Korean Job Discussion Forums

[igotthisguitar]

Ummmmmm ... ok.

Gotta love modern "PC" journalism: WHAT nationalities?

Seems these news shapers simply forgot to mention the KEY question

LAME!

Duke Cheating Case Hit Asian Students
Tue May 22, 11:55 AM ET
DURHAM, N.C. - All of the students expelled in a cheating scandal at the Duke University business school were from Asian countries, while other students were punished less severely, their attorney says.

Many of the students involved in the case at the Fuqua School of Business confessed instead of fighting the charges because of different cultural norms in their countries, Durham attorney Robert Ekstrand said

"There is something else going on here, something that needs to be explained before we go forward with this, because it doesn't look right," Ekstrand said in Tuesday in The News & Observer of Raleigh.

In their home cultures, he said, "a confession or an admission of guilt can be a way to apologize." He said they sometimes wrote confession letters without understanding the specific accusations.

Officials disclosed last month that 34 business school graduate students were convicted of cheating on an exam and other assignments. Nine were expelled, and 15 were suspended for a year and given a failing grade in the class. The others received failing grades.

Ekstrand has filed appeals on behalf of 16 students.

The nine expelled students, all from Asian countries, would likely lose student visas and have to leave the country in the next couple of weeks if their appeals fail, Ekstrand said.

Duke officials have said students involved in the cheating case were from various countries, including the U.S. They declined to comment on the cases until appeals are completed next week.

"We must respect the confidentiality that the appeals process requires and our students deserve," said Mike Hemmerich.

The investigation began after a professor found similarities in answers to a take-home exam. In an appeal filed last week, Ekstrand said honor code "violations" were mostly minor and unintentional and questioned why some possibly exculpatory evidence was not given to students before the appeals.

[fusionbarnone]

All this fuss over a take-home test? Harsh if that's all it was. Culturally, asians pool their info/resources as opposed to westerners who as individuals struggle solo. Unless, there was word for word plagialism than that would be interesting.

[pkang0202]

[Teufelswacht]

The cheating scandal happened in the U.S. and not Asia. It is the responsibility of the students to understand the norms of the country/educational system they are in. It is not the responsibility of the institution to kowtow to the PC excuse of "different cultures" when it comes to ethical violations committed at the institution. There is either one standard for everyone or there is no standard at all.

It is the students who are responsible for understanding and abiding by the norms. The PC crap about culture is fine when they are back home - but it must not be allowed to be used as an excuse in the U.S.. Otherwise, you will have two systems in place. One system of grading/standards of conduct for the native born students and another entirely for the students from other countries. Ridiculous and the very definition of being discriminatory. In effect the PC warriors are racist if they believe that Asians are incapable of understanding what they were doing went against the standards of conduct at the university. The excuse of "culture" doesn't pass the common sense test. ALL students are instructed regarding the rules/expectations regarding cheating when they enter universities and on the syllabus of most, if not all, classes. Are Asians in the U.S. now incapable of reading/understanding English!??? Rubbish! They must be held to the same standard as everyone else.

[jvalmer]

Why not expell all 34 students? Then it would send a messege that Duke is really serious about its business education and doesn't favor anyone.

[pkang0202]

To Teufelswacht:

I'm not condoning their actions. Cheating is cheating. However, all the Asian students get the boot because they didn't fight back?

In the US justice system, if you admit guilt you get a lesser punishment. If you choose to fight for your innocence, you will get thrown a harsher punishment if found guilty.

The fault is with the honor council at the school. All the students that were guilty should have gotten the boot. There should be a ZERO tolerance for cheating in our Universities. The fact that some students got suspended, others got expelled, and others just failed just shows that the sentencing was NOT fair. That sends a message of:

"Different degrees of cheating will get you different punishments. And if you are honest and admit you cheated then you will get the harshest punishment of all."

[Roch]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I was a TA at a uni that had a very multi-cultural student body (Concordia, Montreal) and yes, different cultures have different ideas of what is and isn't cheating. The fault really lies in not making it crystal clear what cheating and plagiarism are, and in some cases admitting students who lack the English skills to understand such explanations.

The best case I ever dealt with was a student of Serbian descent who had plagiarised a paper an American high school student had posted on the Internet, which had in turn been plagiarised from the Encyclopedia Encarta.

[thepeel]

I do wonder, to what extent the Western concept of academic honesty keeps Western educational institutions consistently on the top. We have to be careful, that just because Asians tend to cheat (in the way that we define it) we don't devalue our own Universities on the Alter of tolerance.

[pkang0202]

[Roch]

[Roch]