They Pretend To Pay Us,
And We Pretend to Work...
...as employees under Communism used to say of their employers.
The current cheating scandal at Columbia's graduate school of journalism updates the saying from the American journalism students' point of view: "The administration pretends this is a serious academic field of study, and we pretend to believe them."
There's virtually no body of knowledge in this sort of degree program. At Columbia's, students don't get grades; everything's pretty much pass/fail, etc. Why are people surprised to find that students don't study, and that they cheat on their exams even when the exams are pass/fail, and even when the subject of the exams is ethics?
Cheating is not unheard of on university campuses. But cheating on an open-book, take-home exam in a pass-fail course seems odd, and all the more so in a course about ethics.
Yet Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism is looking into whether students may have cheated on the final exam in just such a course, “Critical Issues in Journalism.” According to the school’s Web site, the course “explores the social role of journalism and the journalist from legal, historical, ethical, and economic perspectives,” with a focus on ethics.
Nicholas Lemann, dean of the journalism school, said that students had to sign on to a Columbia Web site to gain access to the exam, and that once they did, had 90 minutes to write a couple of essays. But he was unwilling to detail how the cheating might have occurred.
Mr. Lemann said that no student had been formally accused of any violation, but that the issue had become “Topic A” at the school.
The situation was reported yesterday by RadarOnline.com.
The course was taught by Samuel G. Freedman, a professor of journalism at the school who also contributes columns on education and religion to The New York Times. Mr. Freedman confirmed yesterday evening that “there are allegations of cheating.”
“We are looking into them,” he said, adding that he did not want to comment further because of privacy concerns.
Students in the course, which is required of all students in Columbia’s basic journalism master’s program, have been told they must attend a specially scheduled additional session of the course today in connection with the exam. About 200 students took the course this fall.
“We have encountered a serious problem with the final exam, and will not register a passing grade in the course for anyone who does not attend,” David A. Klatell, vice dean at the school, wrote in an e-mail message, which was forwarded to a reporter by a student. Mr. Klatell did not respond to several telephone and e-mail requests for comment.
Mr. Lemann said that he was surprised that students might have been concerned about how they scored on the pass-fail exam, and that exams and grades at the school were rare.
“We are not a very grade-intensive institution,” he said. “Our school is run on a pass-fail basis.”
Here's guessing that the form of cheating was plagiarism, with a number of exams virtually identical to one another. This is a blow-off, required course. It's not, as Lemann suggests, that students are "concerned." It's that they don't give a shit. They don't take the program seriously. At best, they think the degree might help them get a job. This sort of thing happens when people don't respect your program.
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