A Year in Lubbock: Academics, post 2
Dan Hillman
pieces.]
The next day, I sat down to grade MrX's research paper. Right away I
noticed that the typeface on the cover sheet didn't match the typeface
of the paper. In addition, the first page of the paper, after the title
page, was page number four, rather than the expected one or two.
Fucking hell.
Remembering the previous night's conversation and realizing that I had
MrX's CV in my files from the course's first assignment (demonstrate the
use of sophisticated formatting in a word processing document), I looked
under the publications section and found a paper with a similar topic
with three authors: Author1, MrX, and Author3, submitted to *The
Fancy-Pants Medical Journal* the previous September. Although on the CV
MrX also listed a presentation with the same title as the paper he
submitted, on a hunch, I decided to check this journal article.
I checked at TTU's library, but the article hadn't been published yet. I
then called *TFPMJ*'s office, and spoke with the editorial supervisor.
She explained that the article had only been submitted that month and
had been rejected immediately (indeed, she said it hadn't even made it
to peer review). As a result, the submitted copies had been recycled and
they couldn't fax me a copy. However, she did give me the contact
information for the paper's corresponding author, Author3, a professor
at the Terrible Texas University Health Sciences Center.
I called Author3, identified myself, explained that I had a potentially
delicate situation on my hands, and said that I'd appreciate it if he
could fax me the article that he had submitted to *TFPMJ*. He agreed to
do so, asking if this was about MrX. I replied that I would rather not
mention any names, as I was sure he could understand. (Legally, a
professor cannot discuss a student's work.) He said that if it was about
MrX that I should know that MrX had done a great deal of work on the
paper, but that sure, he'd send a fax of the submission.
While waiting for the fax, I graded MrX's paper. Wherever it came from,
it sucked, even by TTU's "standards." Worst of all, it had nothing to do
with what I'd assigned, or even my course -- another red flag. It was
supposed to be an experimental design, but it was missing a couple of
the basic things you'd expect to see -- and that I'd required, in the
assignment -- like a hypothesis, or any of the attendant structure.
Evil, elitist points, I suppose, but that's how I saw it.
Without mentioning my suspicions that Plagiarism Boy was at it again, I
spoke with both my faculty mentor and the associate dean about whether I
should give MrX an F or an Incomplete for this paper, since it didn't
meet the assigned criteria. My solution was to give him an F with an
option to re-write the paper to receive a maximum of a B+, which was my
standard policy for students who wrote poor -- even by TTU standards --
papers. The associate dean said that I should do what I felt was best.
I then sent e-mail to MrX, explaining that I had given him an F for the
paper, and saying that he could meet with me to discuss how to remedy
the situation.
Minutes later, MrX stopped by my office. He hadn't received my message
-- he just wanted to know if I'd liked the paper. I explained what I had
written in the e-mail and we spent some time discussing why his paper
did not fit the specified form. He was angry, and just kept repeating
over and over, "But it does fit! It does!" I confess, this part was
deliciously predictable:
"This paper has no hypothesis."
"Yes it does!"
"Okay. Show me the word 'hypothesis.' I'll wait."
At one point in the conversation, I proposed that if he was concerned
about my impartiality, we give his paper and my course description to
any other professor and I'd give him the grade the independent professor
assigned. MrX didn't want to do that.
We finished the meeting by agreeing that MrX would rewrite the paper,
and I would re-grade it, giving him the opportunity to earn a grade up
to a B+. This would then determine his grade for the course.
That evening, before leaving campus, I received two things.
First, I received a response to the e-mail I had sent MrX -- from his
mom. She explained that she sometimes checks his e-mail for him, and
that I *had* to accept his paper because I hadn't said that the topic
was unacceptable in class.
(Pity that I rejected the paper based on its content, not its topic.)
Her letter continued, explaining that the Governor himself had just
visited to discuss this important research, and that she was certain
that we could arrange for a meeting with some senior university
administrators to discuss the paper.
(Oh, I see. The Governor of Texas himself says that MrX's paper must
receive an A. Great, now I have a student trying to intimidate me on
behalf of her son.)
She also mentioned that the paper that MrX submitted had been already
accepted for publication, so obviously it was a *good* paper, and so I
must accept it and give it a good grade.
(Uh huh. Already accepted. Funny, that wasn't what the folks at the
journal had told me. It apparently never occurred to her that whether or
not a journal liked an article has fuck all to do with my course or what
I required on the syllabus. Besides, having an article published takes a
few months, which suggests that MrX's paper might not have been written
originally as a research project for my course, which could explain why
it didn't fit the criteria.)
The other thing I received that evening was even more interesting.
