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July 20, 2006

Differing Standards on Plagiarism

Welcome messages written by presidents, chancellors and deans on university Web pages aren’t generally considered great intellectual works. They aren’t typically controversial, either.

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At Southern Illinois University, some passages are being scrutinized by a contingent of young alumni, and current and former faculty members from both the Edwardsville and Carbondale campuses. The informal group, Alumni and Faculty Against Corruption at SIU, is calling on trustees to respond to their allegations that a number of administrators have plagiarized material that appeared on these campus Web sites — and in university addresses.

The group’s campaign to expose cases of what it calls academic dishonesty is a direct response to what members say was an unfair firing in 2004 of a former faculty member for allegedly copying another professor’s teaching philosophy statement. Chris Dussold, once an assistant professor of finance at the SIU-Edwardsville campus, has said that persisting rumors of an affair with a former student, not plagiarism, led to his dismissal.

Among the charges made by Alumni and Faculty Against Corruption at SIU are that:

  • Edwardsville Chancellor Vaughn Vandegrift lifted from other sources part of a speech he delivered as part of a 2006 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration.
  • Carbondale Chancellor Walter Wendler, in his 2005 State of the University speech, borrowed an anecdote from a book by author Roger von Oech without citing sources.
  • Business School Dean Gary Giamartino changed little from the previous dean’s institutional mission page, which included wording identical to that on a USC Marshall School of Business page.

Joan Friedenberg, a linguistics professor at the Carbondale campus, said the above cases are proof of the university’s hypocrisy. “When you are the chancellor or president of the university, you can’t plagiarize. Our business is words and ideas; we are judged by them,” she said. “Why is Walter Wendler still in a job when Chris Dussold isn’t? That’s the question.”

But, in some of the cases, the university doesn’t agree with Friedenberg and other members of the group on their definition of plagiarism. Michael Ruiz, an SIU spokesman, said that the online welcome letter on the office of the president’s page was created by university staff several years ago, and that words have remained “relatively unchanged” as presidents have come and gone. “In many of the other form letters that the university uses, it is common for the names and titles to change, but for the content of the message to remain the same. Since university staff create these letters, we do not believe that this practice is improper,” Ruiz said in a statement.

The charges against Giamartino and Wendler are well documented on campus. Wendler’s speechwriter accepted blame for the incident, and Wendler himself apologized for unitentionally leaving out the source of the anecdote in his speech.

In Giamartino’s case, information that was copied from the USC business school site was removed after the story came to light in a newspaper.

The Poshard and Vandegrift allegations have received less attention until now. Greg Conroy, an Edwardsville campus spokesman, said he wrote the welcome material for Vandegrift and tweaked the statement used by the previous chancellor. He said the information is the institution’s intellectual property, so the practice doesn’t constitute plagiarism.

On the MLK speech, Vandegrift said in a statement: “I will be investigating this matter when I return to campus. But I will say now that my integrity and the integrity of this university are very important to me. How the phrases were included in the MLK birthday celebration opening remarks is immaterial. I approved the speech and I take full responsibility for its content. If mistakes were made, we will take steps so that it doesn’t happen in the future.”

Dussold, the fired professor, is suing Southern Illinois for wrongful termination. He is now a full-time faculty member at nearby McKendree College. Because of pending litigation, he declined to comment on the case. But he said in an e-mail that he still has aspirations of returning to SIU, and is looking to clear his name.

Tyson Giger, a 2004 SIU graduate and former student of Dussold’s, said the firing still upsets him. He has written letters to the university complaining of a double standard and asking for the reinstatement of Dussold. Giger said he doesn’t consider the borrowing of philosophy statements to be plagiarism.

“I’m not trying to get everyone fired,” said Giger, who is tangentially involved in the Alumni and Faculty Against Corruption at SIU. “If you are going to set a precedent, which is what they did, you have to make sure everyone is following the rules.”

David S. Worrels, president of SIU’s Faculty Senate, said the alleged cases of plagiarism by top administrators are “a valid item for discussion.”

