WQUB: Poshard Plagiarism Investigation (2007-10-19)

Some experts on plagiarism say they're concerned the president of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale will keep his job. A university committee found that Glenn Poshard had committed plagiarism in his dissertation, but that the plagiarism was inadvertent. Poshard has to fix the missing and incorrect citations, and he apologized for his mistakes. But the experts wonder what message this sends to students about the importance of academic integrity. Lynette Kalsnes reports.

The university committee that investigated the allegations reviewed more than two dozen instances where citations were incorrect, inadequate, or just missing in Glenn Poshard's work. The report says there were many cases in which a reader could not distinguish between Poshard's words, and those of his sources.
But the committee decided Poshard had committed plagiarism inadvertently.
The report says members considered the historical context of the time, and found Poshard and some of his fellow students followed a more informal style for citing work.

WORRELLS: It wasn't that people weren't doing the citations, they just weren't doing them correctly, or as comprehensively as they probably should have.

SIU Professor David Worrells was on that committee. He says he's proud of their work.

WORRELLS: I think this is going to allow us to move forward and to also raise that bar. I think SIU is going to be looked at as a standard. This is how things were done at SIU, this is how they approached it, and they did the right thing.

LIPSON: For the committee to give Poshard a wink and a nod, and for Poshard to remain as president of Southern Illinois University, is not just an embarrassment for their university, it's an embarrassment for higher education in Illinois .

Charles Lipson is a political science professor at University of Chicago , and an expert on plagiarism. He wrote the book, "Doing Honest Work in College."
The committee report says Poshard told members he got no guidance from his advisor or dissertation committee about how to cite sources.
He also told them he had no intentions of deceiving anyone, but was following common practices in his department.
Lipson is skeptical.

LIPSON: If you've been educated in United States schools for over 20 years, and don't know that you're supposed to put quotation marks around the words of others when you use them exactly, then you're either too dense or sloppy to receive a PHD, much less preside over a major university like Southern Illinois .

He says there's a clearly understood rule, that when you use the exact words of others, you have to use quotation marks, or indent them, as well as give a citation. Otherwise, the words, are considered as your own.
He says this is not optional.

LIPSON: There was not a quote more relaxed style. This is not casual Friday for scholarship. This is a fundamental understanding that's shared within the academy. It doesn't just involve just one university, it involves many universities. And it's been well understood for 75, 80, 90 years.

SATRIS: The demand for serious referencing and citation and so on it just a permanent fixture of the academic life.

Stephen Satris heads the Center for Academic Integrity at Clemson University .

SATRIS: I think it makes it very, very hard for the university to seriously uphold and impose their standards on the students, when they don't seem to be doing it for those at the very top.

But SIU's David Worrells disagrees.

WORRELLS: I think it will send a message to them as a student they can be subject to the kinds of process we put Dr. Poshard through. Regardless if you're the president of a university or a student, you'll get the same determination.

Some faculty members are calling for an outside investigation, but Worrells doesn't think it's necessary.
Poshard has vowed to support a comprehensive plagiarism policy.
I'm Lynette Kalsnes, Chicago Public Radio.