Skip to main content

MCC Daily Tribune Archive

President's Wednesday Message


These past few weeks have provided several examples of lapses in ethics on the higher education front.  Some of you may have already read “The Shadow Scholar,” an essay in this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education that’s been at the top of its most emailed list and has so far generated almost 300 comments (https://chronicle.com/article/The-Shadow-Scholar/125329/).  The author of the piece is a writer for hire in one of the many research paper mills accessed daily by high school, college, and even graduate students as they seek others to write their papers.  As he writes, “My customers are your students. I promise you that. Somebody in your classroom uses a service that you can't detect, that you can't defend against, that you may not even know exists.”  His essay is compelling, fascinating, and truly sad.   It is one part expose—a glimpse into what we fear, but don’t want to completely acknowledge—and about three parts rationalization.  The Shadow Scholar observes, “pointing the finger at me is too easy. Why does my business thrive? Why do so many students prefer to cheat rather than do their own work?”  Which, if we’re being honest, are very good questions about our educational system and about ethics.

In attempting to respond to these questions, I’ll turn to one of the most profound scholars of the past quarter century—Homer Simpson.  As he once told his wife, “Marge, it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen.”   As odd as that sounds, Homer’s on to something.  Too often, we ignore the red flags that what we’re seeing just isn’t right, doesn’t make sense.  We turn a blind eye because it seems like the path of least resistance.  We don’t want to make waves by confronting others—even our students—about behavior that we know in our bones is unethical.  Our failure to do the right thing makes it even more likely that the wrong thing will happen in the future because it has been made acceptable.

Last week, news broke about the remarkably widespread cheating scandal at the University of Central Florida, in which about 200 students in a business class enrolling 600 have admitted cheating.  This story seems a picture postcard snapshot of the widely acknowledged increase in cheating on our college campuses—largely facilitated by the same outlet bringing you this message, the Internet, and the multiple choice, test bank exams so common in large lecture classes.  What exposed this scandal is nothing magical.  It was simply the willingness of several students to come forward after hearing about the cheating from classmates who were bragging about their accomplishment.  They may have come forward because it was the right thing to do or because they were angered by the inequity of the situation or for reasons we’ll never know.  Regardless, they came forward. 

We want our students to graduate from MCC complete with the academic experience or career-related skills that will make them successful in their fields.  We also have an institutional vision of “improving the quality of life of the individual and our community” and a mission committed to excellence in citizenship.  I encourage you to embrace this vision and mission within a framework that promotes an understanding among our students that education is not just about grades (at any cost), it’s about something much more important:  the pride and joy of learning.  Part of doing this is thinking about how we structure our assessments of student learning.  Do we emphasize only the end result—the multiple choice exam, the one-off paper—or the process?  What message are we sending our students?

I’m curious to hear your thoughts . . . share them on the blog or via e-mail.

Anne Kress
President's Office
11/17/2010