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Editorial: Integrity proposal hinders academic progress

In light of ASUA's recent decision and the lack of usefulness of the proposal, the Faculty Senate should kill a proposed addition to the UA Board of Academic Integrity.

Last month, the chairman of the UA Student Affairs Policy Committee proposed an addition to the Code of Academic Integrity that would restrict students from using previous work for multiple classes without approval from professors.

On Jan. 26, the ASUA Senate unanimously passed a resolution to vote down the original proposal. Again, on Feb. 3, the ASUA Senate opposed a revision of the proposal, which stated that students would be prohibited from submitting work "without substantial modification for more than one course without the prior permission of the faculty member - in the second or subsequent courses."

The proposal will go before the Faculty Senate today for discussion, but the vote was postponed because of ASUA's complaints.

First of all, ASUA's vociferous opposition to the proposal ought to be a clue to the Faculty Senate that adding this proposal to the Code of Academic Integrity needs to be scrutinized very carefully. As ASUA Vice President Ben Graff stated, "I feel that if half the Senate disagrees with the change, then it is definitely worth continuing discussion on the matter. By passing the bill, it would have ended all discussion, and senators and students would no longer have a chance to voice their opinion."

Furthermore, the proposal is too vague to really combat cheating, and thus fulfill its purpose. Student work among different classes varies drastically. Lab write-ups for a science class are vastly different from sociology term papers. It is unfair for professors to subjectively decide what is and what is not "substantial modification" of differing assignments.

The proposal itself is not fair to students, for it forces them to disclose private knowledge they have gathered and created on their own. It is fundamentally unfair to control how a student uses information that he or she acquired on his or her own. Classes within one major are meant to build upon each other, and material students research and create for one class obviously ought to be fair game for them to use as resources.

As ASUA Sen. Shane Brogan said, "I think the faculty is pushing this off on to the students. What responsibility is the faculty taking in this? Why should I be told twice to write that very same paper for two classes?"

Most importantly, this addition to the UA Code of Academic Integrity does nothing to combat harmful cheating such as plagarism, buying papers at paper mills and using the work of friends. It only prevents students from using their own information to which they ought to have complete access.

Combatting cheating should not require forcing students to disclose their hard drives to their professors.

Obviously, the UASAPC is trying to combat cheating at the university level. While this is a valuable goal, this proposal is an ineffective and unfair means of achieveing it. The Faculty Senate should abandon this proposal.