Refereeing

Both of my daughters are good athletes and both have been active at the school and the community level. I encourage them to pursue both athletics and the arts, in addition to their core academic studies, as part of a well rounded education that will serve them well in the years ahead. My involvement, growing up, with athletics was, however, more limited. I played softball and was for a number of years, part of a bowling league. I was a better bowler than softball pitcher but there was no chance in either case that my number or shirt would be retired.

I also considered learning how to be an umpire or a referee but ultimately didn’t pursue it. I did realize at an early age the key role played by individuals who serve in these important capacities. A few weeks ago my younger daughter came home, after one of her community games, and talked at length about the referees for game she had just played. She indicated that the kids on her team, as well as the coach, were upset at how biased the referees were in officiating at the game. Rules violations made by the other team were ignored while every violation and even some non-violations were singled out for her team. I have also witnessed, at other games, what I have thought to be some bias in officiating (not at the college level) but also realize that my knowledge of the rules and at times my less than total focus on the game may cloud my objectivity. I also understand that the more informal the league and the younger the kids playing (often with referees that are just a few years older) the more likelihood that there will be errors.

Errors happen but if there is biased officiating, it needs to be reported and corrected. We all know that cheating is a major problem that permeates many schools and levels of education. We all do everything we can to limit academic dishonesty so that the work we judge is the student’s work and not the result of someone else’s efforts. Biased officiating tells kids that results may not be based on effort or skill but rather on manipulation and distortion. Biased officiating is clearly cheating with the rules of the game differently and selectively applied. Neutrality and even-handedness need to be the baseline for referees and umpires.

I am a strong advocate for not looking the other way when there is academic dishonesty in any form. The message and the response need to make it clear that cheating is not acceptable and the penalty must reflect the seriousness of the academic dishonesty. Refereeing needs to be kept at the highest standards possible even if that requires more training. There is an important life lesson in losing a game if you have been outplayed by your opponent. But losing because the playing field wasn’t level is a life lesson that causes our kids to question the fairness of the system and also gets them to question whether their effort is worth it when the result is based on other factors. I know this is also an important life lesson, but for me, especially when it comes to our kids, I would like us all to demonstrate that such problems and failures of the system are relatively few and far between.

Welcome

I’m busy working on my speech to our new first year undergraduate students. I’ve had a chance to talk with many of these students when they were applicants—first as part of junior open houses and next as part of fall open houses (which are geared to seniors) and finally as part of admitted student days. My message at those times is very clear—Hofstra provides an outstanding undergraduate education and here are the reasons why Hofstra is the right choice for you.

The upcoming student speech is both easier and harder. It is easier in that these students have selected Hofstra and they and their families already value what we offer. It is harder in that this is a critical time in the life of these new students and all of us want their college education to best serve their future needs, both personal as well as professional.

Any message to new students must stress the value of the institution. For me, respect for diversity and academic honesty are at the top of the list. In respect for diversity, I think higher education has made significant strides. Not only is the college going population more diverse, students seem much more comfortable with and embracing of diversity. In academic honesty, there is clearly still much work to do. Students come to college often having cheated in middle and high school and are fully conversant in the use of technology to assist in this practice. I especially worry that as the standards for passing tests in middle and high school are ratcheted up substantially, sometimes for no other purpose than to demonstrate higher standards (without first providing a better education), we are increasing the likelihood of cheating. At the very least, we are increasing the likelihood of teaching to the test which also doesn’t foster learning. When these students come to college, we need to both educate them fully as to why academic dishonesty is simply wrong but also make sure the penalty for academic dishonesty is a deterrent to any future dishonesty.

The message to these incoming students needs to be much more than a focus on institutional values. It needs to stress the opportunity that college provides to explore options, try something new, challenge yourself, enjoy yourself, broaden your horizons, and sharpen your career focus. Going to college with blinders on is the wrong view. This is also the time to succeed in managing your time. A student can’t do it all; we simply offer too many alternatives both inside as well as outside of the classroom.

All of these messages need to be delivered briefly, with humor as well as relevance to the students involved. Therein lays the challenge to deliver the important messages while making sure the students are as receptive as possible. We owe it to our students to succeed in doing so.

Honor Code

We are getting close to implementing our Honor Code and Honor Board and I am very excited by the our progress in this critical area. It is not that our campus is any different from most other campuses. We know that there is academic dishonesty taking place on virtually every college or university campus. We have just, however, made a commitment to push for a measurable decrease in such behavior. Students will sign an Honor Code that will serve as both a commitment as well as a reminder of the values we ascribe to and an Honor Board will work to promote activities in support of academic honesty and also ensure that there is fair and consistent treatment when there is a violation of the Honor Code.

Our Honor Code and Honor Board is an outgrowth of an extended campus wide discussion and debate regarding academic honesty. This debate was sponsored by a Task Force that had been established to review our existing policies on academic honesty and recommend possible changes. The discussion and the resulting recommendation then went through our campus shared governance, first passing scrutiny by the University Senate followed by the full faculty reviewing and recommending these policies. Our Senate is our shared governance organization that includes representation from the faculty, the students—both undergraduate and graduate – academic and non-academic administrators and a staff member. We are fortunate to have such a strong and vibrant facilitator of shared governance. After the action by the full faculty, I was pleased to endorse these recommendations and the President was pleased to approve them. The campus conversation and the campus governance process provided the greatest buy-in possible for this new initiative.

