<p>Would it be possible for her to negotiate a settlement with the Dean, who has admitted that the system is faulty, to withdraw from the course, no penalty, and take it again with a different professor?</p>
<p>He already told her there is nothing that he can do about it when she went to go speak with him. And she already had to sign the form that said she cheated, so I think it’s too late to do anything.</p>
<p>The more I think about this, the more outrageous I think it is!
Here are some ideas about what she could do at this point (takes some organization! And fortitude so she should think carefully before she does these. Can only be done if she absolutely did not cheat!):
- Assemble her evidence, then go to the department chair, explain the whole story, including the fact that she was intimidated into making a false confession, in part to save a parent’s job
- Does this professor teach second semester? If so, shortly after your gf meets with the department chair, get a lot of students who have signed up for his class to go to the department chair and request a transfer into another section, giving the reason that they have learned that this professor falsely accuses students of cheating when they have improved in their mastery of the class material
- If there is no other section, they should ask for permission to cross-register for this class at another university
- The department chair will say no to these requests, but at least will be alerted to the fact that this problem has a public relations aspect to it also. Or, he may just refer them to the registrar. Again, the students will drive the point home.
- If he does not teach second semester, get students who are on track to take the class next year go to the department chair and ask permission to avoid this professor by cross-registering or being in another section
- When the department chair says no, the students can go to the Dean
- Get this story into the school newspaper, school radio station, or other media. If you can, first get anonymity for the victim (your girlfriend).
- At the very least, blast him on the teaching evaluations and get others to do this.</p>
<p>I followed this thread with interest in part because I wanted to better understand OPs motivation for posting it on CC.</p>
<p>In the end I was deeply disappointed by the not so subtle approach to make a very private situation (possibly alleged) public. By identifying the University, the course, and the details of the tests, I would expect that anyone at Emory with a bit of inquisitiveness would figure out all the parties involved. We (the cc community) have no ability to ascertain any aspect of the case (since it’s presented second hand and at best it is anecdotal), nor does the professor involved have a chance to present the other side of the alleged incident. All I can say is that there is a general lack of integrity in the post.</p>
<p>“there is a general lack of integrity in the post”
And in the situation, if the poster is correct that cheating did not occur.
Desparate situations create desparate actions.</p>
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<p>If this is how you feel, then you would be really deeply disappointed by what these kids typically post on facebook. Complete with pictures - no need to guess anyone’s identities.</p>
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<p>Um, duh. Did you really think you needed to remind anyone of this? </p>
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<p>Um, duh again. Do you think you are the only one who gets that?</p>
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<p>All I can say is that there is an overabundance of condescension in your post. </p>
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<p>What is YOUR motive for posting on this thread?</p>
<p>So nice to know that thw worth of a person’s integrity can be so easily quantified…</p>
<p>Wow, did anyone mention that perhaps the honor council would have sided with the girl due to insubstantial proof?<br>
At any rate, if she has a goal of med school, she needs to retake organic chem this summer, always sit up front and get a great grade. Lots of pre-meds don’t do well in one of the hard science classes, but they know the value of proving themselves capable.
Agree that she should sit up front and do well on the final.
