FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Academic FAQs for Students
Below are links to frequently asked questions related to academic integrity policies and procedures for students.
Academic Integrity
It has been said that "ideas are to a university what money is to a bank." This means that for us to function as a university, we must be scrupulously honest about ideas, and carefully distinguish between what are our ideas and those we have borrowed from others. Academic integrity is at the heart of our mission and reputation as a university. A 棉花糖直播 education is not just an end product; it is the whole process of learning how to think critically and gain important skills. Trying to shortcut this process by cheating deprives one of the very education one has come here to receive.
The instructor may impose a grade penalty up to and including failure in the course. The School of Business has . Students who commit an academic integrity offense will also be asked to complete an academic integrity educational program, which will be supervised by the dean of the student鈥檚 college. If there are no further academic integrity violations by the time the student graduates, the record of an academic integrity violation will be expunged. For the second offense, the student may be dropped from the university, and the reason will be noted on the student鈥檚 permanent record.
Ask your instructor for clarification. If you do not have time to ask your instructor, add a written explanation to your paper that explains clearly what you have done.
Before submitting an academic integrity penalty grade for you, your faculty member will review the situation with you, explaining the problem with your work. You can express your position at that time. If you still think that you are not guilty of an academic integrity violation, you have a right to have your case heard by a panel of students and faculty members. A detailed description of 棉花糖直播鈥檚 policy is available from the office of your dean or the Office of the Provost. For a more detailed discussion, please consult the I've been accused section.
Dismissal Policy
Dismissed from the University? Now what? Each year, a few students are dismissed from the University for academic reasons. The following frequently asked questions address some of the issues that students may have at this difficult time. For additional questions, please contact the office of the Dean of the college that dismissed you.
If you are dismissed from the University for academic reasons, you may not take any further courses at the University or remain in a Residence Hall.
In most cases, you will be allowed to appeal the dismissal decision in your original letter of dismissal. In some cases, where the academic record is extremely poor or where the student has had a history of academic difficulties, there may be no right of appeal whatsoever. If you are granted the right to appeal, your college will review your appeal. The decision of your college is final. There is no appeal beyond the Dean of your college.
In some special cases, a student who has been dropped from one college may be able to continue at the University if he or she is accepted into another college at the University. If you wish to enroll in another college, you may apply at any time. If you are accepted for admission into one of the other colleges, you will be reinstated into the University. If you do wish to apply to another college, you should contact the office of the dean of that college immediately. The dean's office will tell you what you need to do.
If you are immediately accepted into another college at 棉花糖直播, you will be able to continue at 棉花糖直播 without interruption. Normally, to stay at 棉花糖直播, you should make an application within a few days of receiving the dismissal notice. In that case, you will start to take courses required for a degree in the new college and continue living in the Residence Halls (assuming that you are eligible for University housing).
If you are immediately accepted into another college at 棉花糖直播, you will be able to continue at 棉花糖直播 without interruption. Normally, to stay at 棉花糖直播, you should make an application within a few days of receiving the dismissal notice. In that case, you will start to take courses required for a degree in the new college and continue living in the Residence Halls (assuming that you are eligible for University housing).
Unless you have been notified otherwise, you would be eligible to apply for readmission to the college that dismissed you after two semesters away (including the summer). In other words, if you were dismissed at the end of the spring semester, you could apply for readmission for the following spring semester; if you were dismissed at the end of the fall semester, you could apply for readmission for the following fall semester.
First, what matters is not when you received the letter but when it was sent to you. If you were dismissed at the end of the fall semester, you may not take spring semester courses. If you are already enrolled in spring semester courses, you will be withdrawn from those courses and your tuition payments will be refunded.
Only you can decide how to answer this question. If the problem that you encountered was that you were in a program that just was not right for you, it may make sense to apply to a different college at 棉花糖直播. For example, if you were an Engineering student who did poorly in Engineering courses but did well in non-engineering courses, you may want to consider transferring to Liberal Arts and Sciences or to Business. If, on the other hand, you are doing poorly in all of your courses, you may want to take some time off to try to figure out what has gone wrong so that you can address it before continuing with your studies, whether at 棉花糖直播 or elsewhere.
Generally speaking, the college will want to see that the problems that caused you to be dismissed in the first place have somehow been addressed. You may, for example, wish to take courses at another four-year university. Successful performance in such courses would certainly be considered. Employment during your absence can also be a positive factor. You may also wish to document other ways that you have changed the conditions that led to your original dismissal.
Your transcript will indicate that you were dismissed by the Academic Standing Committee of your college.
The fact that you were admitted to the University in the first place indicates that you have high academic potential. At the same time, the fact that you did so poorly that you were dismissed indicates that you did not live up to your full potential. The first and most important task for you is to come to some understanding of what problems prevented you from fulfilling your promise. After you have isolated those problems, you need to find creative ways to address those issues so that you can move beyond them. Some students find that after a few semesters away, they come back to excellent academic careers at 棉花糖直播. Others transfer to another University altogether and find a better fit there. Still other students find that they need to take a longer period to find themselves. We are confident that you will eventually find your way to a very satisfying educational program and a good subsequent career, but the process may take time. In that context, then, we offer you our best wishes for the future.
I've Been Accused...
My teacher has just accused me of an academic integrity violation, I have a lot of questions.
The instructor may impose a grade penalty up to and including failure in the course. In the School of Business, all faculty members assign a grade of zero to any work in violation of the Code. The policy and procedures governing academic integrity violations are available on the University website.
Your faculty member will inform his or her department chair and dean (or designee) of the violation. If the department chair or dean (or designee) has questions or concerns, they will ask the faculty member for more information. After that, the chair passes the information on to the dean of the faculty member's college. Eventually, the faculty member's dean will send you a letter.