Author3 (the professor) faxed me the original article submitted to
*TFPMJ*. Although MrX gave his paper the title from his presentation,
the content of the co-written paper was a duplicate of the paper MrX had
submitted as his own work. And I mean duplicate. This thing was a
photocopy. Turns out that the missing pages were, in fact, the abstract,
which described the focus of the paper, which had nothing to do with the
new title he'd put on the paper.
So let's sum up, shall we?
- MrX had submitted a homework paper lifted from Wired News as his
own work.
- The research paper MrX submitted as his own work was identical to
a paper that had been submitted to *TFPMJ* under a different
title, with MrX as the second of three authors.
- MrX's CV (already padded by listing the same items under both
Research and Publications) claimed that this article had been
submitted to *TFPMJ* the previous September. According to *TFPMJ*,
it hadn't been submitted until several weeks after the CV was
handed in.
Put together, might these suggest that MrX has a predilection for, shall
we say, amplifying his accomplishments? Could one possibly draw the
conclusion that MrX makes a habit of claiming credit for work that isn't
his? That maybe, just maybe, MrX is a plagiarizing bullshit artist?
Hmmm.
That evening, the ObChattel and I discussed our options. A college
friend of hers teaches law at another university and had recently found
a plagiarist himself. It wasn't as clear a case as mine (few of them
are), but he got the student to confess. Nevertheless, the dean of the
law school told him to let it go because it was too much hassle. We
decided that if the College of Education administration told me to let
it go, I would quit on the spot. It's one thing to teach elementary
stuff and give pretend grades, but to ignore such matters is beyond the
fucking pale.
The next day, I brought the fax and MrX's paper to the associate dean,
who was appropriately shocked. Since it's the 90s, he immediately
suggested that we meet with legal counsel. We both met with LawyerBoy,
who referred me to the operating policy and procedure manual as well as
the code of student conduct and suggested that I determine more
thoroughly MrX's role in the authorship of the *TFPMJ* article. Happily,
he said that the university would represent me if the little bastard and
his mom sued.
The next day, I met with MrX.
Things began swimmingly when he moved to close my office door. It has
always been my policy to keep my door propped open when talking with
students. As I moved to re-open it, he said, "You don't need to keep the
door open. I've got 100 pounds on you, but you don't need to worry about
that."
Nice. Up until that point, I had always kept it open to avoid not merely
the appearance of impropriety, but also to diminish the possibility that
some hot (and oh-so dumb) thing might decide to coo, "What do I need to
do to get an A," embarrassing both of us. The idea of keeping it open to
avoid being beaten up by a student had never occurred to me.
I muttered something about it being my policy, re-propped the door, and
explained that I was going to give him a zero for his research paper. As
expected, within three sentences of showing him the faxed copy he
demanded "Where did you get that?" Sheesh. All he needed was "I would
have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids" and he
could have been the poster child of cheap-ass villainy. Anyhow, we went
through a bit of the old back and forth:
"These papers are identical."
"No they're not."
"Okay. Show me what's different. I'll wait."
While I agreed that he might well have done a great deal of work on this
paper, I pointed out that he had failed to acknowledge his co-authors,
claiming their contributions as his own. That constituted plagiarism,
and so I was giving him a zero for it. Consequently, he would complete
the course with a 42%, which meant that he was going to fail.
He protested that he had done all of the work on the paper and that the
other people had their names on it only because it was their idea. Aside
from the fact that not giving credit for ideas is still plagiarism, I
suggested that it seemed wildly unlikely that they had had no part
whatsoever in the work, since they both had their names on it. In
addition, I pointed out that changing the title of the paper seemed like
an obvious attempt to mask the origins of the paper.
MrX responded that he had changed the title to make the paper more
applicable to the course.
(Let me repeat that last bit in case you missed it.)
MrX responded that he had changed the title to make the paper more
applicable to the course.
Fucking hell.
I explained, in the slow, careful manner usually reserved for
tantrumatic children, the violent, and the insane, that applicability
was a function of the paper's content (which was unacceptable), not its
title. Moreover, this surely didn't change its authorship. He had no
answer to this.
Once again, we are led to the ineluctable conclusion that MrX makes a
habit of claiming credit for work that isn't his, and that, no more
maybes, MrX is a plagiarizing bullshit artist. And -- let's be honest
here -- he's not even a very good bullshit artist. He's not a Picasso of
bullshit artists, he's more a sort of "Draw Tippy" hack whose work is
sold in Holiday Inn banquet halls. Even his giant sofa-sized lies max
out at $39.95.
Vowing that he would appeal my grade, MrX left my office. Five minutes
later, MomX called. She was in full-tilt boogie Lady Precious Stream
haughty mode and wanted "the matter dropped." She then said that the
chancellor of the university would hire a lawyer for her, as he had done
in the past (!), and that I had better be ready for a legal response to
my accusation.
In retrospect, I'm sorry I didn't laugh.
Just picturing how that scenario would have played out makes me smile.
