Dear Editor:

Now that our university’s president has been given a chance to re-write his “inadvertently plagiarized” dissertation, how should we deal with those students who are caught “inadvertently” plagiarizing on their papers (that is, in my experience, 100 percent of them)? Should I now become more benevolent and let them re-write their papers (something that I never let them do)? This is, of course, a rhetorical question although now President Poshard, in a rather surreal twist, wants to use what has happened for the benefit of SIU in the hope that this university will “be better prepared to deal with similar allegations (of plagiarism) in the future” (DE Oct. 15).

I feel very offended: Not only does our president refuse to step down, or at least have a panel of outside evaluators judge his dissertation, he wants this tragedy (the fact that a university president plagiarized on his doctoral dissertation and is getting away with it) to actually be of benefit to SIU. In other words, should we now thank him for having given us the opportunity to reflect on plagiarism? To all my students: No matter what, in my classes I will not lower my standards when dealing with plagiarism just because some of our top administrators lowered theirs. I also want to add that I am an assistant professor, and I felt impelled to write this letter given that only a few of my tenured colleagues have so far publicly expressed their positions on this crucial issue for our university.

Advertisement

Cinzia Padovani

professor of Journalism