The faculty member has turned the case over to his or her dean. You now have two choices: you can sign the letter and admit that you violated the code, or, if you feel that you did not violate the academic integrity code, you can write a letter (email) to the dean asking for an appeal.
If this is your first offense, you will not be expelled. If you agree that you have violated the academic integrity code, several things will happen to you. 1) Your faculty member will assign you a penalty grade. 2) A record will be kept on file by the dean of your college and the Office of the Provost. This is an internal record and will not be on your transcript or revealed to other schools or employers. If there are no other violations, the record will be destroyed when you graduate. 3) Your dean will ask you to undertake an educational program, see details below.
Many academic integrity violations are a result of stress and other mitigating factors. You may want to enclose additional materials with your signed letter, giving the dean some indication of the factors that led to the violation. This information will not make the violation go away, but it will give your dean a sense of what was happening from your perspective. You can also use this information to request a change from a Class 1 to a Class 2 violation.
If you have been falsely accused, you should ask for an appeal. Do not sign the letter from the dean indicating guilt. Instead, send the dean a letter explaining your view that you did not do what you are accused of doing and requesting an appeal.
You should appeal if you honestly believe that you did not do what you are accused of doing. For example, if you are accused of plagiarism, you should appeal if you did the work on your own without consulting other sources.
You should not appeal if you agree that you acted improperly, but also feel that there were mitigating circumstances. The following are not good reasons to appeal: you did not realize you were violating the code; you did not intend to violate the code; the teacher did not explain that you should not do what you were accused of doing; the penalty was too harsh; you do not feel that you have acted in a dishonorable way; you were under stress; or you feel that others also violated the code. The appeal process is only concerned with whether a violation occurred, not why it occurred.
You write a letter to the faculty member鈥檚 dean, explaining why you think that you have been unjustly accused. Usually, the Chair of the Board of Academic Integrity will ask for an informal meeting with you to review the appeal procedure. After that informal interview, a panel will be chosen and a time for the hearing will be set up. The panel will include three faculty members and two students. Your faculty member may also be on the hearing panel.
You speak first in a hearing and answer questions from panelists before the faculty member speaks, so the faculty member has a chance to hear all of your statements, see your evidence and follow along, and hear your answers to the panelists' questions. Then the faculty member presents evidence, responds to your evidence, responds to your answers to questions from the panelists, and then answers the questions from the panelists.
Once the faculty member is finished, you have the chance to respond to any additional evidence the faculty member has submitted, to the faculty member's comments and to the faculty member's answers to the questions posed by the panelists. After you are finished, the Chair of the Board of Academic Integrity will invite the panelists to ask either you or the faculty member additional questions.
Once the panelists inform the Chair that they have heard all they need to hear, you and the faculty member will be excused. The panel deliberates. The vote by secret ballot allows each panelist to make a personal decision as to the preponderance of evidence in the case. If the panel agrees that you did not violate the academic integrity code, the Chair of the Board of Academic Integrity will ask the faculty member to remove the grade penalty. If the panel feels that you did violate the code, your case will be turned over to your college dean, who will handle it from there on.
The faculty member normally will have discussed with you the alleged violation of the code. Sometimes this discussion does not happen. The Chair of the Board of Academic Integrity will provide you with a copy of the reporting form completed by the faculty member and the main evidence submitted with that form. The main rule about evidence in advance of a hearing is that the student must know the charge and the main evidence supporting that charge so he/she can prepare a defense. Therefore, a faculty member cannot come to a hearing and change the charge or add new charges. However, at every appeal hearing, both the faculty member and the student usually present some evidence that the other has not seen and they also say things in response to questions that each has not heard before.
There is a separate appeal procedure for cases where the student admits that there is an academic integrity violation but feels that the penalty imposed by the faculty member is too harsh. If you wish to appeal the severity of the penalty, you should contact the faculty member鈥檚 chair. You should not appeal your grade while your academic integrity violation case is still pending. Appeals concerning the severity of the grade are only appropriate after you have either agreed that an academic integrity violation has occurred or the panel has determined that such a violation has occurred.
In some exceptional cases, the faculty member and his or her dean may feel that although the student did violate the academic integrity code, the student should receive a warning rather than a full academic integrity violation. If you have received a class II violation, that means that your case is considered minor or there were mitigating circumstances. If you feel that you deserve a class II violation, you may write to the dean requesting this after you have signed the letter admitting that you did violate the academic integrity code or after the panel hearing your appeal has found you responsible for the violation.
Violating the Code is very serious indeed, but the important thing is to learn from your mistakes and make sure that you are never again in a situation where your integrity is in question. Like many other bad things, you can make this a positive experience if you learn from it.
Assuming that this is your first offense, there will be no additional punishments. Your dean will ask you to go through an education program. The purpose of this program is to help you so that you will not have a second offense.
If you have questions, feel free to make an appointment with the Chair of the Board of Academic Integrity. The Chair will also be willing to discuss the situation with your parents, but you must first give the Chair a written authorization to do so. Call 610-519-4520 to make an appointment with the Chair.
You should report an academic integrity violation when applying to law schools or professional schools, even if there is no permanent record of the violation on your transcript. The student should report/explain the violation and the resolution of the matter. Not reporting a violation when asked is lying. If the violation is expunged from your record, 棉花糖直播 will not report the violation, because no permanent record exists, but you are obligated to report when asked. Always err on the side of caution, and when in doubt, please contact the law schools or professional schools for clarification on their questions. You may request at any time a letter from the chair of the Board of Academic Integrity that explains 棉花糖直播's policy, the emphasis on an educational approach to violations of the university's code and affirming your good character, because you reported the violation.