Cheating scandal rocks engineering
Give them an A for resourcefulness, but an F for judgment.
Twenty-two freshman engineering students were brought up on disciplinary
charges last month after they were caught pilfering one another's answers
from an Internet homework site that contracts with the university.
Officials said twenty of the twenty-two students have accepted responsibility
for the indiscretion and face up to one year's probation. The remaining
two have chosen to fight the charges in student court.
The students-all members of a Physics for Scientists and Engineers course-apparently
found a glitch in the Web-based computer program that enabled them to receive
the same randomly selected question as the person using the computer
before them and then submit the identical answer to that question. The
plot was foiled when some classmates witnessed the cheating and informed
one of the course instructors, professor Nathan Israeloff.
Richard Scranton, associate dean for undergraduate engineering programs,
said the college has always stressed academic integrity to its students,
both in the student handbook and in classroom conversations. In light of
this year's incident, he said he will distribute published reports on the
alleged incident to all of next year's entering freshmen.
"What we do is design a process that over five years graduates
a highly competent, self-assured, ethically responsible engineer,"
he said.
Provost David Hall said he would encourage N.U. to continue using the
Internet site, WebAssign, noting that the university should not "shy
away from technology [just] because there might be some misuses.
"It's too invaluable," Hall said. "We should be willing
to use the mechanism while safeguarding ourselves and the students."
In the meantime, officials said they hope those ensnared in this year's
scandal have learned their lesson.
"When these students get out into engineering practice and they
are confronted with an ethical situation, they're going to remember the
feeling [of being caught]," Scranton said. "That's the most valuable
lesson you can have."
Former students pay tribute to "Doc"
Riser
For more than thirty years, the annual Riser lecture has honored those
who have made a significant contribution to the field of marine biology.
This year, an additional honor was bestowed on the man for whom the lecture
is named.
More than seventy former students, faculty members, and research associates
of Nathan "Doc" Riser gathered in Nahant last month to celebrate
the Marine Science Center founder's eightieth birthday. Riser, who served
as director of the center from 1967 to 1985, was feted with a special slide
show featuring his former students.
"The slide show made me think that I did something right with my
life," Riser said.
A member of the biology department for twenty-eight years, Riser is
the world's leading authority on interstitial marine nemerteans, or flatworms.
On Riser's retirement in 1985, his students named the annual lectureship
in his honor. Bruce Collette from the National Museum of Natural History
delivered this year's talk, on the fishes of Bermuda.
Prejean to address law school grads
Sister Helen Prejean, the anti-death-penalty activist whose story served
as the inspiration for the Academy Awardwinning movie Dead Man Walking,
will deliver the keynote address at the School of Law's commencement exercises
May 26 in Matthews Arena. Prejean will also be awarded an honorary doctorate.
Prejean's crusade to abolish capital punishment began in 1981 in her native
Louisiana, where she counseled death-row inmates in the state penitentiary.
Since then, her role as a death-penalty opponent has catapulted her to
celebrity status. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in both 1998
and 1999, and her 1993 best-selling book, Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness
Account of the Death Penalty in the United States, was nominated for a
Pulitzer Prize.
Campus Footnotes
Albert Sacco Jr., Snell distinguished chair of
engineering, will deliver the Robert D. Klein University Lecture on May
22 in the Curry Center Ballroom. Sacco, a former NASA astronaut, will speak
on "The International Space Station: Research Tool, Educational Tool,
Commercial Tool." Established in 1964, the annual university lectureship
recognizes a member of the teaching faculty who has contributed with distinction
to his or her field of study.
Northeasterners got a firsthand look at politics inside the Beltway when
Washington Week in Review, the award-winning PBS public affairs program,
brought its insights on the 2000 presidential campaign to campus earlier
this month. The show taped its May 5 broadcast in Blackman Auditorium before
an audience of more than 800 faculty, staff, students, and guests. Moderated
by veteran journalist Gwen Ifill, Washington Week visited Northeastern
as part of a nationwide tour to discuss issues surrounding the upcoming
presidential election.
As the robust economy continues to make filling vacant job positions a
difficult task, university officials have introduced a new employee-referral
program designed to elicit qualified applicants. Under the program, unveiled
last month, employees will be paid $500 for referring office support candidates
who are eventually hired by the university and complete six months of service.
The university is partnering with Nortel Networks to upgrade NUnet, the
campus-wide computing network, to a high-speed, high-capacity data communications
infrastructure. The network will provide users with expanded on-line services
and applications such as electronic messaging, Internet access, distance
learning, and records management, and will extend network services to students
while on co-op.
Gorbachev expresses faith in Putin
While new Russian president Vladimir Putin lacks
leadership experience, he is an intelligent and capable man who will work
to stabilize U.S.-Russian relations, former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev
said during a visit to campus last month.
"Putin will have clear policies-he will have
a predictable policy-and that is more important than anything else,"
said Gorbachev, who led a roundtable discussion on the future of U.S. and
Russian relations during an international conference in the Egan Center.
"Certainly, that is a lot better than having a president at the helm
of a great country from whom you don't know what to expect."
Gorbachev, whose two-day visit to Northeastern
was sponsored by the university-based Gorbachev Foundation of North America,
said U.S.-Russia relations have reached a critical juncture nearly a decade
after the fall of Communism.
The Russian people, he said, feel they have not
received ample credit from Americans for their transformation to a democratic
society, and they have been disappointed by a lack of capital investment
in their country from the West.
"I think the Russians have suffered from
an inferiority complex while America has suffered from a victory complex,"
he said.
Take a BOW!
Oscar Brookins, associate
professor of economics, and Harvey Green, professor of history, have been
awarded Fulbright Scholarships to lecture overseas. Brookins will lecture
this spring on monetary economics at Tallinn Technical University in Estonia,
and Green will spend an academic year at the University of Helsinki in
Finland lecturing on American studies.
Steven Sadow, professor
of modern languages, won the 1999 National Jewish Book Award for Autobiography/Memoirs
for King David's Harp: Autobiographical Essays by Jewish Latin American
Writers. He was presented with the award at a ceremony last month in New
York City.
The perennially strong Northeastern cheerleaders
placed second in their division at the National Collegiate Cheerleading
Competition last month in Daytona Beach, Florida.
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