The chancellor, a former prosecutor and state senator who has obvious
designs on the governorship, is going to put his reputation -- and his
own money -- on the line and hire a lawyer to sue his own school, just
to protect a pissant, penny-ante plagiarist. Suuurrrrre he is. I don't
care if MomX has video of him fisting a dead goat, it's just not gonna
happen.
Alas, I merely muttered something like "I'm sorry, MomX, but it would
unethical and illegal for me to talk about MrX with you."
Later that afternoon, MomX called my office again. I was out, so she
left a message on my voice mail. In that message, she said that she was
still very upset about this matter and wanted to discuss it, and that I
should call her back at the chancellor's office, at 555-0012. (Yes, MomX
worked at TTU.)
This was pretty funny, so I went and got the ObChattel to listen to the
message too (working in the same building did have its convenient
moments). After hearing it, she said, "Wait a minute. MomX works nowhere
near the chancellor's suite; she's jammed into a crappy little office in
the basement, along with two other people."
Subtle, huh? It's not a bad try, actually. If you call a wrong number at
TTU, the secretaries are trained not to tell you, "Hey bud, you've got
the wrong number, try again," but to simply look up the right number and
transfer the call. (Of course, this way people don't ever learn what the
right number is, but hey, it's TTU.) So, if I were to call that number,
I'd hear "Chancellor's Office," which I guess was supposed to intimidate
or scare me. Oooh, the chancellor, booga booga.
The really sad thing is that this has apparently worked for her in the
past. As this thing played out, the ObChattel wound up learning quite a
bit about MomX's history at TTU. It was quite fascinating.
MomX's big claim is that she's friends with the chancellor and his wife,
so everyone has to do what she says -- or, at least, not fire her butt
when she screws up royally. For example, a year or so before we arrived,
MomX was employed as a flunky by the dean of the College of Education.
The dean was about to present a paper at a conference, and she asked
MomX to photocopy it and make a few transparencies. MomX did so and then
claimed co-authorship of the presentation on her own CV. The dean
learned about this and was displeased. (Insert jokes about acorns and
trees here.)
So, MomX was moved to the Development office. There, she promptly
distinguished herself by meddling in all sorts of matters that she had
nothing to do with. She enraged one senior development officer by
approaching the woman's father-in-law for money, and then topped that by
asking another prospect for a small donation just a day after the person
who had been cultivating him for months had submitted a
multi-million-dollar proposal. Unsurprisingly, the prospect concluded
that TTU's fundraising efforts were uncoordinated, and he didn't give
anything.
After that debacle, she was moved to another office. During all this
time, she was pursuing her, ahem, doctorate, but apparently she was
applying the same standards of ethics to her schoolwork that she passed
on to her son. One professor was going to flunk her for some unspecified
transgression, but he was told, flat-out, "She's pals with the
chancellor, so she's untouchable; don't even try."
Discovering her background was enlightening, in a sad and depressing
sort of way. Of course she, and her son, thought they could get away
with this shit; they'd been getting away with it for years. At first I'd
thought that the kid was worried about hiding this stuff from his
mother, but once I heard all this I realized that probably wasn't true.
No, he probably went home every day (he was still living at home, natch)
and swapped lying tales with his mom about their respective days. Talk
about family values.
But then again, as I learned later, he didn't tell her everything. So
much for honor among thieves.
That afternoon, the paper's first author returned my call. He had heard
that there was a problem with MrX and was eager to emphasize that MrX
had done "quite a bit of work" on the co-authored paper, including
creating the charts, graphs, and writing the first draft. In closing,
Author1 noted that MrX should be listed "if not as the primary author,
than as primary co-author."
Yeah, yeah. I don't have a problem with that; I sincerely believe that
the kid did do a lot of work on this thing. But he didn't do all of it,
and not giving credit to co-authors is plagiarism, plain and simple.
And, while I'm thinking of it, why were these folks so quick to defend
him? Wouldn't you at least *try* to ask me about the circumstances?
Could, perchance, this little problem have come up before?
Around this time, my dean called me to her office to ask about an
incoherent letter she'd received from Author3. Apparently, he had
somehow decided that their article had been rejected because I had told
*TFPMJ* that he had plagiarized it. Naturally he was threatening legal
action. Naturally, he also CCed this letter to almost every dean and
lawyer in the university.
Happily, my dean was cool, but things would have been much easier if I
hadn't cared about keeping my job. I would have simply gone to Author3's
office and bellowed in his face: "Your paper was rejected before I ever
called the journal. Your paper was rejected because it sucked.
Nevertheless, your jack-off of a co-author decided to claim sole credit
for it in my course. You are the victim here, asshole!" But no. Still
cowed from the previous November, I made reassuring phone calls and
wrote reassuring letters.
