THE DEPAUW
T UE S DAY, S EP T E MBER 2 0, 2 011 | INDI A N A’ S OL DE S T COL L EGE NE W S PA PER | VOL . 16 0, IS S UE 9
Cyclists fifth in nation By MICHAEL APPELGATE sports@thedepauw.com
Junior Aaron Fioritto competes in collegiate track nationals Saturday afternoon at the Major Taylor Velodrome in Indianapolis. For photographs and videos of the races, visit thedepauw.com. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MIKE FIORITTO
With high hopes to build off of a secondplace finish in last year’s Collegiate Track National competition in Indianapolis, the DePauw cycling team instead walked away with a fifth place finish in the Div. II standings and gained experience for next year. “I’m definitely proud of what they did,” said head coach Kent Menzel. “When you consider that we had two riders who had never been on the track before this summer, I think it was an excellent result.” With just four riders, juniors Aaron Fioritto and Chris Day, sophomore Abby Prine and freshman Will Gleason, the team competed at the Major Taylor Velodrome against Div. I schools as far away as the University of Washington in Seattle, to teams as close to home as Marian University in Indianapolis. In order to score points, the riders had to deliver their best performances to place among the top-30 finish-
ers in their events. Finishing atop the Div. II standings was the U.S. Military Academy with 907 total points. In second was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with 821 points. Cumberland University and Kutztown University of Pennsylvania finished third and fourth with 365 and 346 points, respectively. Prine turned in impressive performances as the team’s only female rider. Finishing 22nd in the 200-meter flying sprint and 27th in the 3-kilometer time trial. Prine scored 129 of DePauw’s total 322 points. Menzel has high hopes for her development in the sport of cycling. “She is well on her way to being a strong and powerful racer,” Menzel said. “She comes into the sport with a lot of natural athletic ability. In the team sprint, she was just stunning. We have to figure out how to tap into that energy next year.”
Cycling | continued on page 11
Academic dishonesty on the rise at DePauw, two potential causes identified By CRYSTAL LEE news@thedepauw.com
The consequences for committing academic dishonesty can lead to a grade of zero, failure of a course or even dismissal from the university. Over the last five years, there have consistently been between 10-20 cases of students being charged with academic dishonesty. However, during the 2010-11 academic year, that number rose, with 25 reported cases in the fall and 24 in the spring. Carrie Klaus, assistant dean of academic life, said it’s tough to assess the situation because it’s a slight increase, but not an insubstantial one. Klaus administers the academic integrity policy and deals with cases of academic dishonesty. She acknowledges that there could be more than one cause for the increase. “It could mean that more students are panicking and making bad decisions under stress, and
if so that’s something we need to be concerned about,” Klaus said. “Or on the positive side, it could be that professors are being more consistent. They’re holding students to a higher standard and they’re treating students more consistently across the university, and there’s just more reporting of cases — that it’s not necessarily more cases, but we’re just handling them more thoroughly.” Senior Christy-Ann Nartey feels differently about how the university handles cases. “I think DePauw, to some extent, does a really poor job at it — in terms of us cheating in classrooms,” Nartey said. “I’ve been in classes or exams where people have cheated and by the time you’re ready to report it, you forget about it. As much as we try to tell students to be academically honest, in the classroom it’s really not like that at all.” Though all cases may not be reported, there is a penalty system in place. When a student first violates the academic integrity policy, they typically receive a zero on the assignment and a lower final course grade.
“In 90 percent of the cases there’s a settlement form and after the faculty member and student discuss, the student signs the form admitting that he or she did plagiarize or cheat on an exam, take the penalty and move on,” Klaus said. “It’s completely confidential.” If a student feels he or she is being treated unfairly or that the penalty is too harsh, he or she may have a hearing before the University Review Committee. A second violation of the policy is more serious, and typically results in suspension from the university. Klaus, who is also a French professor in the modern languages department, believes that though consequences are necessary when a violation occurs, professors can play a role in helping students learn how to avoid breaking the academic policy. “As a professor, [what] I’m really concerned with is that the student not only learn French, but also learn how to write a good paper and more importantly learn the value of honesty and turning in
work that he or she can be proud of,” Klaus said. “As professors, I think we can all do things like try to help students avoid getting in these situations, because a lot of times, it’s panic.” Other students, however, would never consider taking the risk of plagiarizing or cheating, regardless of the potential pay-off. “For the past two, three years, I’ve been thinking if I cheated, maybe my grades would’ve been so much better, but I’d rather have honest work and graduate than be dishonest and get caught,” Nartey said. Others feel academic dishonesty shouldn’t even be an issue, especially after a student begins taking classes in his or her major. “It’s really not fair to other people, but at the same time, especially if you’re like in upper-level classes doing this, it’s really actually kind of sad that you would need to cheat on stuff that’s in your own major,” said senior Gabriel Lopez. “It should be things that you should already know about or at least should like enough to study well for.”
INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Winter Term trip to China cancelled due to lack of interest among students, see page 3 for full story