived, the RAs and the police officer went up to the room where the smell was coming from and confronted the resident. The student claimed that she had smoked off campus and that the halls frequently smelled of pot and asserted that her room was not the primary source of the smell. However, the police officer and RAs had little doubt that the smell was coming from her room. Although the student was not charged with being in possession of marijuana, she received a formal warning concerning her marijuana use and accepted a referral to Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs Intervention Services.
Copy Cat
A student was referred to Student Judicial Affairs (SJA) for suspected plagiarism in a writing course. In her paper it was found that she had copied directly from an online encyclopedia a number of times. In her meeting with a judicial officer, the student explained that her plagiarism had been unintentional as she had meant to rework the passages in her final edit but had forgotten to do so before handing in her assignment. The plagiarized passages really stood out, indicating that the majority of the assignment had indeed been her work, but the evidence of plagiarism was overwhelming. As a result, she accepted a censure and a referral to the Student Academic Success Center.
Partners in Crime
Two students were suspected of collaborating during a lower division exam and were reported to the SJA office. The two students were first noticed when the TA saw them sitting together after most of the classroom had emptied out, as there were very few cases of students sitting next to each other. The TA then stood behind the students and noticed that they were working on the same page of the exam as well. Then, while grading their exams, the TA realized that not only did they have almost identical right and wrong answers to all the sections of the exam, but they had also managed to get the same version of the test even though multiple versions had been made and they were sitting right next to each other. Thus, although the students were not observed cheating during the exam itself, the students’ exams provided strong evidence that cheating had occurred because of the fact that they had extremely similar answers throughout and, most suspiciously, answers that were wrong in exactly the same way. The two students both admitted that they had been cheating, and each accepted disciplinary probation through graduation and five hours of community service.
