Posted on 02/02/2013 8:23:23 AM PST by daniel1212
As many as 60 students have been forced to withdraw from Harvard University after cheating on a final exam last year in what has become the largest academic scandal to hit the Ivy League school in recent memory.
Michael Smith, Harvard's Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, sent an email on Friday saying that more than half of the students who faced the school's Administrative Board have been suspended for a time.
Roughly 125 undergraduates were involved in the scandal, which came to light at the end of the spring semester after a professor noticed similarities on a take-home exam
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Some.. I suspect, are feeling truly desperate”.
I agree. I went to a very small, Catholic high school. The geometry teacher was a nice man.. he just wasn’t a good teacher at this subject. There were kids who did cheat on the tests. One way was to have a cheat-cheat (a piece of paper with notes) and it was taped inside the front part of the school uniform skirt. You sat down, flipped your skirt over/up and presto... notes. The girls felt safe because what male teacher (at that time) was going to ask you to flip your skirt up!
Some of the students that I currently see struggling with a subject don’t have the money (or the parents don’t) for a private tutor. The school doesn’t really assist much with tutoring. Thus, they may feel trapped.
The college president of our little school said only one thing that I remember over 35 years later. Paraphrasing him, "The value of a liberal arts education comes from being able to recognize bullshit when you read it or hear it."
He phrased it more artfully, but it made an impression on me and turned out to be true. Even courses that don't seem important, if well taught, help develop the critical thinking and evaluative skills that prove valuable later.
This is normal. It is one of the schools for future politicians.
How many of the students were named ‘Kennedy’?
Gee, 60 more Edward “Teddy” Kennedys!
“Suspensions depend on the student, but traditionally last two semesters and as much as four semesters.”
Where I went to college, you were EXPELLED for cheating. So Haavaad only has you go home and work in a supermarket for a year or two, and then you go back and all is forgiven. Most likely during that time, the student will take some transferable classes at home - so the effect will be minor.
Too funny.
In my day, professorial alcoholism was a given. In your case, in vino veritas. Instead of getting the poor bastard fired for telling you the truth, you young jackanapes should have gone to the dean and told him that the course was academically worthless and demanded your money back without involving the dipso Professor.
Why not start attending MADD meetings?
I was in my 30’s going back to university for career purposes and I resented my time being wasted. The instructor had no business in the classroom. He needed to be in treatment.
That little weasel-worded loophole leapt out at me.
Let's see now, 125 students at 50K/year each, we're talking some real money here. And how many have influential/rich parents who got them into Harvard, alumni who donate to the college?
Someone should follow this story a while, see how many cheaters get reinstated...
He probably needed to have a few sherries with you fellows and to explain his theories more cogently. HE wasn't wasting your time, the program that required a useless course was wasting your time.
It has been known since the dawn of the University in the 13th century that alcohol facilitates learning. While you're at it, check out a copy of "The Student Prince."
Propositum invalidum, old chap. Res ipsa loquitur. One can hardly be expected to master the nuances of the various live languages unless one fully appreciates the "dead" tongues whence they sprang.
Verbum sat sapientes, etc.
But it is harder to cheat (or out cheat) in sports. Just imagine if the liberal ethos that sees all as entitled to the same rewards, regardless of merit (and at the expense of those who legitimately, lawfully earned them) was forced upon sports. Or sports without officials.
But the victim-entitlement mentality began the devil himself.
Note the year and the reason. While that is not warranted today, the principle is valid, and the rest are applicable.
Good eyes. Note also that the gov. completely forgives student loans after they work for the gov. or a secular non-profit for 10 years, making 120 consecutive payments, thus fostering liberals in gov. as the overwhelming majority of colleges are largely secular. seminaries.
The 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey tests show that only about 56% of the blacks and 83% of the whites over sixteen are literate. [55] Scores on 1994 NAEP reading tests indicate that 42% of the 4th graders can't read; 72% of the 8th graders can't read 8th grade assignments; and 66% of the nation's high school seniors can't read 9th grade textbooks in any core subject. USDE. 1994. NAEP Reading: A First Look. p. 18.
