The Red and Black

Issue date: 3/21/08 Section: News

Media Credit: FRANNIE FABIAN Univ. President Michael Adams speaks at the Academic Honesty Awareness Week Forum at the Student Learning Center Thursday. [Click to enlarge]

RICHT

Laziness, a lack of self-confidence and the Internet are some of the challenges that promote cheating, panelists said at the Academic Honesty Forum.

"Academic honesty is a habit," University President Michael Adams said Thursday. "Those skills and those instincts are honed over time until it becomes second nature."

Adams cited laziness as a catalyst for cheating and said appropriate preparation could prevent it.

"Dishonest behavior will not sustain you in any component of life," he said.

As part of Academic Honesty Awareness Week, the forum invited University administrators and student leaders to share what academic honesty meant to them.

"I've got a passion for doing things right," said head football coach Mark Richt.

Richt said he learned valuable lessons early in his career at Florida State Univ-ersity that he tries to instill in the football team and staff, such as loyalty to the team, learning to take criticism and not participating in cheating behavior.

"It's important to us to teach our guys to do things right, and we do it ourselves," Richt said.

Richt said he liked the University's academic honesty policy because it includes education, punishment and mercy.

"We work so hard at everything we do, and if we have success, I don't want to feel sick to my stomach that we did it in the wrong way," Richt said.

"Georgia's viewed as a premier institution in terms of the way academic dishonesty is administered," Jere Morehead, vice president for instruction, said.

The University's academic honesty policy includes facilitated discussions between professors and students accused of cheating, a process that makes it easier to come to a proper conclusion about the behavior, Morehead said.

The Internet's accessibility may tempt students to cheat, said Anita DeRouen, assistant director of the first-year composition program.

"The anonymity may make it easy for us to do things there that we wouldn't do otherwise," she said.

A lack of self-confidence may be a reason some cheat, but it is important for students to "lead by example" by saying "no" to academic dishonesty, said Deep Shah, a senior from Duluth and a 2008 Rhodes Scholar.

"You're going to be someone's hero one day ... that's how you should approach all the things you do," Shah said. "Set an example for your peers."

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