<p>I’m waiting for her to reply to my email so I can set up a time. And she’s not responding to my emails.</p>
<p>If she is not responding to your emails then you should go park yourself outside her office during her regular visiting hours. You need to proactively advocate for yourself asap.</p>
<p>Did you talk to the instructor who signed the pages? Perhaps there is some misunderstanding here.</p>
<p>OP: You are not in a position to wait around to see if the professor responds to your e-mails at this point. You have to be much much much more proactive. You are treating this like it’s an annoying thing you would rather not deal with, and that attitude is going to get you an F on your record and a potential suspension or expulsion. Like it or not, this is very, very serious. It’s the most important thing going on in your life right now.</p>
<p>As far as the professor is concerned, you have already been proved to be a cheater. She was suspicious based on objective evidence (times to complete labs, variations in the instructor’s signature), and her suspicions were confirmed by valid third-party evidence (the instructor said that wasn’t her signature). That is more than enough to take serious disciplinary action against you. It is true that you can’t be punished without proof that you cheated, but as far as anyone at the college is concerned there is plenty of proof that you cheated.</p>
<p>What you do next depends a lot on whether you did, in fact, cheat. If you cheated, the best thing to do would be to find the money to hire a lawyer. It is unlikely you are going to lawyer yourself out of this. It may be a good idea to throw yourself on the mercy of the committee (or whatever), but that may also be a terrible idea. You need someone experienced with these issues at your college, objective, and adult to guide you.</p>
<p>If you didn’t cheat, you may be able to work your way through the process without a lawyer, but you still need some adult help. You should be talking to someone in the dean’s office who can help you with the process. And you should be working your butt off to figure out how to prove you didn’t cheat. Collect examples of the same instructor’s different signatures from different lab books. Figure out exactly when you completed the labs – your statement that you don’t remember that sounds like an admission of guilt, frankly. Find other people who saw you there. Have a good, coherent explanation of how you finished the labs as fast as you said you did. Get a third party – like a dean – to set up and attend a meeting between you and the professor. Demand a hearing – and make certain you find out what resources are available to help you prepare for it – people and even money. (You can’t afford a handwriting analyst, but the college probably can.)</p>
<p>This isn’t going away, and unfortunately you are way behind.</p>
<p>If you have to provide evidence of your innocence, get copies of signatures in other students’ work and show whoever is in charge of looking at the evidence that the signatures vary just like in your case. Also, if the professor cannot provide evidence of cheating (i.e. if the torn out sheets have been thrown away), point out there is no evidence and you cannot be found guilty.</p>
<p>asdfjgskgj25: I hope you read post #24 carefully. You came to the parents forum for some adult advice. You’ve been given some very good advice.</p>
<p>But your reply is bizarre – prof won’t retn emails, can’t meet, etc. If indeed, you’re innocent, do you realize you can be asked to leave this college over this incident? You’ve not already spoken to your dean or the dept head?</p>
<p>I did meet with her already. I’ve shown her the other signatures in my book, yet she doesn’t care and acts like she doesn’t want to hear it. She filed a dishonesty policy against me. I am aware of how serious this situation is.</p>
<p>You need to be way more proactive. Missing another class in order to try to clear this up should be the least of your worries. </p>
<p>Look at your school’s code of conduct regarding cheating and familiarize yourself with the process. </p>
<p>Document EVERYTHING!!! Start a notebook with copies of every e-mail, correspondence, and memos with phone and personal conversations. Date and initial each entry. </p>
<p>Talk to classmates to see if you can get copies of the signatures in their books. </p>
<p>Keep going up the ladder until someone responds to your concerns. Do not back off. You need to aggressively pursue this. Always be courteous but very firm. Do not use any bad language or threaten anyone. Show them that you are the mature one. Look them in the eye when meeting in person. </p>
<p>When you meet with anyone, have a written agenda and always bring your organized notebook. It is easy to leave out information when in a stressful situation, so the more organized that you are, the more likely you will be able to defend yourself.</p>
<p>I think you need to be a bit more … Mean. You are innocent, so technically, you have a right to be angry. Im not saying go yell at your professor, just let her know that she needs to respond to your emails and at least hear your side of the story</p>
<p>I did that today. I was mean with her. I told her my side and she said it’s not true and that she was going to file a dishonesty policy.</p>
<p>“i clearly remember her signing my book pages.”</p>
<p>To be perfectly honest with you, this turn of phrase, which you’ve used a number of times, keeps striking me as quite odd. One would have expected you to say, “Of course the lab instructor signed it. Who else possibly could have? I certainly didn’t forge her signature. It was signed by her at the end of the lab on that day, when she was signing everyone else’s, etc.” I certainly want to give you the benefit of the doubt but, if you are being completely truthful (and I must say my antennae are up), I hope you are a better advocate for yourself in person than you have been on this board. If you are truly innocent, you need to seek some support asap – parent, guidance counselor, friend, whatever – to assist you in standing up for yourself. First thing I would do is track down the lab assistant whom you say signed the book because you “clearly remember” her doing so, and recount for her your precise and vivid recollection and maybe it will jog her memory and she will clear up this whole mess. On the other hand, if you have fudged any of this, now is the time to try to mitigate the harm by coming clean and seeking mercy and second chance. If you are truly vulnerable here, but you persist in protesting your innocence, you are digging your own grave. Take a deep breath, and think this through carefully.</p>