When YU is Lazy About Academic Integrity, Students Suffer
Dinner conversations drift through a myriad of topics. The pros and cons of the caf’s pretzel chicken. Course registration for next semester. Recent movies. Favorite classes. Upcoming winter break plans. And then, frequently, complaints about YU’s endemic cheating problem.
After hearing students talk casually about this topic on multiple occasions, I’ve come to believe that many YU students simply expect cheating to occur in their classes. A couple of months ago, I asked a friend if she found the rampant cheating in some of her classes to be upsetting. She looked at me almost quizzically and then replied, “Well, I cheat too. Everybody does.”
More recently, my friends have told me of several incidents in their classes — with inattentive proctoring and professors expressing lax attitudes toward unwarranted AI usage — that reinforced my growing perception that YU is lazy about its academic integrity.
Many of YU’s classrooms are plagued by blatant, shameless cheating that typically occurs in large and overly crowded test spaces. In these situations, there is often a proctor in front who has limited visibility of the back of the classroom. Students are looking up answers on ChatGPT or holding up their exams for other students to copy. Cheating in these cases should be obvious to proctors — if only more attention was paid to it. The one time I personally observed cheating of this kind, I followed up with friends, who told me that they witnessed similar breaches on multiple occasions.
When acts of straight-up, textbook cheating are normalized, students internalize the notion that cheating is acceptable. Of course, college-age students are morally culpable when they commit such egregious behavior. But when students encounter overt cheating time and again, they come to believe that the only way to fight the broken system is to join it.
Another issue which academically disadvantages certain students is the more subtle problem of “mesorah,” where students pass down their exams, quizzes and homeworks to the next generation of students taking the same course. While this behavior itself is not expressly cheating, it nonetheless places certain students at a significant advantage over others who do not have access to the same material.
This specific problem would be solved if professors were careful to make significant changes to their tests from year to year. In some schools, old exams are made completely available to students in the school library, and professors encourage students to use old material to aid them in studying. In fact, a friend told me that some Stern professors, like Professor Babich and Professor Weiss, implement this policy as well. All YU professors should uphold this standard to ensure that students enter exams on an equal playing field.
Brazen, overt cheating is similarly easy to prevent. In high school, I had a teacher who stood on a desk in the back of the classroom as we took our tests, staring with intense focus at our laptop screens to make sure that absolutely no cheating slipped by. My classmates and I found this funny, but it was effective. This is the kind of vigilant proctoring that YU must implement. Simply ensuring that all testing occurs in spacious rooms with separated desks and multiple proctors — and that tests are taken either on paper or with Proctorio — would eliminate a large part of the problem.
Again, when students cheat to advance their own grades, they both commit an individual act of immorality and chip away at a broader culture of academic trust. But when these acts of cheating are motivated not only by academic insecurity, but by an awareness that maintaining high moral standards may place students at a disadvantage relative to their cheating classmates, the system is also at fault.
Unfortunately, cheating is an age-old issue at YU. In the past, administrators have encouraged students to take accountability for the permissive environment and to report any instances of cheating that they encounter. On the other hand, students have pointed out that because of the close-knit nature of YU’s community, students are unlikely to report on their friends.
I truly hope that our administration cares deeply about the integrity of our institution. Recent course evaluations asked students to respond on a scale of “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” as to whether or not students and professors in each course upheld the standards of academic integrity. I trust (and have heard on good record) that the deans carefully review these evaluations and genuinely care about student input. If students, under the protection of anonymity, answered truthfully, then it will be clear that YU is in dire need of change.
The Commentator has historically published countless pieces decrying the state of YU’s academic integrity. At the risk of repeating what others have said before me, I offer another piece on the subject. As finals approach, I urge professors and deans not to let cheating slide. Because although the problem is old, the students are new. And we are yet another generation of students that stands to suffer if YU remains lazy.
Photo Caption: Student taking a test
Photo Credit: Pixabay
