HOW BIZARRE: LIBERAL HARVARD SANCTIONS STUDENTS FOR "CHEATING" ON AN EXAM DEALING WITH CONGRESS?
It the latest show of hypocrisy, Harvard has apparently sanctioned students for cheating on an “open book, take home” exam given in a government class on Congress. Since, it appears that the students were “collaborating” and presenting a “consensus” opinion – they should have been rewarded for their efforts, and given extra credit if they found a lobbyist to pay for the answers.
As reported by the Associated Press …
Harvard: Dozens disciplined over exam cheating
Harvard University said Friday it issued academic sanctions against approximately 60 students who were forced to withdraw from school for a period of time in a cheating scandal that involved the final exam in a class on Congress, drawing criticism from a high-profile alumnus. The school implicated as many as 125 students in the scandal when officials first addressed the issue last year.
The inquiry started after a teaching assistant in a spring semester undergraduate-level government class detected problems in the take-home test, including that students may have shared answers.
Staples founder Thomas Stemberg, a Harvard graduate whose son is a student, on Friday criticized the school's handling of the probe. "If you challenge the entire faculty at the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Law School to come up with a process that took more time, cost more money, embarrassed more innocent students, and vindicated guilty faculty ... that could not have outdone the process that took place," he said. Stemberg, a supporter of Harvard's basketball team, knows some of the students caught up in the scandal and his son knows others.
He wrote a complaint letter to Harvard's president in early January claiming that the professor who taught the government class changed the rules after several exams in which "open collaboration" was encouraged. He alleged that for the take-home exam in question, instructions to students said they couldn't collaborate with professors, teaching fellows "and others." "If the message was so clearly expressed, why did some of the teaching fellows go over the exam in open session ... If they did not get the message, could one expect the students to understand it?"
Stemberg went on to say that while some students "went too far, literally cutting and pasting their answers," others only wrote answers from notes "derived in the collaborative atmosphere the class encouraged." The class was known as "Introduction to Congress," and widely seen on campus as an easy way to get a good grade. More at: News from The Associated Press
Bottom line …
This is another one of those unintended jokes that points to the hypocrisy of the liberals who are attempting to indoctrinate today’s students in the ways, means and benefits of socialism. Today’s students are taught to parrot the professor’s words in order to get a good grade, so what can be more reflective of the “parroting process” than cut-and-paste. Every student on the same page, with the same basic thoughts.
As for the school, this was one of those “feel good” exercises to demonstrate to the wider public that they have some measure of “integrity.” In many cases, something that is far from the truth.
Since the test instructions may have been ambiguous and not well understood, Harvard should have taken the prudent course and re-tested the entire class.
But, there is something that is deeply troubling. What type of school gives an undergraduate class “open book, take home” tests and then grades the result? Unless these were essay answers, why would you expect anything more than a ‘cut-and-paste” recitation of the required answers.
Methinks something stinks at some of our elite liberal academies, especially those whose professors act as governmental advisors.
-- steve
“Nullius in verba”-- take nobody's word for it!
"Acta non verba" -- actions not words
“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.”-- George Bernard Shaw
“Progressive, liberal, Socialist, Marxist, Democratic Socialist -- they are all COMMUNISTS.”
“The key to fighting the craziness of the progressives is to hold them responsible for their actions, not their intentions.” – OCS "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." -- Marcus Aurelius “A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves, and traitors are not victims... but accomplices” -- George Orwell “Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt." (The people gladly believe what they wish to.) ~Julius Caesar “Describing the problem is quite different from knowing the solution. Except in politics." ~ OCS