Critical Mass

According to the Economist, a study by a group of professors from Smeal College of Business, Rutgers, and Washington State shows that "56% of business-school students [in Canada and America] admitted to cheating one or more times in the past academic year."  The article continues:

Students said rules and the possibility of punishment had little effect on their behaviour. Rather, they cheated to keep pace with other students, who they assumed were also cheating. To solve this problem the authors recommend that colleges work to create a “culture of integrity and responsibility”. Moreover, they say honour codes “reduce the burden on faculty to monitor and enforce regulations concerning cheating”.

 Most interesting to me in this is the implication that honor codes are at least partially effective.  Why would one follow an honor code if one is willing to cheat on a test?  An intriguing question, to be sure.  Further down in the column, though, is the story of another school that recognizes the apparent benefit of student oaths: at Thunderbird, the Garvin School of International Management, graduating students are required to take an oath of honor, including the line “I will oppose all forms of corruption and exploitation.” 

[Angel] Cabrera [Thunderbird’s president] says it will help remind students to act responsibly in their professional lives, just in case the legal system fails to do the trick.

I guess we'll just have to see how that works out. 

I find it difficult to take seriously the "From the Left" columnist at my school paper, but today's column was especially hilarious. At the start of yet another piece bashing all things Bush and Republican, she referrs to the "incidences like Abu Grab." Anyone else see what I saw?

Now, I've seen the name of that Iraqi prison,where some despicable acts took place, spelled a few different ways--Abu Graib, Abu Ghraib, etc.--but I've never seen it spelled like the nickname of an Arab child molestor!

"Abu Grab." [snickers quietly to himself]

Pete du Pont has written an astounding column in the Wall Street Journal, detailing the pitiful results of ISI's nationwide survey designed to test college students' knowledge of US history and civics.

More than 14,000 students from 50 major universities participated in the study by answering 60 multiple choice questions on topics ranging from US military victories to the Bill of Rights.  The results were disheartening:  The average college senior answered 53.2 percent of the questions correctly---in other words, a big fat F.

What's more, several prestigious universities such as Yale, Brown, and Duke produced "negative learning" trends, meaning that freshmen actually outperformed their senior peers.  I don't think the folks over at ISI are understating matters when they bemoan an impending "crisis of citizenship" in the United States.

In my first journalism class of the quarter earlier today, my professor promised the class that we would discuss "in detail" the role of the media in the "so-called war on terror."  This is going to be fun!