Wednesday, February 10, 1999
Academic senate looks at cheating allegations
MEETING: Media reports, faculty concern, budgets central issues
for board
By Edina Lekovic
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Preceded by other, seemingly larger faculty issues such as
budgets and graduate student unionization, media reports regarding
recent cases alleging widespread student cheating at UCLA dominated
discussion at the Academic Senate’s meeting Tuesday.
Referring to 1998 reports by both the Los Angeles Times and
Daily Bruin alleging systemic cheating in a specific class, Mark
Kleiman, a professor of policy studies, asked whether it was
possible for faculty members to be regularly informed of the status
of such cases before the Academic Senate.
"All I know about that (case) is what The Bruin and The Times
have said, and I assume that they are as inaccurate about that as
any other topic," Kleiman said, calling for more information
regarding such reports.
Senate chair Vickie Mays stressed that specific cases currently
under investigation cannot be discussed in a public forum, but
welcomed discussion of faculty experience with cheating at the
legislative assembly.
"If you believe there’s cheating because it’s in The L.A. Times,
you complicate the matter," Mays said. "But if you have specific
information and experiences relative to the larger (faculty) body,
we can discuss that."
For such concerns, Mays explained that issues can be introduced
under new business or referred to the related committee in order to
have inquiries answered quickly.
"There’s quite a bit of difference between isolated cases and
allegations that there’s something systemic," said David Kaplan, a
professor of philosophy. "It seems that it’s not inappropriate to
ask for information regarding systemic matters rather than
individual cases."
One faculty member pointed to the public relations complications
of such a lack of information. As representatives of the
university, faculty expect they should be provided with enough
information to respond to public inquiries regarding widely
publicized cases.
"I know that you look at these things and go ‘Oh my God,
everyone’s going to ask me about this,’" Mays said. "I don’t know
how to answer that. I don’t know if this is a systemic
problem."
Because the case is still under investigation, Mays could not
even comment on the status of the case.
Andras Bodrogligeti, a professor in the department of near
eastern studies, claimed that in 1996 roughly 30 students cheated
on a final given in his Elementary Uzbek class. No action has been
taken against many of the students by the dean of students Cary
Porter.
Bodrogligeti later filed charges in the Academic Senate against
dean of humanities Pauline Yu, who in turn filed charges against
him. While neither party has commented on the nature of their
charges, The Los Angeles Times reported Yu alleges Bodrogligeti
gave preferential treatment to athletes, and refused to hold office
hours or meet with students.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reported Bodrogligeti’s
charges stem from claims of age discrimination.
Art history professor Don McCallum, however, discounted media
reports.
"Information those two papers got was based on leaks, was based
on people trying to further their investigations with regard to
that particular case," McCallum said. "The only ethical option is
to wait for end results because we cannot stoop to the same
inappropriate behavior."
The discussion concluded with a resolution by Mays to provide
the assembly with specific statistics and protocol regarding
incidents of alleged cheating.
Leah Lievrouw, an assistant professor of education and
information sciences, emphasized the Academic Senate should play an
informational role regarding this issue, as they do for issues such
as coming graduate employee union elections.
"I would like to have confidence that I have a source on campus
and that the faculty senate be that source," Lievrouw said.
"The senate should be that good, reliable, credible source so
that faculty members without direct contact with this case can
respond with how the university handles such situations."
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