CTSE Sponsors Brown Bag Discussion on Academic Integrity

On Wednesday October 27, The Hofstra Center for Teaching and Scholarly Excellence hosted its second brown bag discussion of Academic Integrity. The conversation focused mainly on what faculty thought were best practices when it came to promoting academic integrity, and whether there was adequate support from among students toward this end. Focusing first on the University's mission, it was affirmed that despite recent word changes, Hofstra still takes "cultivating students' ethical and social responsibility" to be a core educational goal. Still, there was also consensus that among some students the "case for integrity" still had to be made. It is our job to help them see how in their "long-run" interests are ill served by short-term short cuts. As Susan Martin said toward the end of the discussion, we've got to make clear to them that "We are in this thing together. Together we create the atmosphere that makes their education possible. We (both faculty and students) will do what needs to be done to ensure that students graduate with the skills they came to Hofstra seeking. And together, we're not going to allow a few outliers (i.e. those few who cheat regularly) to undermine what we do, or define the Hofstra experience.

Among those at this discussion there was considerable agreement that moving toward a more robust honor code structure, one where students regularly affirmed their commitment to honesty when submitting assignments, would be a reasonable strategy to consider seriously.