In a nationwide study conducted by Dr. Brian D. Ray of the National Home Education Research Institute, Homeschoolers were found to have scored 34-39 percentile points higher than the norm on standardized achievement tests. http://www.christianpost.com/article/20090811/study-homeschoolers-scoring-well-above-public-school-peers/index.html
The average ACT (American College Testing) score of homeschooled students in 2009 was higher than the national average. http://www.christianpost.com/article/20090827/avg-act-score-of-homeschoolers-beats-nat-l-avg/index.html
In 1940, fewer than 5 percent of Americans had a college degree. Starting with the GI Bill in 1944, governments at all levels promoted college. From 1947 to 1980, enrollments jumped from 2.3 million to 12.1 million. In the 1940s, private colleges and universities accounted for about half. By the 1980s, state schools - offering heavily subsidized tuitions - represented nearly four-fifths. At last count, roughly 40 percent of Americans had some sort of college degree: about 30 percent a bachelor's degree from a four-year institution; the rest associate degrees from community colleges. http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2012/05/29/lets_drop_the_college-for-everyone_crusade_99690.html
Since 1961, the time students spend reading, writing and otherwise studying has fallen from 24 hours a week to about 15. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/is-college-too-easy-as-study-time-falls-debate-rises/2012/05/21/gIQAp7uUgU_print.html
After two years of college, 45 percent of college students hadn't significantly improved their critical thinking and writing skills; after four years, the proportion was still 36 percent. The study was based on a test taken by 2,400 students at 24 schools. "Academically Adrift," by sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa; http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2012/05/29/lets_drop_the_college-for-everyone_crusade_99690.html
Over 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks (unable to interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, comprehend arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees, or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school). American Institutes for Research Ben Feller, Associated Press | January 20, 2006
States appropriated almost $6.2 billion for four-year colleges and universities between 2003 and 2008 to help pay for the education of students who did not return for their second year, while the federal government spent $1.5 billion and states spent $1.4 billion on grants for such students. "Finishing the First Lap: The Cost of First-Year Student Attrition in America's Four-Year Colleges and Universities." reported by AP, “Report: College dropouts cost taxpayers billions,” October 11, 2010
More than 25% of low-income first-generation college students leave after their first year, and 89 percent fail to graduate within six years. Time Magazine, What We Can Learn from First-Generation College Students, April 11, 2012
Almost 80% of seniors at 55 of our best colleges and universities earned a D or F grade on a high-school level American history test a 1999 survey showed. USDE 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey tests http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/magazines/2000-11/cohen.html
The National Center for Education Statistics reports that only 31% of college graduates can read and understand a complex book. Walter E. Williams , professor of economics at George Mason University. http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=336612797889002
Nearly half (47 percent) of college freshmen enrolled in 2005 had earned an average grade of A in high school, compared to 2-in-10 (20 percent) in 1970. The majority (79 percent) of freshmen in 1970 had an important personal objective of “developing a meaningful philosophy of life.” By 2005, the majority of freshmen (75 percent) said their primary objective was “being very well off financially.” Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007, (Table 274). http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/miscellaneous/007871.html
Enrollment has increased 70.6 percent since 1990, from 135,000 to 230,000, at the 102 Evangelical schools belonging to the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities. Higher Education Research Institute at the UCLA; USA Today Dec. 14, 2005 .
During the same period, enrollments at public colleges increased by 12.8 percent, and at private colleges the increase was 28 percent. USA Today Dec. 14. 2005 Southern Baptist Convention, Baptist Press http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=22361
62% more students are going to college than did in the 1960s". Bill Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions at Harvard.
Nearly 40 percent (approx. 11.5 million) of the nation’s 18 to 24 year olds were enrolled in two- or four-year colleges as of October 2008. U.S. Census figures released by the Pew Research Center, Nov. 2009
The District of Columbia leads the nation in the proportion of college grads. http://www.epodunk.com/top10/collegeDiploma/index.html
Tuitions and fees have risen more than 440 percent in 30 years. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-subprime-college-educations/2012/06/08/gJQA4fGiOV_print.html
On a typical campus, per capita students spending for alcohol--$446 per student--far exceeds the per capita budget of the college library. (Eigen, 1991 in the 1998 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse).
College students spend over $5.5 billion a year on alcoholic beverages (mostly beer)--more than they spend on all other drinks [soda, tea, milk, juice and coffee] and books combined. Sidney Ribeau, PresidentBowling Green State University http://www.collegevalues.org/diaries.cfm?id=476&a=1. See also www.hsph.harvard.edu/cas/rpt1998/CAS1998rpt2.html [which is also a illustration of how to do a survey.]
A (disputed) study showed that 50% of American college faculty identified themselves as Democrats and only 11% as Republicans (with 33% being Independent, and 5% identifying themselves with another party). 72% described themselves as "to the left of center," including 18% who were strongly left. Only 15% described themselves as right of center, including only 3% who were "strongly right." North American Academic Study Survey (NAASS) of students, faculty and administrators at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada 1999. The Berkeley Electronic Press http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/04/conservatives-underrepresented-in.html http://www.bepress.com/forum/vol3/iss1/art2 http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/17963/liberal_bias_in_our_schools.html
A survey of 6,000 academic psychologists resulted in 10% reporting they had falsified research data; 67 per cent selectively reported studies that “worked”; 35% said they had doubts about the integrity of their own research. Leslie John, George Loewentstein, and Drazen Prelec in Psychological Science, December 2011
Now that's the perfect definition of *a special kind of stupid*.
(At least that's the way I heard it....)
I believe that Harvard’s endowment is large enough that they don’t need to charge tuition for any student.
Some smattering of Statistics knowledge certainly helps in understanding that CAGW is unprovable BS that is widely spread.
While I was in (various) High Schools, I noted that there were a number of instructors who were worse than useless. Progress required rewiring around them.
A few others were truly inspirational and more than made up for the drones. One should always be an active participant in one's personal edumacation.
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