Our good friends in Undergraduate Student Government have had a few proposed rules brought to the forefront, most notably that students accused of cheating can have the right to know who the accuser is.
With that said, I, in my always fair and diplomatic way of looking at issues, can see both sides. If I were accused of cheating, I would want to know who said it … so I could, you know, “talk” to them, but this would also make me less likely to snitch on someone else — especially if that someone was bigger than me.
Maybe we should keep the current system, right? Sure, that’s just what those fat cats in the USG would want to happen — as they light cigars with $100 bills and wait for their “campaign contributions” to roll in.
I say we revamp the entire system. I have setup my own plan for people who get caught cheating in their classes. And don’t worry about sending this idea to the USG, it’s already been taken care of.
For the first violation, the student should be given a warning. It could be delivered with a spanking with the actual schoolwork he cheated on.
Obviously if someone is blatantly cheating — getting answers from someone over a tin can phone — then you could throw them to a pack of wolves who haven’t eaten since the last full moon. But if it happens once where it’s believed that a person could have cheated, give them one strike. That might potentially let a few people get away with cheating, but if someone is a cheater, I don’t think that their one “free pass” will make that much of a difference anyway. They’ll get caught the next time. I doubt that they’ll say, “Pfew, good thing I got away with having that math formula on my hand. From this day forward, I will never cheat again.” (As lightning flashes in the background).
For the second offense, the punishment should fit the crime. If someone gets caught cheating in an environmental science class, they’ll have to pick up trash. Or if someone is caught cheating in English, they’ll have to read a vocabulary builder. This might sound like a draconian punishment and that such ex post facto ostracisms would inevitably cause ad hoc solutions to such vexations; but I submit that the lyceum manifests itself in a venerable fools’ paradise if they reason anything else would be preponderant. In other words, it could work.
For third time violators, they will be shipped away for a semester to study abroad. Obviously not some cool place like Rome. No, they’ll have to go to someplace unfit for learning, like Antartica or the Earth’s core. That might seem unfair, but it could be worse. It’s not like we’re making them study at the University of Toledo.
I had originally thought that cheaters shouldn’t be allowed to read the BG News anymore, but that would be unconstitutional as it’s cruel and unusual punishment. Although I might need to check up on that one. I’m not a lawyer, even though I do pretend to be one in my column. But let’s face it, I pretend to be a lot of things in my column (such as a humor writer).
With all of that said, understand that I still am open to suggestions. But know that this proposal will still be called “The Benner Plan.” So you’re not going to get any of the credit. I heard a suggestion that a fraternity could set up a Risk Management plan on academic dishonesty. I then came up with a name for it; Cheating: the wrong answer.
Someone else had the idea of making cheaters drive across New Mexico in a Kia on a hot July day … with Michael Moore. My friends please. We’re trying to punish people, not kill them.
One student seemed completely against the idea of punishing people all together. He said, “Such castigations will just oblige plebeians to face Scilla and Charybdis when karma will lex talians catch up to them as it is.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
E-mail Josh at [email protected], but make sure you do your own work. He’ll know.