Thursday, February 21, 2002

SUNY-Albany Demotes Scholar After Year-Old Allegations of Plagiarism Surface By SHARON WALSH The chairman of the classics department at the State University of New York at Albany has been stripped of his position for scholarly misconduct, following allegations that he plagiarized large portions of a book, a spokeswoman for the university confirmed Wednesday. Louis W. Roberts, a professor of classics and director of the university's humanistic-studies program, came under fire when John Monfasani, a professor of history, distributed a memo last week accusing Mr. Roberts of plagiarism in Latin Texts From the First Century B.C. to the Seventh Century A.D. (Greece and Cyprus Research Center, 2000), a book whose selections Mr. Roberts picked, edited, and translated. In the book, Mr. Roberts presents as his own translation a number of passages that were, in fact, summaries of translations written 70 years earlier by John L. La Monte, a well-known medievalist of his time, Mr. Monfasani said. "What he claims is his translation is not a translation at all," said Mr. Monfasani. "La Monte made a calendar pertaining to a monastery in Cyprus. He didn't translate it, but just gave summaries. Roberts presents them as translations when, in fact, it's La Monte's summary." Mr. Roberts, contacted by both e-mail messages and telephone, said through the university spokeswoman that he did not wish to comment on the matter. The university was first notified of the alleged plagiarism a year ago, according to Catherine Herman, the university's spokeswoman, who said that, following the allegations, an inquiry was made by the university's provost, Carlos Santiago. "The university did indeed take it seriously," said Ms. Herman, who noted that because the matter is a personnel issue, the administration was not at liberty to disclose the matter at the time. Faculty members who knew about the allegations claimed that the university did nothing. In fact, Mr. Roberts was made the director of the graduate program in humanistic studies after the university began its investigation into the accusations. "The faculty assumed nothing was happening," Ms. Herman said. In fact, she said, the administration determined that there was misconduct and was in the process of taking action. "This involves a faculty member who's served the university for nearly 30 years," she said. Asked about Mr. Roberts's positions as the department chairman and a program director, Ms. Herman said: "I believe he no longer holds those titles." She said it was "not clear" when he relinquished those titles or who holds them now. A secretary in the department, asked who the chair of the department is, said she didn't know and that "changes are being made this week." Asked whether Mr. Roberts, who is nearing 70, had resigned or retired, Ms. Herman said she could not confirm that. "As far as I know, he's still on the faculty," she said. An examination of selected pages of Mr. Roberts's book and the La Monte text, "A Register of the Cartulary of the Cathedral of Santa Sophia of Nicosia," which appeared in the 1929-30 volume of the journal Byzantion, show several passages to be virtually identical. In another book published in 2001, Christopher Schabel, an American medievalist who teaches at the University of Nicosia, Cyprus, was the first to point a finger at Mr. Roberts. "Louis Roberts ... reproduces most of La Monte's article verbatim, including footnotes," Mr. Schabel writes in his book, The Synodicum Nicosiencse and Other Documents of the Latin Church of Cyprus, 1196-1373 (Cyprus Research Centre, 2001). Mr. Roberts "also reproduces the English summaries of the same documents in La Monte's register, although Roberts does not cite La Monte as his source. Roberts does cite La Monte's article once, but he gives no indication that he is taking over his text verbatim. Most worrisome is the fact that Roberts passes off the plagiarized text as a translation from the Latin, rather than the mere summary that it actually is, and in some cases the original documents are not even Latin." There were other allegations of plagiarism in Mr. Roberts's text, but none so egregious as the La Monte example, according to both Mr. Schabel and Mr. Monfasani. It was Mr. Schabel who first notified the editor of Mr. Roberts's book, Paul W. Wallace, of the alleged plagiarism. Mr. Wallace, the editor of a series of books on the history of Cyprus and a professor in the classics department at Albany, reportedly notified Mr. Santiago, who began the investigation. Mr. Wallace recently had surgery and was not available to comment on his role in the allegations. "He's not really on trial," Mr. Monfasani said of Mr. Roberts. "He's already been exposed. It's the administration that's now on trial." Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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