This must come as a great shock for the multiculturalists in the Humanities departments calling for greater tolerance of diversity and alternative approaches to morality. Did they miss that memo at the Business School?
Posted on 05/22/2007 10:29:28 AM PDT by 3AngelaD
DURHAM, N.C. (AP) - A lawyer for Asian students caught in a cheating scandal at Duke's business school says they were punished more severely than others.
Durham lawyer Robert Ekstrand represents 16 students. He says most of those caught in the scandal didn't understand the honor code because they'd been in the country less than a year. Ekstrand has filed appeals for the students.
He says students quickly wrote confessions after a faculty investigator pressured them to admit wrongdoing, even though some didn't understand the allegations.
The scandal began when professors at Duke's Fuqua School of Business noticed similarities in students' take-home exams. Thirty-four graduate students were convicted of cheating. The school expelled nine students and gave 1-year suspensions and a failing grade to 15 of them. The remaining students received failing grades.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxcarolina.com ...
Yes -- I am saying that the acts of Spartan youths, showing their ability to steal food without being caught was a positive affirmation of a desirable attribute for a WARRIOR.
However, I see no positive attribute in cheating to earn a grade in a subject for which the STUDENT cheater had insufficient knowledge to receive that recognition...
The cheating student has shown he lacks the "skill" to pass the course... forn many, it means the cheater will fail in the main course - life. Unfortunately, probably impacting the lives of others due to the cheaters lack of ethics, knowledge or ability...
If you STILL can't get that distinction -- I'm afraid I can't make the explanation any more simple --- you'll simply have to remain in your confused state....
Then cheating is just real world prep.
BTW informed sources tell me the top mainland Chinese students now stay in China for grad school. This changed in the last five years or so. Don't let your memories guide you.
I also particularly recall the high caste Indians as the worst bunch of cheaters in engineering school. My experience with them in the workforce has been similarly unimpressive. Many seem to think they are too good to do actual work. That makes them a natural fit as MBAs, but not as engineers.
Oh I get your distinction I just don’t agree that it is all that distinct. You’re saying military street smarts is okay but elsewhere it is not worthwhile. It is simply a weak case. I admire the soldiers at Thermopylae but admire more the system of those who fought at Marathon. Being a skilled thief is not a positive attribute for a warrior but a general cleverness is desired. Just as society X may want its sons and daughters clever enough to beat the system in a class on French Poetry rather than learn the French Poetry. "I'm afraid I can't make the explanation any more simple --- you'll simply have to remain in your confused state...."
Those caught cheating include a swath of—all students—not merely Asian students. From my experience at a prominent MBA program, Asian students are very bright and very honorable. Most of them think very positively about the United States unlike the internationals from Latin America.
These take-home exams are essentially new cases. The professors will ask for analysis and evaluation. First year exams, the allowable time is 4 to 8 hours. The student must finish by the deadline—generally 5 in the evening. With few exceptions, the exams have quantitative components. Any similarity between students becomes immediately apparent. The profs want strong explanation. They want good frameworks. The numbers show if they cheated.
Failing is exceptionally hard for the people invited to participate in these programs. Sure some panic, and some fail. Breaking the honor code is a mind-boggling risk.
Caste has got nothing to do with it. It depends on the type of school they graduate from.
Usually the rule of thumb in measuring the worthiness of an engineering student from India is - if he is NOT from an IIT, there is only 50% chance that he is good.
Vast majority of exceptional Indian engineers - from the guy who started BOSE corp to the co-founders of SUN, are those from IITs.
Exams are not all multiple choice. In many cases the take home exams require a lot more research and originality as well as analytical thought than can be accomplished in a 1-2 hour final exam period. I had take home finals for a couple of graduate courses and they were without a doubt more strenuous than an exam designed for a 2-hour period. It is a lot easier to catch cheating on a test of that type and in particular if it is required to be submitted in electronic format. There are file comparison programs and services such as Turnitin.com that make it easier to find cheats and plagiarizers. I have had a large number of foreign students and most of them know (because I pound it into their psyches) what the rules are. Some of them still choose to cheat even when I tell them that I will certainly catch the deed. I failed 3 students this last term for submitting a programming final with exactly the same code with the same mistake for each of them. I even gave them a 5th warning just before they began the final and it didn’t click I guess.
This must come as a great shock for the multiculturalists in the Humanities departments calling for greater tolerance of diversity and alternative approaches to morality. Did they miss that memo at the Business School?
My comment was a satirical parody of the attorney - not to be taken seriously.
We have incessantly been told how bright and hard-working Asian students are and how they consistently outperform Americans due to their hard work. I have no reason to doubt that is the truth. It just makes the attorney’s approach that much more egregious.
You can go on about Spartan society all you want, but that is completely irrelevant. The Spartans were from another time. If you want to compare the world today to the world then, you’re simply lowering the bar.
You’re saying cheating is positive because it teaches street skills. Unfortunately, those street skills do not benefit society. People who attain street skills through cheating obviously have low ethics and are selfish. They want to succeed in life, but they do not wish to put forth the effort.
How does this effect society?
Take a doctor, for example, who cheated his way through college. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing, but he was sure good at cheating. Would you want to see this doctor and be his patient? Sure, if you wanted to be misdiagnosed, which could lead to heavy consequences. But the majority of us don’t want to put our lives in jeopardy. Cheating is therefore not regarded as warrior-like training, but a selfish (and sometimes harmful) action.
Being a “skilled thief” only benefits the thief. Likewise, cheating only benefits the cheater. So for those who work diligently and actually DESERVE recognition, cheaters possess no deeming qualities. Since when has ANY society EVER promoted individual success at the cost of society?
“The ability to successfully cheat might mean more to some that the ability to recite some sort of esoteric knowledge.”
To some? To a very small percentage. And who are you to judge education nowadays as reciting esoteric knowledge? You may not think students actually learn anymore, but that doesn’t mean cheating is better. It’s actually lower. If you think reciting knowledge is bad, how about not even being able to do that?
Take your argument back to the days of the Spartans. It has no use here.
“All the right answers were the same...”
Hmmm, and why shouldn’t right answers be similar?
(It must be true, Wipro's ad copy told me so. And their consultants confirmed it!)
Cheers!
“...You’re saying cheating is positive because it teaches street skills...”
I’m saying the exact opposite. I said that certain societies/parents think that way. I’m a Southerner and personally feel that cheaters should be tarred and feathered.
Technology advances but human nature stays the same. Chattel slavery is less common today but it has been replaced by governments owning people instead of people owning people.
Find me more beautiful man-made structures in America today than were found on the Acropolis. It is quite difficult to do.
“Technology advances but human nature stays the same.”
Hardly.
Human nature started off primitive and barbaric. Now it has become civilized throughout the centuries, though there are minor exceptions.
“governments owning people”
Seeing as though the people elect their president, senators, etc., the people actually decide who belongs in their government. The people have their liberties and rights. That is nearly diametric from slavery, which guarantees NO rights and does not have the consent of the people.
Seriously, you’re comparing apples and oranges. What is this about beautiful man-made structures? What does it have to do with cheating and society?
And if you were against cheating in the first place, why bother trying to justify it?
They were all new arrivals from India.
And they have returned to India I hope.
That would be “Fuqua” as opposed to “Fuquay.”
When you live just a holler down the road from Fuquay-Varina it's an easy mistake to make.
I think you are mistaking Chinese for Indians.
No, I was replying to post 33 this thread, which explicitly mentioned Indians.
Cheers!
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