'Many members of the faculty worry the [plagiarism] issue will adversely affect enrollment. Shahram Rahimi, associate professor of computer science, said if everyone's work were scrutinized, many would be found guilty of plagiarism.

"(AFAC) [the faculty group seeking out instances of plagiarism] have been working on this days and nights and it's destroying the University," he said. "We were finally recovering our enrollment numbers."

...Some professors cite technological changes as a reason for some verbatim text being unquoted or not being cited. When Poshard submitted his dissertation, word processors were a commodity and typewriters made it difficult to revise large documents, said Robert Swenson, associate professor of architecture.'

"To go back and make a correction on page 27 means you type the entire page over again, beginning to end," he said. "I can't imagine any dissertation being perfect."