Are you U of M students disciplined?

Unprofessional conduct and vandalism up in 2005-06

MICHAEL OLSON STAFF

How disciplined are students at the University of Manitoba? According to the Annual Report of the University Discipline Committee (UDC), most students have remained relatively obedient. However, with offences ranging from neglecting to properly cite a source on an essay to graffiti-tagging school property, many students are still breaking the U of M’s codes of conduct.

The report, which was submitted to the president’s office in Dec. 2006, stated that in the 2005-06 school year there were a total of 432 incidents committed by students, categorized either as academic dishonesty or inappropriate behaviour. Overall, roughly 1.6 per cent of students were involved in an offence and dealt with the UDC, a slight increase from 2004- 05’s 1.1 per cent.

These numbers only refer to disciplinary actions by the U of M. The report does not include more serious incidents that might have been dealt with by outside authorities.

One area of some concern is unprofessional conduct, according to Ruth Berry, chair of the UDC and a professor in in the department of family social sciences. From 2000- 05, there were only three incidents of unprofessional conduct. During the 2005-06 year alone, however, there were 12 incidents deemed as such.

“I was shocked by that. It may just be an anomaly,” said Berry, “but I think it’s really important for us to flag those issues because the penalties were not very great for those incidents.”

Another area of some concern for the UDC is vandalism. Acts included damage to hotels on student field trips, graffiti on residence walls, and broken windows. From 2000-05, six individuals were reported to have been involved in acts of vandalism. During the 2005-06 year alone there were 32.

The UDC will continue to watch these issues closely to decipher some sort of possible trends related to them, and will look further into how to encourage more professional conduct to abate such activity.

One area of relative improvement is computer-related incidents. Though there were 49 reported cases of computer-related incidents last year — up from 17 during the 2004-05 year — the number is a significant drop from the 494 incidents recorded during the 2003-04 year. However, this does not necessarily infer that students have become more disciplined with regard to computers.

In 2004-05 year, the discipline committee removed the sub-category of spreading computer viruses from the category of computer-related incidents.

“We realized that a lot of the time people are unaware that they are spreading the virus; it simply gets on to their computer and they infect other people,” said Berry. “So we took that category out, and that’s probably the main reason why [computer-related incidents] are lower.”

Computer-related incidents still managed to nearly triple during the 2005-06 year when compared to the year before. According to the UDC report, such an increase may have some relation with the increase in the sharing of computer accounts, an offense that occurred 29 times within the year and led to the suspension of eight students.

According to a survey of undergrads conducted by the U of M’s office of student advocacy in 2000, 72 per cent of respondents thought competition for grades contributed highly to academic dishonesty. Also, 79 per cent felt that the pressure for grades was a factor.

“I believe we’ve worked very hard to incorporate education on the topic [of academic dishonesty] here at the university,” said Lynn Smith, executive director of student services. “We do a great job of confronting these issues, and we’re always looking to improve.”

In another survey conducted by the office of student advocacy in 2002, 46 per cent of students Canada-wide stated that they had professors who never or seldom discussed plagiarism. At the U of M the number was 35 per cent.

For graduate students the overall number was 72 per cent, whereas at the U of M the number was 47 per cent. According to the annual discipline report, 17 students faced with academic dishonesty sought appeals, with 10 ultimately receiving reduced punishments.

“If a penalty is warranted, we help the student deal with the problem and try to help them recover,” said Smith.

No students accused of inappropriate behaviour sought an appeal.