Unintended mistakes.

That’s what Glenn Poshard, president of Southern Illinois University, calls the improperly cited and unquoted passages from other sources that he included in his 1984 dissertation.

But at a news conference this afternoon, Mr. Poshard said that his dissertation would be reviewed by the chairman of the university’s education department and that he would advise Mr. Poshard on “corrections necessary to make this dissertation consistent with the highest academic standards.” The chairman’s findings, according to Mr. Poshard, would also be given to Southern Illinois’s Board of Trustees.

Questions about Mr. Poshard’s dissertation came to light this week after the university’s student newspaper, the Daily Egyptian, found numerous passages in the dissertation from other sources that were either improperly cited or not credited at all.

It was only the latest such accusation in a string to hit top officials at Southern Illinois in recent years, including chancellors on both campuses.

When asked whether he would resign if an investigation concluded he was guilty of plagiarism, Mr. Poshard responded that such decisions were up to the board. When asked whether it was a problem for a department chairman at his own university to review his work, the president said it was not. —Thomas Bartlett