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[polly_mer]

That's great news, MonsterX.  Good on you.

Once, my dean has encouraged me to think of a plagiarism case as a "teachable moment" instead of failing the student.

My last discussion with the dean of students revolved around the fact that we were both in agreement that plagiarism is a teachable moment.  That student learned that copy-and-paste were unacceptable from the zero I put on the paper as well as the assignments that the dean of students gave that included an extra paper on ways to avoid plagiarism, enrollment in the anti-plagiarism mini-course (for which the student must pay extra fees), and the letter in the file that states, "Another instance of plagiarism will result in suspension from school".

I hope the student learned those valuable lessons from that teachable moment.

[monsterx]

My last discussion with the dean of students revolved around the fact that we were both in agreement that plagiarism is a teachable moment.  That student learned that copy-and-paste were unacceptable from the zero I put on the paper as well as the assignments that the dean of students gave that included an extra paper on ways to avoid plagiarism, enrollment in the anti-plagiarism mini-course (for which the student must pay extra fees), and the letter in the file that states, "Another instance of plagiarism will result in suspension from school".

I hope the student learned those valuable lessons from that teachable moment.

Most students learn just fine if you explain something to them, but a few require a poke with an electric cattle prod to achieve that "teachable moment".  Unfortunately, there are human rights laws and so on, so the only tool we have is the threat of failing grades to motivate them.

[patchouli]

I my institution we are encouraged to report all instances of plagiarism--and I have reported every single case in my classes--without exception.  I don't care about the time it takes, and we have great support across the institution for doing so.   I have never had a student in my class, except one, who stayed after the plagiarism was reported, and that student cheated on a quiz worth about 2% of the final grade. He had to take his exams in the front row for the rest of the term.  The large assignments in my class are weighted so that a zero, which is what a plagiarized paper earns, will not allow a student to pass with a C, and most likely not even with a D.

I know of professors here who have reported just a small percentage of a paper as plagiarized, and that is still reportable and students earn zeros for that. 

I have never had a student fill out an evaluation form who plagiarized, but if I did, it would be easy enough to inform the evaluation team, but student evals don't bear a lot of weight where I teach.

[jackofallchem]

This is a depressing thread. 

It's not true at my institution.  In fact, I am specifically prohibited by our Honor Code from deciding to just let a student rewrite a plagiarized paper.  I'm required to send it to the Honor Court.  The only exception is if the student has attempted to cite properly, but made mistakes.  In those cases, I still have to send a letter to the dean, explaining the circumstances and my preferred sanction (grade deduction, rewrite, etc).  The dean doesn't have to accept that, and if a student has more than one such letter on file, he'll tell me to submit the work to the Honor Court.

The conviction rate, by the way, exceeds 95%, and the minimum sanction is failure of the course.

Does no one else work somewhere with a vigorously enforced Honor Code?

Are you at Virginia Tech or something (you don't have to answer that)?  But no, there aren't many institutions with a vigorously enforced honor code.  Most institutions want to cover-up and ignore instances of academic dishonesty.  At my current institution, most faculty feel confused and powerless in the face of plagiarism because we have no clear cut policy.  If you don't have a predictable dean, you are pretty much lost. My current dean would back me on any reasonable punishment for this.  In fact, I usually make my punishment less than the dean would support.  I have had students appeal my decision to the dean and then come back to me with a written apology asking if they could have my punishment instead.  I love my dean.