Plagiarism, from today's Boston Globe:
Classics teacher quits in a plagiarism case
ALBANY - The chairman of the classics department at the University at Albany
stepped down after charges that he plagiarized more than 50 pages of Latin
translations from two other scholars, the school announced Thursday. Professor
Louis W. Roberts also resigned from the post of director of the doctoral program
in humanistic studies. He continues to be a faculty member at the university, where
he has taught since 1989. (AP)
These stories are the tip of a huge iceberg. Clearly, one can't look for moral leadership at the top of the academic hierarchy. I believe many factors contribute to this scandal, beginning with the general decay in moral values in our society, which itself largely reflects a general undermining of our traditional standards of morality such as Christian ethics. The Internet is also a factor, with the ready availability to students of customized reports and papers on any topic that a teacher may assign, providing an irresistible temptation for plagiarizing.
In the Kansas case you cite, parents responded by defending their children and attacking the teacher, another sign, right in our heartland, of our loss of any moral compass.
JC |
