(applause)
-: Everybody welcome to Mississippi State.
I'm Tabor Mullen,
and I'm here to talk to you
about our student honor code,
and just to check, check out what my crowd,
where everybody's from,
how many, raise your hand if you're
from Mississippi State University.
Okay, good, and raise your hand
if you're from another institution
that had an honor code.
All right, great.
That shows me a lot.
Honor codes are very different
from just simply adjudicating academic misconduct, okay,
and the significant difference of that
is the pro-active piece
that Mississippi State emphasizes
in its student honor code.
Every institution in academia
across the world has issues with academic misconduct.
Mississippi State is no different.
We choose though,
instead of having the philosophy of hiding that,
we choose to make it very public;
so my, I, and my staff,
will make countless presentations to groups
about the student honor code.
You will have it on your syllabus
and you will have it hopefully in every classroom.
So it is a visible reminder
to the ideals of honesty and integrity within your work,
okay, and so there are two policies
at the institution that really govern student behavior:
The code of student conduct,
which governs behavior associated
with your class room,
so someone who becomes disruptive, okay.
People who steal, okay.
Physical behaviors.
And then there's the student honor code
and its eight charges are associated
with academic misconduct,
so I'm kind of talking to two groups right now.
I'm talking to people who are about to start
your academic career in graduate school
or about to finish it.
I just finished class work in my PhD
last Thursday, it is one of the greatest feelings.
Now, now if I could just get
my dissertation done,
I can join the ranks of Dr. Bruce and Dr. Keenum.
Dr. Hyatt and so I understand what you're going through,
but here's what I ask of you.
When we're talking about you as the instructor
are an upholder of the honor code, okay.
Roughly 300 students this year
out of 21,000 are gonna commit honor code violations.
That is a statistical trend since 2009.
We can even reduce that number down a little bit
because roughly 20 of them
of that roughly 300 are gonna do it twice, okay,
and they get to meet with somebody in our staff
and we get to say, hey we really enjoyed you
being here at Mississippi State University
but it doesn't seem like it's going to work out,
and sometimes y'all that is people
who blanket plagiarize an entire paper,
sometimes that is people who cheat,
50% of that 300 is gonna be plagiarism.
About 45% of it is going to be cheating of some type,
and it dawned on me as Dr. Keenum was talking,
the third largest charge
and the fastest growing aspect of the honor code
is what we call academic fraud.
Okay, and that is in its,
in a nutshell is when students swipe in
or say that they're here
and they're not actually here, okay.
You're thinking "Wow, that's an honor code violation?"
Absolutely because participation
is a major part of most of our classes, okay.
That is the growing, that is the number one
the fastest growing charge with inside the honor code.
So when you take role, make sure they're there okay.
That they're not just simply swiping
in an electronic classroom like this
and then turn around and leave.
The good thing for you as graduate students
is only about 3% of graduate students
ever violate the honor code, okay,
but we owe it to ourselves
at an institution as highly...
We hold our academic reputation
in Mississippi State very seriously,
so when you're doing your work,
make sure it's your own, okay.
We have a plethora of resources
at the institution, from the writing center,
to your major professor, okay,
and you, the chief advocate are
to academic misconduct,
it not necessarily always the honor code,
it is the faculty member in charge of the classroom
because y'all will be the ultimate decider
in what is in many ways,
what is the expectation of the assignment,
so be very clear.
Be very careful what situations
you put yourself in.
And if it comes a time
where you find that somebody
may have violated the honor code,
I want you to think about this,
think about the guy
with the weird glasses who came
and talked to you at the workshop.
If you're uncomfortable dealing
with an issue of academic misconduct,
my office will be glad to handle it.
You had the right to handle it,
and you will probably do that
in consultation with your major professor,
but you have the right to handle that case,
but if you don't want to do it
because you are working on ...
You're working on your thesis,
you're working on your dissertation
or you just simply don't want to be the bad guy;
Let us handle it.
Do not cut deals with students associated
with honor code.
What does he mean by that.
I'll give you a a great example.
It's not unusual sometimes
for an instructor to say well,
"You know Tabor, you cheated
"on this course on this test
"and I'm going to give you
"a zero on the assignment."
Okay, or I'm going to dock you
a letter grade,
but I'm not going to report it
to the honor code.
And then at the end of the semester,
that student comes back
and he files a grade appeal,
and there's no documentation
of the honor code.
And student wins the grade appeal
and you look at the student
and go "Well wait now,
"we had this deal",
he goes "You know sir,
" I don't know what deal you're talking about."
It happens okay.
My office and the Dean of Students office
is also in charge of all the background checks, okay.
I have many conversations with students
and parents about academic misconduct
and what that mark means
should you receive a violation.
Most of the time,
what they're looking for is,
these outside agencies,
they're looking for
a repetitive pattern of behavior.
Good people violate the honor code, okay.
The number one reason
for violating the honor code
is not because they intended
to cheat their way through college.
The number one reason
is they procrastinated.
And they didn't take the time
to appropriately give credit where credit's due,
and in some ways,
for those 20 students who violated it twice,
yes, it is a career changing,
life changing aspect;
but for the most part,
while it is bad,
it is something that we can grow from,
and make sure it doesn't happen again.
So the honor code by itself
is very progressive with regards
to educational sanctions.
Not everybody who violates
the honor code is suspended,
in fact, the number one sanction
inside of the honor code,
over its time is a zero on the assignment.
But what I ask of you
is to be true to the process
and if you expect,
suspect a violation has occurred
in your office, call my office.
Let us work through it
so that we do it the right way.
As y'all can imagine in academics,
it is a very bureaucratic process, okay,
but that process is grounded
in fundamental fairness,
and is grounded is due process,
and those are important tenets
that we have to provide each
and every student who violates
or potentially violates the honor code.
And that's why your information
and giving us the information to start out with
is so vitally important.
I can talk about the honor code for hours
but I hope that I have gotten a point,
across the point that we take it incredibly serious
at Mississippi State okay.
If you want to read more
about the student honor code,
go to students.MSState.edu.
We have a ton of information associated with that.
Our behavioral intervention team
that Dr. Hyatt just mentioned,
and we're to help you.
Help you as students,
and help you as an instructor
inside of the classroom,
so if there's anything that I can ever do for you
or the student honor code can,
come and talk to us.
We are not,
we are truly here to help students graduate
from Mississippi State
and we're here to help them in any way
that we can, and sometimes that
is finding them responsible
for violating the student honor code.
My office is located in 608 Allen Hall,
be very-Hey I'm right down from the graduate school.
Be very careful about riding
the elevators in Lee Hall.
I haven't taken them in about six weeks
because it starts to shake
every once in a while and so,
but in all seriousness,
if you need anything
from the Dean of Students office
or the student honor code office,
come and talk to us
and we will do anything we can
to help you through the issue
that you're bringing to us.
Thank y'all so much for all of you.
(applause)