The dean/dept chair may have waivered only because he does not know if the student cheated. If she scores well on the final, she has every right to approach him again (or whatever level of student affairs handles this) and ask for a reconsideration of the mid-term grade.</p>
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<p>Did it ever dawn on you that perhaps the OP’s motivation was to create a real-time record of the events stored on an objective third party’s server?</p>
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But how does anyone, including the OP, know what conversation took place between the girl and her parents? Maybe she admitted to them that she ‘did’ cheat. We don’t know. I agree that if she were truly innocent of cheating she should have fought this and the parents should have encouraged her to. None of us knows the real story.</p>
<p>^Hence the “if what you’re saying is true” clarification.</p>
<p>I’ve been following this thread and I’m extremely disappointed in the outcome as well. </p>
<p>I think it’s not too late - if she gets a great grade on the final, she can go back to the professor/dean and explain she was intimidated into the confession. I know she’s stressed out, but fight, not flight, is the answer here. It sucks but people will be *******s all throughout life…she’s gotta learn to stand up for herself.</p>
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<p>Sigh. In your daily life, are you unable to figure out if something is likely to have happened to a reasonable degree of certainty unless you actually witnessed it or overheard it? Of course not. All of us make decisions on a daily basis about whether or not we think someone is telling the truth. How we determine that is by evaluating things like how well we know the person, have we ever caught them in a lie before, does the person generally behave in a way that one would describe as morally honorable, does what they are saying sound reasonable based on other relevant facts that we know are true, etc. We evaluate the person’s body language and how nervous they appear. We evaluate if questions we ask them at a later date are answered consistently with questions we asked them earlier.</p>
<p>Seriously. Every day of my life in my personal life and at my job I have to figure out whether or not to believe people when they tell me things that I have not personally witnessed or overheard. Don’t we all? I make a judgment call based on my insight into human behavior that I have gleaned from decades of living on this earth and my powers of deductive reasoning. It is not very difficult for me to do and I do it daily.</p>
<p>Sometimes I don’t know a person well enough or don’t have enough corroborating facts to be able to determine whether or not what they are telling me is true. And in that case, I come to the conclusion that I can’t tell whether what they are telling me is true or not to any reasonable degree of certainty. But in this case, presumably the young man knows his girlfriend well enough to make a judgment call as to whether or not she is telling the truth. From what he has posted, he has not just taken her word on it. He has asked questions and examined relevant facts and come to a conclusion. Clearly, he has a bias to believe her given his relationship with her but I am pretty sure that most of us posting here realize that.</p>
<p>You don’t have to actually witness/overhear an event to be able to come to a conclusion as to whether or not what you are being told about the event is true to a reasonable degree of certainty. Or at least I don’t, maybe you do.</p>
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<p>Yes, thank you.</p>
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<p>Amen sister.</p>
<p>By all means tell us how the final goes.</p>
<p>atacom,</p>
<p>Sigh yourself. You seem quite worked up over info from a person who wasn’t present through any of this and people should realize that the student’s conversation with her parents could have been different than her conversation with the BF. This happens all the time believe it or not. For all we know she fessed up to the parents. </p>
<p>I did note your ‘if’ and agree that if what the OP ‘thinks and states’ is true then the parents should have encouraged her to fight this. OTOH maybe the loss of FA would mean she’d have to withdraw from the college and the parents made a decision based on the lesser of the two impacts.</p>
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<p>That assumes that an innocent person would be found guilty. </p>
<p>If it were my kid and she were innocent NO WAY would I advise her to plead guilty. I’d fight it tooth and nail. From the details provided by the BF, it sounds likely that she was innocent. </p>
<p>I agree with Atacom. <em>IF</em>–and that is a big if–matters are as described here, her parents are cowards whose honor is bought and paid for, and all too willing to crawl before authority.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, admitting to the cheating and taking the 0 will leave a black mark on her transcript which will potentially haunt her for the rest of her life, whether applying for jobs or grad school. </p>
<p>She’ll certainly have serious issues with working in the banking/financial or legal sectors where potential employers and licensing boards will conduct extensive background checks to ensure you have had no serious disciplinary incidents in school, criminal convictions, or signs of dishonesty/lack of respect for integrity. The last will definitely be called into question if the employer/board finds a notion of cheating on the transcript. </p>
<p>Have a few friends now who have struggled to find gainful employment and/or admittance to grad school because of this very issue.</p>
<p>Thank all of you for following this, I agree that I might have let out a bit too much information, which I might ask a moderator to delete. I know it isn’t but I felt like it is somewhat my fight (I felt frustrated and needed to vent), I have lawyer instincts, but it is not up to me whether to fight this or not anymore. I think she has had enough of the stress of this entire situation and I think it might be done. I think her parents just have the mentality of working hard through stuff like this and persevering instead of fighting, and it’s instilled in this situation. And withdrawing or transferring was probably going to happen if she lost the scholarship, it’s an expensive school. I will try to update on the final grade.</p>
<p>Also, if anyone else really has really strong advice, feel free to private message me, I can’t answer everyone in this thread.</p>