NYU Professor Catches 20% Of His Students Cheating, And He's The One Who Pays For It

Business Insider ^ | 07/20/2011 | Kim Bhasin

[SeekAndFind]

Panagiotis Ipeirotis, a computer science professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, recently shared in a blog post that he caught a bunch of his students cheating last fall, but says he will never do it again because the school punished him financially for it (via Bloomberg Businessweek).

He found many cases of cheating through Turnitin, which compares documents to a giant database of sources in order to detect plagiarism.

Some of the students had blatantly cheated, and Ipeirotis confronted the entire class about it by email. By the end of the semester, 22 of the 108 students in his class had admitted to cheating on assignments. He gave those that plagiarized bad grades.

When it came time to fill out teacher evaluations, the students hit their professor hard, and his average rating went down about a point. As a result, the newly-tenured professor received the lowest annual salary increase he has ever gotten, and the school specifically cited the lower evaluation score, he says.

Here's what Ipeirotis had to say about the whole experience on his blog:

Was it worth it? Absolutely not.

Not only I paid a significant financial penalty for “doing the right thing” (was I?) but I was also lectured by some senior professors that I “should change slightly my assignments from year to year." (Thanks for the suggestion, buddy, this is exactly how I detected the cheaters.) ...

[Wuli]

The evaluation system that cost this teacher part of a salary increase equates to: “the patients are running the insane asylum”.

[Digger]

If this culture of cheating continues without anything being done about it, it will be the end of NYU as we know it ( or what’s left of it ).

Small potatoes but it shows just how corrupt this nation is from top to bottom & everything in between.

[stuartcr]

Yeah, it’s the victims fault...

[camle]

I once caught five (0f 24) students blatantly cheating. I gave the assignment a fair gread, then divided it by five. I also notified my department chair. at the end of the semester I got all generally positive student reviews, and five really nasty ones. they didn’t renew me after that citing bad student reviews.

[cyclotic]

My brother teaches high school technical classes. He caught around 60% of his stuents cheating. They all made the same mistakes. He sid the hassles he got from that were huge. THis was form the parents. The administration mainly supported him, because he had airtight evidence

[blueunicorn6]

Not in my class. I flunked two of them last semester.

[cranked]

I teach at a private university and be assured, a student misses >50% of their classes and does poorly in my class, he/she will fail, period.

[Hoffer Rand]

In this case, he’s no longer a victim. He may have started out as a victim, but not any more. Now, he’s just another perpetuator of a corrupt system. Just because a man who was beaten as a child was a victim, it doesn’t give him carte blanche to turn around and beat his own kids. It may help explain why he does, but it doesn’t give him a free pass to continue the behavior. Same thing here, he’s just buying into the same corrupt system. Go along to get along. Only for him it’s worse, because he sold his soul for financial gain.

[stuartcr]

So, once a victim, not always a victim. I love relative stuff.

[Sherman Logan]

Customer evaluations are not always the best way to evaluate performance.

For instance, I have a friend who is a home inspector. Most of his business comes from referrals from realtors. Lots of pressure to downplay any issues found so as not to impede a sale.

I can guarantee you the home inspectors who would get the highest marks from realtors are those who don’t properly report problems.

In actual fact, the HI’s client is technically the prospective purchaser, and they might rate him highly for being strict. But repeat business comes from the real estate guys.

[A'elian' nation]

“professors are judged by their customers”

I would entirely do away with student evaluations unless it was for the teacher’s or professor’s eyes only.

Lazy lib schools letting biased or vindictive students evaluate their personnel is a travesty, particularly if it affects one’s income and promotion.

If there is a problem with a teacher, the student can discuss it with the teacher, principal, or dean.

[mo]

So...the University is a scam?

Will they be subject to Federal Fraud investigation by the OIG as they are in receipt of Federal funds?

[Hoffer Rand]

So in your little world, because my ex took a number of swings at me, I’m pretty much cleared to do as I want in perpetuity. After all, I’m a victim. Good to know.

[Pan_Yan]

As a result, the newly-tenured professor received the lowest annual salary increase he has ever gotten

[Ratman83]

A real school would just kick the kids out and be done with them.

[stuartcr]

Nope, while that may be the way you think, not me.

[bvw]

Too many companies, schools and government agencies are buying into the diploma-rama. UNTIL they hold students to account for actually proving what they supposedly have learned, students in colleges will still be demanding the right to cheat, to cajole, to use sexual and other personal favors, to get better grades.

[A] new analysis finding that the most common grade at four-year colleges and universities is the A (43 percent of all grades) -- and that Ds and Fs are few and far between. -- "Easy A", Inside Higher Ed, July 14, 2011

And ... UNTIL we drop the super easy money polices, the DC-Centric-Socialisms, the intensely Politically-Correct inculcation of Human Relations people and the neo-Fascists oligarchy that runs big enterprises, then we shall continue to have huge demand for the most socially-engineered of new hires, That demand will continue for the most trained in the skills of getting ahead by any social means including cheating, intimidation and bribes. The social adept will rule.

And the group that becomes the untouchable class? The ones who drop out of college in despair? The ones with many grades of C or less?

The engineers. The technologists. The mathematicians. The true scientists. The honest accountants, the honest lawyers. The true students of History and Humanities. All those passionate for a true education and real learning. All those who are too quirky or individualistic to navigate the permanent Junior High culture of a society where promotion and success depend solely on being both high socially functioning and also immaturely amoral.

[EQAndyBuzz]

“(These are students who will be our future industry leaders”

It’s NYU. These are the future leftwing movie producers.

[MarDav]

“Then again, the school also really cares about its reputation.”

This is what I can’t understand about the matter. NYU has a reputation it needs to attend to since it does charge high prices, has prestige and exists in the most competitive market in America...

As to their honor code, I graduated in ‘86 and don’t remember much about theirs...but I also don’t remember much about a whole lot of folks cheating (the way it goes on today)...

I do remember a cousin of mine who graduated with a degree in business from Pace University (went on to become a big-time accountant for a major shipping firm (six figure salary, yada, yada) sitting across from me at a family function boasting about how he had cheated during his entire time at school (buying research papers, etc.) He was living quite large at the time, I was apartment dwelling, driving incredibly used autos...I will never forget the dawn breaking on my brow about his “success” and how I lost all respect for him that day.