Academic Honesty

Roberts Wesleyan University seeks to promote personal and intellectual integrity within the academic community. Honesty and trustworthiness are not only fundamental principles of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but essential practices within academe. The following behaviors are, therefore, unacceptable:

• Cheating in its various forms
• Plagiarizing (i.e., presenting someone else’s words or specific ideas as one’s own, including inadequate documentation of sources and excessive dependence on the language of sources, even when documented)
• Violating copyright laws and license agreements
• Denying others appropriate access to information in the classroom, library, or laboratory, including but not limited to removing materials from the library without checking them out, removing pages from books or journals, hiding or intentionally damaging materials or electronic information
• Destroying, altering, or tampering with someone else’s work
• Submitting the same or similar work for more than one course or assignment without prior approval from the professor(s)
• Destroying, altering or tampering with academic or institutional records

In cases involving questions of academic integrity, a faculty member shall follow procedures outlined below, typically beginning with direct interaction with the student. If a student wishes to appeal, discussion must move through approved procedures. In no case shall the faculty member’s perspective, authority, or autonomy be violated. Similarly, in no case shall the student’s right to a fair hearing through the Institution’s Academic Grievance Policy be denied.

The Registrar, or designee approved by the Chief Academic Officer, shall function as the Academic Officer of Record. The Officer of Record shall establish and maintain an Academic Integrity File containing the names of students who have violated institutional academic-integrity standards; the file shall include all written documentation concerning the nature of the offense(s) and subsequent action(s) taken. The records of all students with more than one documented violation shall be transferred to individual academic files and noted, as appropriate, on permanent transcripts.* Pertinent personnel directly involved with the student who has committed a second or third offense will be apprised of resultant disciplinary action, and students shall be apprised (through an email sent to their Roberts Wesleyan University email address) of the right to appeal and procedures to be followed. (Records of students with only one documented violation shall be expunged upon graduation.)

The Academic Integrity Committee shall consist of the Academic Officer of Record (ex officio Chair) and three faculty members.  The faculty members will be selected by the Academic Officer of Record from a list of representatives.  There will be two representatives from each school appointed by the Deans of each school.  The Dean should make every effort to select two members from different areas of their school (different departments, disciplines, and our AGE/TUG).  These appointed representatives will serve for three-year renewable terms. For each hearing, the Officer of Record shall convene a committee appropriate to the case under review.  Faculty selected for the hearing, should be outside of the academic discipline of the course where the offense occurred, and if possible, should be outside the discipline of the student whose case is being heard.

The Academic Integrity Committee shall:

• Hear a first-offense case if the student requests such a hearing.
• Review all cases beyond the first offense.
• Recommend disciplinary action in relation to the nature and number of the offense.