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[walker]

The growing proportion of poorly paid, temporary adjunct faculty in colleges and universities is arguably dangerous to the enforcement of academic honesty policies. As we all know, formally charging a student with an academic honesty violation often carries with it a significant can of un-opened worms and hassles: documenting evidence, filling out forms, appeals, hearings, meetings, threats, counter-charges and of course, hours of lost time. Poorly paid adjuncts, who are bar-hopping from campus to campus to eek out a living, have little time or incentive to invest in rigorous enforcement of academic honesty. This is not because they don't care about academic honesty, but rather, because the constraints of being an Adjunct Professor discourage it. Adjuncts are not paid for time spent on job-related tasks outside of the classroom, they often do not have offices (much less private offices), and they are often walking on pins and needles going from semester to semester contracts. They can thus be un-renewed (fired) on the whim of an administrator. An Adjunct who files many charges of academic dishonesty with his/her school may eventually get labeled a "troublemaker" by the administration, who might resent all of the controversy and red tape generated by the Adjunct's cheating charges. Administrators may then un-renew him/her with the logic that he/she generated controversy. So it would be in the Adjunct's interests to overlook all but the most egregious cases of academic dishonesty, to avoid the uncompensated expense of time and the possibility of non-support from the Administration. That's not a good thing.

[canadian2]

I think you're right. Furthermore, it also leads to grade inflation. I taught a couple of terms in a program that was entirely staffed by adjuncts, except for the director. No one ever came to see me teach; assessment of my effectiveness was done solely through student evaluations. And the director kept complaining about how many instructors had A- class averages at the end of the year! (I wasn't one of them, b.t.w.)  Unable, or unwilling to connect the dots?

[eternal_adjunct]

I'd have to say that, in the past, I've been less than vigorous with cases of possible academic dishonesty - and for precisely the reasons given above.  Usually, I would adopt the "you get a 0 on this assignment policy," and call it a day.  Sometimes I would encourage the student to drop the course.  None of these things required the hours and hours of stuff that walker rightly pointed out.

I think we've gone over the problems of this often enough (although if someone else wants to rehash them, I'll probaby comment).  So what I'll do instead is talk about (briefly) why I started getting more aggressive with the cheaters.

The only way I can really make this work for me is to make myself the focus of the job.  It isn't about teaching people lessons, making them better, or anything like that (although if I do my job, I think these things follow).  It's about my own development as a philosopher and my own conscience in practicing the profession.  From that, it follows that allowing cheaters to more or less get away with their cheating diminishes my integrity.  So even though I don't get paid to do all the paperwork, have the conversations, etc, I figure that my integrity is worth the price of a few hours (which doesn't mean I don't really resent the loss of those hours - I do; it sort of fuels my desire to punish the wrong-doers even more).

For example, this year (2006) has really been a banner year for cut-and-pasters.  I caught three so far, and I'm working on a fourth.  Two of the first three, after investigation, a lot of back and forth, etc, were cleared (although they had to do things over).  A third is likely to go through to the formal phase.  I would estimate (conservatively) that this 3rd case has cost me about 7 hours or so out of my life - and it is likely to cost me at least 5 more.

This is a fairly supportive institution, though.  Other places where I've worked would have been a lot less so.  In fact, one place where I intereviewed actually had a question about how I would "reconcile" cheating with their need for retention!  Maybe they could just ask people to pay an extra credit's tuition per course, and then give them license to do whatever they want!

Sure we don't get paid a lot.  And sure my family needs the money.  But, from my view, no one in this business gets paid enough to sacrifice her or his integrity.  There are far more lucrative professions for doing that!  This doesn't mean I blame adjuncts who don't do this.  I put more of the blame on the institutions that created this mess in the first place.  I'm just saying what I've chosen to do.

[adjunk]

While we would like to see adjuncts take a tougher stand on grade inflation and cheating, we must realize that they have nothing upon which to stand.  With no job security whatsoever, and with constant fear of non-renewal on their minds, adjuncts don't enjoy the academic freedom necessarty to be effective teachers.
The move to limit the adjunctification of academia, as it stands, will fail so long as its coming from adjuncts themselves, or sympathetic full time faculty or administrators.  Since the adjunctification of academia has gone hand in hand with the increasing consumerism of the same, any change must be consumer driven.  It must come from the students and their parents, many of whom, today, simply aren't conscious of academic rank and the difference between an adjunct and a full time professor.
If the consumer could be made aware of just what they're getting with an adjunct in the classroom, I think they would demand change.  No matter how good of a teacher an adjunct may be, the fact remains that adjuncts lack the job security, academic freedom, access to R&D funding, institutional committment and familiarity, role in faculty governance, role in program development, and overall clout that full time faculty have.  From a purely business standpoint, students, in principle, are getting so much less with an adjunct professor than they do with a full time professor, yet they are paying the same high price, despite the overwhelming cost savings the college is enjoying by employing the adjunct. 
So what I'd like to see is students, and more importantly their parents, demand deep discount tuition rates for classes staffed by adjuncts, rates commensurate with the difference between what full time faculty are paid verses what adjunct faculty are being paid.  Adjuncts are the second class citizens of higher education.  Their paychecks say so, so why shouldn't student tuition bills say so too?  That would be a real example of academic honesty.

[fishbrains]

Speaking as someone who is working on two search committees over the summer and as a former adjunct, I would point out that adjuncts who let things slide tend to get a reputation for doing so. Some of our adjuncts will remain adjuncts because we all know they just pass people along.