At this point I also met with the university's Dean of Students, who
vowed that he was tough on crime, that he was paid the same whether
there were 25,000 students or 24,999, and whenever I felt like sending
the evidence over, he'd get right on it. I was going to do this right
away, but various administrators in my college told me to wait until the
grade appeal committee had made their decision.
Then things really started to get interesting.
The first formal move was for me to flunk MrX. I'd enter the grade, he'd
appeal, he'd lose, and that would be that. While all this had been going
on, I'd received the printout of kids enrolled in the course; all I had
to do now was to fill in the F circle next to MrX's name, and we'd be
all set.
But there was one, teensy problem: MrX's name wasn't on the printout.
I must have looked pretty funny, sitting at my desk and staring at this
piece of paper, shaking my head and trying to make sense of it. I
checked it against the original printout of enrollees, and sure enough,
there he was; but by the end of the semester, he'd disappeared.
That's not an option. If he'd dropped the course, there'd be a W (for
withdrawal) by his name; never mind the fact that I knew damn well I
hadn't signed any drop card for him, which would have been necessary.
Baby professors are taught that when they have serious problems, that
they should go talk to their dean, so I did. She immediately grasped the
problem, and told me to go straight over to the Department of Records.
She said she'd once had a similar case, where a student who was about to
be keelhauled had forged her name on a drop card in a desperate bid to
get out of trouble, and she suspected that something similar might have
happened.
If only it had been that simple.
It took a while (of course), but we finally established that, according
to the computer, MrX had not just dropped my course; he'd dropped out of
school altogether, before any of this had happened. Never mind the
obvious fact that he'd been attending classes and handing in (someone's)
work, supposedly he wasn't an official student, and hadn't been in
weeks. Whathafuck?
Here's the scam: If a student wants to drop a single course, yes, he
does need the professor to sign a drop card. But, if the student
withdraws from school altogether, no one needs to sign anything. This is
designed to help students who've had a family tragedy, or major illness,
or for some such reason need to leave school quickly and with a minimum
of fuss, but it also provides a neat little loophole for the
unscrupulous.
How, you ask? Because withdrawing isn't necessarily withdrawing. One of
the guys at Records explained, "Oh, don't worry. Sometimes kids fall off
the lists, for one reason or another. When he doesn't get a grade, he'll
come to you and then we can fix it."
Pretty slick, eh? MrX was taking three courses, and supposedly dropped
all three. But, of course, he didn't. Now, when the semester ends, all
he has to do is go to the two other professors, and say, "Gosh, Dr.
Smith/Dr. Jones, there seems to have been a computer mistake, and I
didn't get a grade for your course." Having no reason to suspect that
anything's amiss, the good doctors will then toddle over to Records and
reinstate their grades for poor MrX. He wouldn't do this with me, of
course, but since I was going to flunk him, it's not like he would have
gotten credit for that course anyway. So, he gets two out of three
credits for the semester, and I can't touch him, because I can't flunk
someone for plagiarism if he's not enrolled in my course.
Velly clever, Mr. Bond, but not clever enough.
I explained to the records guy that this happy little scenario wasn't
going to happen. As I put it, ever so tactfully, "This guy is not going
to come to me, because it would not be in his best interest to get the
grade that he knows I'm going to give him."
RecordsGuy: "Ohhhhhh."
The question remained, though: How had this been done? I met with the
Director of Records and learned that the student database does not keep
a log of when changes have been made to records or by whom they have
been made. In addition, one of the data entry folks told me that
backdating records is not only possible, but is a common occurrence.
Thus, anyone who has password access can change students' records -- or,
in this case, backdate dropping out of school -- and no one can track
it.
I asked about backups. I figured that all I needed to do was check the
previous month's backup and see if MrX was enrolled then. If he was,
then it would be obvious -- okay, more obvious -- that something was
stinky in Lubbock. Sure, it's easy to change records in a database,
especially if one knows that it's impossible to determine who made the
changes. But it's more difficult to alter backups of the database. Since
these records are the lifeblood of the university, one would think
they'd be reasonably secure.
One would think that, but one would be wrong.
"You *do* make backups, right?" I asked. Not really. A meeting with the
backup maven at Central Computing revealed that the entire student
records database is backed up nightly. That's it; no longer-term records
are kept. Monthly? In my dreams.
So. Clearly something had gone terribly wrong at University Records, but
we couldn't tell who had done it or when it had happened.
[A committee was formed to investigate this matter. Four months later,
they concluded what I had in ten minutes: There was only a "very slight
possibility" this could have been a clerical error, but there was no way
to determine who made the change or when.]
For a bad moment, it looked as though MrX was going to escape justice.
But, in one of those twists that no novelist would dare use, MomX came
to the rescue!
[Continued in "A Year in Lubbock: Academics, post 3"]
--
Dan Hillman hil...@quahog.org http://www.quahog.org/hillman/