“A chancellor should know better. Period,” he said. “It’s not that difficult — we need to set rules that apply to everyone.”

Still, Worrells said that the issue has been overblown on campus.

Friedenberg disagrees. She said some interesting discussions have emerged from these case studies. “The best aspect of Dussold’s lawsuit is that it opens up good dialogue about plagiarism. Some of it is gray,” Friedenberg said. “You can find a little plagiarism in all of us. We need to get this out into the open.”

— Elia Powers

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Comments

I know that when the students are caught committing plagiarism there is a no tolerance rule. So when I think that the University I am attending is headed by someone who has committed plagiarism it ticks me off... I just hope there is a no tolerance rule enforced at the University not just at the students.

current student, student at SIUE, at 2:30 pm EDT on September 6, 2007

This is ridiculous

I’m a student at SIU Carbondale, and I’m sick of having my school being drug through the mud because some former student is pissed off that he got kicked out for plaigarism. I want my degree to be worth something when I graduate, and all these people are doing is reducing an accredited institution’s respectability. For the sake of the students who rely on their education from SIU, STOP DOING THIS TO US.

Joseph, at 7:05 am EDT on September 11, 2007

Plagiarism is everywhere

Pastors routinely lift entire sermons off the internet (or purchase them from internet “sermon mills"). Administrators lift speeches from other speeches. A business com prof in our school routinely cites a paper that stated that over half of the plagiarism statements found on university websites are, in fact, plagiarized. No wonder our students are angry when we actually penalize them for plagiarizing.

SC, at 7:50 am EDT on July 20, 2006

Plagiarized Sermons

And some pastors have been fired for it.

S. Lander, Dr. at Beth Tfiloh Dahan High School, at 9:20 am EDT on July 20, 2006

In terms of copying the predecessor’s welcome message — isn’t that going a little too far? Not only is such a thing not an academic work in the slightest, it’s at least arguably the intellectual property of the university, not the predecessor. Does a new university president have to change every single piece of content on the university official website to avoid being labeled a plagiarist?

Paul Gowder, at 9:40 am EDT on July 20, 2006

plagiarism

The issue of reusing text has a lot to do with how we define intellectual property. Legal statements, including plagiarism policies, tend to have carefully chosen, somewhat technical language, often based on ‘boilerplate’ samples. These aren’t creative works; they are rules. Statements, on the other hand, like the ones that include pronouns ("Our philosophy here at URU ...) are supposed to be the words of the person speaking, writing, or signing their name. Sure, welcome letters are pretty similar, but they have “authors.” Students are right to question our standards when we (universities) plagiarize even from ourselves.In my classes I distribute an “avoiding plagiarism” pdf file that I downloaded from soemone else’s class website, with the note “This article is stolen without proper permissions from The University of California at Davis.”

Howard Lune, William Paterson University, at 9:50 am EDT on July 20, 2006

plague of presidential plagiarism

Perhaps the root of the problem is the corporatization of colleges and universities. When did college presidents begin to think that they deserve 600% of a faculty salary and need not abide by any rules? Too many presidents now have NO teaching experience and merely offer the pretense of scholarship and intellectual character. That they persist in referring to our students as “customers” is indication enough that they do not understand what a college is or does.

Plagiarists are not only dishonest but lazy. Copying someone else’s teaching statement is a shortcut that should not have been taken. Having someone else write your speeches is just arrogant. If a chancellor has nothing to say, perhaps he should sit down and allow someone with an idea the opportunity to speak.

E. J. Mask, Prof. of Religion at Wesley College (Delaware), at 10:05 am EDT on July 20, 2006

plagiarism

Hmmmmm, there’s a tough one ....

Administrators do this —whether it’s plagiarism or concocting their own slush fund— for a pretty elemental reason rooted in all human behavior— because they can!

After all, aren’t the administrators the rule-makers?!

Michael, at 10:05 am EDT on July 20, 2006

Do What I Say And Not What I Do

Bravo! I am glad that student are holding administrators and faculty to the same standards that we hold them to. It is great.