The attitude of "I'll just pass them along" is fine (okay, it's not really "fine" but I don't want to get sidetracked here) as long as these adjuncts have no desire for full-time positions at our institution or ask us for recommendation letters. We don't want to work with people who let things slide, and we don't want to pass bad adjuncts along to someone else.

Being an adjunct certainly sucks in many ways; however, we all have to deal with student evaluations, the consumer mentality towards education (from students and administrators), and other pressures. I've found that these pressures haven't eased up just because my title or my part-time/full-time status has changed. I'm faced with the same dilemmas that frustrated and challenged me when I was an adjunct.

I must also admit that my cc and my kick-ass division chair both try to maintain some sense of academic standards, so this is an advantage I have over the diploma-mill mentality of other departments and colleges.

[conjugate]

When I was an adjunct in Mathematics, the problem of academic dishonesty was not a problem for me.  Two versions (sometimes more) of a given exam, with appropriate keys, made the job of making up the exam a lot more tedious, but little harder to grade (once I made sure to use the correct key for a given exam).  The problem of academic dishonesty (which meant peeking at another student's test; not so many writing assignments) was thus made greatly simpler.  If the student cheats, there are the bad exam scores to prove he/she didn't know the material.

The school at which I adjuncted had common final exams, made (usually) by a committee, or by the course coordinator, who had responsibility for all sections of the course.  Adjuncts were judged by the performance on this exam, not on what grades they gave.  More precisely, it hurt an adjunct to give grades to his/her students that were "significantly" out of line with the grades on the common final.  Thus, as fishbrains observes above, an adjunct who lets things slide is penalized for it.  I wonder if a similar policy could be crafted to help protect adjuncts in other disciplines?

I will risk wandering off-topic to play pedant with the OP.  "A significant can of un-opened worms" might be better phrased as "...a significant un-opened can of worms," since surely it's the can and not the worms that should be unopened?  And only an actress in B-grade horror movies can "eek" out a living; the rest of us "eke" it out.

[mindfulwhim]

I like "EEK": it's more descriptive, has layers of meaning and is probably more acurate.

Once I taught adjunct in a professional development program (an authorized Macromedia Training Center to be exact), and the program was enrollment dependent for it's funding. The students were passed on to higher levels with few performance standards and assesment methods (the instructors were politically pressured to do so), so that by the time I got the students in the capstone class, they didn't even know the fundamentals! What a nightmare!

Skills-based curricula are based on the building block metaphor: introductory, intermediate and advanced levels of skills. If the student doesn't know how to write one single letter, then they can't understand the alphabet. Duh.

I totally agree with OP. Connecting the dots of cause and effect seems to be something that the bean counters don't wish to do.

[expatinuk]

Once I taught adjunct in a professional development program (an authorized Macromedia Training Center to be exact), and the program was enrollment dependent for it's funding. The students were passed on to higher levels with few performance standards and assesment methods (the instructors were politically pressured to do so), so that by the time I got the students in the capstone class, they didn't even know the fundamentals! What a nightmare!

Then how in the world did that 'Training Center' (and I'm using the term training very tongue in cheek) manage to get anyone to PASS the Macromedia Certification exams?

[oldie]

So much widespread academic dishonesty....

It is about time the student orientation to include an entire day dedicated to academic honesty.

[dale1]

Oldie,

I like your idea, but my student affairs head says a few things:

1.  No one would go to orientation if they knew this happened.
2.  No one would pay for orientation if same.
3.  This would require 1 extra day of expenses, which our students can't usually afford.

That's why a well-run first-year seminar course is essential to acclimate students to the academic setting and discourage these poor choices from the very start.

[whiteknight]

Yes, it is.

I agree with dale, i part. I do think students need to know about this issue during orientation, but also during the first-year freshmen course that is mandatory in most places.

[eternal_adjunct]

Okay.

But if we go advertising the fact that about half of their classes will be taught by adjuncts, and those classes will include most of the classes they will, on average, be least interested in, and adjuncts feel so vulnerable that they are less than strict on issues of academic dishonesty...

Aren't we inviting even more abuse of the system?

And I think it is interesting that fishbrains made it a point of saying that adjuncts that work at his/her institution and are lax on these things stay adjuncts.  It makes me want to ask, why keep them around at all?  And what does it say about your attitude (in yoru department) that you do?

[fishbrains]

And I think it is interesting that fishbrains made it a point of saying that adjuncts that work at his/her institution and are lax on these things stay adjuncts.  It makes me want to ask, why keep them around at all?  And what does it say about your attitude (in your department) that you do?

We have to keep certain adjuncts because we need bodies in front of the classroom. It's that simple. We don't like it, but we have to do it.

I was simply pointing out that the "pass them through" behavior doesn't go unnoticed.

[trentsands]

We have to keep certain adjuncts because we need bodies in front of the classroom. It's that simple. We don't like it, but we have to do it.

If you need so many, then why not hire full time contract folk, who will put in the time and energy.  I mean, beside the obvious issue of cost, which doesn't seem so costly if you consider that you are more likely to get better output from your instructors, which will improve the academic integrity of your institution.

[fishbrains]

We have to keep certain adjuncts because we need bodies in front of the classroom. It's that simple. We don't like it, but we have to do it.

If you need so many, then why not hire full time contract folk, who will put in the time and energy.  I mean, beside the obvious issue of cost, which doesn't seem so costly if you consider that you are more likely to get better output from your instructors, which will improve the academic integrity of your institution.

We would, but right now we are working on achieving world peace, air-conditioning Hell, attacking those pesky windmills, and making sure every child in the world has a basket full of puppies.