In selecting the Honor Board student members, I worked closely with our Vice President for Student Affairs to assure the best possible student representation (which includes serving as one of the three co-chairs of the board with the other two co chairs coming from the faculty and the academic administration). The faculty and administrators who have been chosen are clearly highly regarded opinion leaders widely respected by their colleagues and other members of our community. So far, so good.

And yet, to be realistic, there are two concerns that I have. First, a number of faculty, here and elsewhere, want to make whatever decision there is to be made in response to academic dishonesty themselves. Sometimes these actions are very lenient and other times very drastic but regardless these faculty don’t want to fit any framework or adhere to any standard other than their own. To this day, there are incidents of academic dishonesty that are never reported and are known only to the faculty member and the student or students involved. I believe that faculty should have wide latitude in resolving incidents of academic dishonesty but I also believe there needs to be full disclosure and reporting. Not to second guess the faculty member but to make sure that repeat offenses by the same students are dealt with sternly. My other concern relates to a number of students who have been so accustomed to cheating that it is both second nature and not recognized for what it is—unethical behavior, presenting someone else’s work as your own. I have even heard a story from a colleague about a student in a very good university who tweeted matter of factly about cheating. One comment noted that if this person had a smart phone in high school, Harvard would have been within reach while another tweet noted incredulously that that the cheating had only resulted in a C and how could that be. It will take considerable time, even with a heightened awareness of the importance of academic honesty for individuals like this to clean up their acts.

Our Honor Code and Honor Board are one major step forward for academic integrity. And now we have to work together that regardless of the school, and whether we are talking about higher education or K-12 education, students always receive a consistent message regarding the importance of academic honesty.

Test Takers

I had a terrific experience as a doctoral student. The courses, the faculty, the other students all made for a wonderful educational journey. I was certain economics was the right field for me before I began and I was even more certain by the time I graduated.  Within this wonderful experience, one moment still stands out, not because it directly involved economics, not because it represented an intellectual breakthrough, but rather because I learned an important life lesson.

That moment was when I took my statistics qualifying examination.  That day approximately a dozen students came to take the exam.  The faculty proctor handed out the exam and we all began.  Now the statistics qualifying exam had a reputation for being rigorous but also had a reputation as an exam where typically 5 people passed.  If there were a small number of test takers or a larger number, the results always seemed to be the same—five students passed.  About thirty minutes into a two hour exam, the proctor decided to leave the room while we all continued working on our examinations.  Shortly thereafter one thing changed.  Even though this was not an open book examination, one of the test takers took out the textbook plus a notebook, and began working on the answers with the added support in clear view. What did I do and what did the rest of the class do?  Each of us just kept working on the examination and following the rules.

About an hour later, the proctor returned for the last 30 minutes of the examination period.  Within a few minutes most of us handed in our exams and left the room.  I thought I did well on the exam but nevertheless, was a little apprehensive.   I didn’t say anything to the proctor as I was leaving about the person cheating, and to my knowledge neither did anyone else.  A day or two later, I found out that one of my classmates reported the student who cheated.  His exam was disallowed and I was told he was suspended from the program.  A penalty that was certainly deserved.

When the results of the exam became known about two weeks later, I was relieved to learn that I had passed.  Five students passed this qualifying exam, and going from highest to lowest passing grade, I was number 5.  If the cheater hadn’t been turned in, I assume I would not have passed.

I have been thinking about the Long Island students who paid other students to take the SATs for them.  For a few thousand dollars, they were on the fast track to a much more impressive SAT score and the resulting benefits in terms of gaining admission or being awarded a scholarship.  But very often, just as was the case in my statistics qualifying examination, someone cheating their way to admission or a scholarship likely precluded the person deserving the recognition from receiving it.  In all the publicity regarding the exam takers and those who paid for someone to take the exam, the real potential victims have not been identified. They are the individuals who did everything right, but nevertheless would have been shortchanged out of the positive results of their efforts.  I know it can happen.  It almost happened to me.

I often think that we are not as stringent as we should be in our monitoring and enforcement of academic honesty and I also think that we are often too lenient in the penalties we impose for violations of academic honesty.  If we are to be fair to the individuals who do everything the way it should be done, we (faculty, students, and administrators) need to do more to eliminate cheating. If we turn the other cheek to cheating, we are hurting ourselves and cheating the system that we are part of.

The Academic Dishonesty Virus

I’m an economist and my typical reading pattern, especially on a weekend when I tend to have more time, is to gravitate first to the major economic news.  But my reading patterns as of this past summer have changed dramatically:  I now look first for news on H1N1.  As is true for almost all of us, there is a measure of self interest in my starting with flu-related articles.  But what motivates me most to look for H1N1 news is the potential impact on the University.  We know from the CDC as well as from state guidelines that the expectation is in most cases for most individuals, that this flu will last 2-4 days and that most people will recover without seeing a doctor.  We have been asked and we will make allowances for students who may miss up to 5 class days with H1N1.  We will make allowances for students who miss regularly scheduled exams (even final exams).  And we will prepare for the contingency that a number of faculty will contract this virus and will not be able to come to class for a few days.  We will do all of this while attempting to make certain the standards are not compromised.