Centenary College, in New Jersey, is closing its satellite business campuses in China and Taiwan after discovering extensive cheating, according to an article Sunday in the Newark Star-Ledger. The college wouldn’t disclose the details of the cheating but said there was widespread plagiarism and is withholding degrees from all 400 Chinese-speaking students.
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3 Responses to After Discovering Rampant Cheating, U.S. College Closes Satellite Business Campus in China
jbarman - July 26, 2010 at 11:07 am
Interesting on many levels.First, that Centenary would walk away from a likely profitable initiative when it realized it could not ensure academic integrity. Good for them. For a few years, I taught for (and eventually quit) an IHE that did very little to combat plagiarism among its graduate students. I estimate that 15% of my students tried to submit plagiarized work, and the administration offered almost no support or acknowledgment of the problem. The article in the Star Ledger reflects that Centenary’s administration refused to turn a blind eye.Second, plagiarism and other types of cheating do not have the same stigma worldwide. There are cultures where term papers and other projects are viewed as community property. I taught accounting face to face for 25 years, and ran into individuals (from one part of the world) where no amount of my clarifying and threats could disabuse them of trying to cheat on exams. Sorry to say that the problem seems to be worsening.
your_rights - July 26, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Good for you. A university that puts integrity before profits. It seems, however, that one would know about cheating/plagiarism before investing millions in China. But, if big corporations like Mattel, Perigree dog food,and virtually all MNCs in China can be dupped, it is no supprise that a university can be dupped.”no amount of my clarifying and threats could disabuse them of trying to cheat on exams” [or plagiarize]. I love to see their faces when I give them the turnitin.com summary sheet with a big “F” on it. “Second, plagiarism and other types of cheating do not have the same stigma worldwide.” I had a Russian student try to tell me that plagiarism was “OK” in Russia. I said, lets look it up and see if you are correct. The first google item was Putin critized publicly for plagiarism. That ended that lie.
skittler - July 26, 2010 at 3:36 pm
At one of the schools where I teach there are a lot of students from China and I have been told something similar to what jbarman expresses, and that is that the Chinese don’t appreciate the concept of owning one’s ideas, so plagiarism doesn’t make any sense to them. I never quite bought it, especially after spending oodles of hours in the classroom explaining cheating and plagiarism.