This reminds me of the old saying that referes to parents often, “do what I say, not what I do.” Or children emulate the behavior of their parents and of those they look up to. A parent should not hold their child to a higher standard than they themselves live up to.

The same goes for faculty and administrators in higher education. If we want our students to live up to standards of integrity then we ourselves should live up to those standards as well. Plagiarism is just one great example. We cannot say “do what I say not what I do.”

HDS, at 10:05 am EDT on July 20, 2006

Plagiarism and Business

There are dual standards at work here, institutionalized both in academy and in business.

I go into more detail here: http://www.burntoutadjunct.blogspot.com/

The jist, though, is that academics should reaslize (and by that I am NOT saying accept) that business looks at work in terms of content to be reused or “leveraged.”

What is at work here is the lack of recognition (again, not saying to accept it as right) that higher administration is not about academics...it is a business.

Piss Poor Prof, at 11:00 am EDT on July 20, 2006

‘Oral Tradition’?

A professional speechwriter (who had been the speechwriter of the president of my university), once told me that so far as speeches go, ‘As soon as someone says something in a speech, it is fair game, and you can take it.’ My source has a very successful career as a freelance contract speechwriter, often writing speeches for corporate leaders &c. Her delivery and context implied that such ‘adoption’ is standard professional practice in the speechwriting field, which made me wonder if _speeches_, like homilies or sermons, are a type of oral tradition that is not subject to the same rules as, say, academic lectures, or papers delivered at conferences, which must substantiate their claims by indicating the origins of their information.

Maybe administrators have been operating by different rules not because they thought they were getting away with something, but because they never knew it was a problem in the first place?

Laura Miller, at 11:30 am EDT on July 20, 2006

Oral Tradition

Oral Tradition is correct, though I’d disagree that there’s a problem of which administrators are unaware. I’d say that in most of the cases cited in this article, someone has manufactured a problem where none exists. There is no comparison between the standard of independent research and writing that academia imposes on students and professors and the type of collaborative writing that is routine in almost every other sector of society. Consider the case of journalism, in which maybe as much as 75% of what is produced is utterly routine. Some flack produces a press release. Some print journalist re-writes the press releases and publishes it under his/her own name. Some TV journalist reads the work, often verbatim, on the air. None of this is considered illegal, unethical or immoral. It’s just standard practice. As is the habit of patching together welcomes from the president, mission statements, and various other types of official correspondence from pre-existing examples. In the case of journalism, there is something at stake—prizes, promotions, reputation—which is why periodically there are scandals and hand-wringing when someone is discovered, say, making up sources and stories. But in the case of academic administrators, nobody gets tenure or a promotion for their ability to write a letter of welcome or to deliver a stirring commencement address. On the other hand, professors *do* get tenure and promotion on the basis of their academic writing, so there is no double or arbitrary standard—merely two different forms of writing with different purposes and reward structures.

GoneshaGrl, at 5:00 pm EDT on July 20, 2006

Witch hunt

How many people write all recommendation letters differently, all of the time? No one at a doctoral institution, with 3 recs necessary for any job, funding, or workshop these days. As long as it is not part of ones academic job—e.g. teaching or scholarship—the whole plagergism business for online introductions is b.s. Why, Indiana University’s history department kept the same introduction, with the changing chairs keeping the same old message. No one cares because there is no political brew ha ha stirring in the department. This is only a witch hunt. Additionally, the rise of professional language, such as defining ’standards’, etc, forces people to reuse material in order to get through the day’s work. This is a witch hunt, as I said before, and the only ‘open debate’ being drawn out is that people are being forced into more compromising situations every day. This shouldn’t even be argued.

B, Indiana University, at 5:30 pm EDT on July 20, 2006

Honor system

As a current PR director, whose duties include speechwriting, and former stand-up comic, I have a different concept of intellectual property than the professional-speechwriter friend. That concept can be reduced to: if you’ve heard it elsewhere, it’s stealing. The word for people who steal speeches, or jokes is “hack,” whether they earn a good living or not.

I also reject the notion that if someone has a speechwriter it means they have no ideas. Speechwriting is a collaborative process.

Stealing from other Web sites, on the other hand, is a major problem. I worked with a director who routinely stole from other sources, and was often too lazy to even change the acronym of the school from which he plagiarized. I think he’s now a Minister.

Word Doc, at 5:55 pm EDT on July 20, 2006

reusing work

GoneshaGrl hit on an even bigger problem than administrators reproducing each other’s administrative jargon. News ‘reporters’ do indeed read verbatim from text barely changed in language from the original advertising copy (press release) with little or no verification or other journalism involved. Or worse, just run the tape that’s given to them. The “streamlining” of many professions, including journalism, research, and education, has meant that professional standards are often considered too expensive to maintain. That is also why the Bush administration has spent — did I read hundreds of millions of dollars? — paying flaks and PR firms to produce fake news reports advertising their policies, which news stations simply run without qualification, attribution or apology.

Howard Lune, William Paterson University, at 9:30 am EDT on July 21, 2006

Hypocrisy

The real hypocrisy is not with the administrators at SIU it is with faculty like Ms. Friedenburg who claim that Dussold should not be fired. Dussold admits to taking a statement of personal teaching philosophy written by another professor and putting his name on it and then submitting it as part of a package designed to be used in the tenure granting process. His fellow department faculty reviewed the matter and found the action to be an attempt to mislead them in their tenure considerations. They felt he should no longer be a colleague. Rather than to admit that he lied and cheated Dussold now says it is OK because others have done it. Nothing the Chancellor at SIUE did comes close to Dussold actions of lying to his colleagues, notr to his continued attempts to smear and lie now. There are differences between mistakes and evil acts. Unlike Dussold, Vandegrift admitted his mistake and took full responsibility for a speech he did not even write.As to faculty who have been writing in and claiming that administrators are held to different standards and get paid too much. Well that is what students have been saying about faculty for centuries. Like the students maybe it is time for our whining colleagues to just grow up.

Oldguy, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, at 11:05 am EDT on July 21, 2006

Intresting Comments in “Hypocricy”

The message called Hypocricy is interesting. I have spoken to several folks from Dussold’s department and NOT ONE spoke the way that was mentioned in the previous posting. This type of thing is disgraceful. In fact, one SENIOR faculty member from Dussold’s department said that SIUE’s actions toward Dussold were “embarrassing and ridiculous". In fact, several of his former colleagues have been SUPPORTING his attempts to return to SIUE. So enough with the misleading jargon. My guess is that the folks with which Oldguy spoke are some of the folks already being sued for defamation, or maybe someone who has been pointed out as publishing identical articles in different refereed journals with no punishment by SIUE. By the way, if you think that a teaching philosophy is such a precious piece of material, then you should immediately call for the firing of the professor at SIU-Carbondale who was discovered to have taken her teaching philosophy from someone else. Dussold is simply asking for equal treatment. Also, tell folks that have been punished for plagiarizing speeches that this is not a serious offense!

Old Professor, SIUE, at 4:05 pm EDT on July 21, 2006

“Hypocrisy”

I’m a little confused by Old Guy’s comments. How can you say nothing the Chancellor did at SIUE comes close to what Dussold did? Dussold got fired for using another professor’s teaching philosophy. Which I believe is a synopsis of how one is going to teach his/ her class and is seen by only a handful of fellow colleagues. Vandegrift plagiarized parts of a speech heard by who knows how many as well as posted on the University’s website. Please keep in mind I am not trying to excuse an act of plagiarism due to a small audience. (A student’s paper for a class is a perfect example of only one person seeing the work.) Plagiarism is still plagiarism. But that seems to be the problem here. NO ONE at the University seems to be able to explain what CONSTITUES plagiarism. And the definition seems to change, as well as the right of due process, depending on who is the one being accused. I agree that there seems to be a “Do as I say and not as I do” mentality at SIUE. And that is from personal experience with the Business School at SIUE. (and probably with Old Guy himself)

Scarlett, Alumni at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, at 4:05 pm EDT on July 21, 2006

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