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• Faculty Responsibility
• Misconduct
• Alcohol Policy

Faculty Responsibility

Faculty members are responsible for instructing students about the meaning and importance of academic integrity and for maintaining this concept throughout the educational process. Students should be told at the outset of a course which forms of collaboration are encouraged or permitted in that course and which forms are not permitted. Rules regarding the acknowledgment of sources should be explained. Instances of dishonesty should immediately be given serious attention, not ignored or humorously tolerated. At the discretion of the faculty member, a first instance may draw only a warning or a requirement that an exercise (for example, a laboratory experiment or paper) be repeated honestly.

Deliberate fraudulence by a student to advance his or her academic status usually merits a penalty of some severity. To govern these cases the University Faculty adopted The Code of Academic Integrity and Acknowledging the Work of Others. Copies of this are distributed each year to new Cornell students and are available at registration for Summer/Winter Session courses, from the office of the Dean of Students, 538 Willard Straight Hall, and from the School office in B20 Day Hall. Rather than assuming a common understanding of academic integrity, please clearly define this concept to your students.

One purpose of the code is to assure students of due process, thus protecting them from possibly arbitrary, unreasonable, or mistaken actions by an instructor. Another purpose is to provide a means of accumulating a confidential record of integrity violations, so that repeated offenses by the same student will be noted and will draw appropriate response. The Cornell University Academic Integrity Handbook describes the process in detail and is available from the office of the Dean of Students, 538 Willard Straight Hall, and from the School office in B20 Day Hall.

These policies may be referenced on the web at the Cornell University Policy Office Website under "Policy Notebook for Cornell Community."

We urge you to familiarize yourself with the contents of this handbook and to follow strictly the outlined procedures should the need arise. Remember, an informal discussion with a student does not constitute a primary hearing. For your own protection and for the protection of the student's rights, stop any discussion in which plagiarism is admitted or perceived and arrange to hold a primary hearing with an independent witness.

Misconduct

Misconduct is any activity that disturbs the normal course of operations in the classroom or in an examination but does not amount to or cannot be established as a violation of academic integrity.

You may impose a grade penalty for misconduct: talking during an examination, bringing unauthorized materials into the examination room (but not actually using them), and disruptive behavior in the classroom. You must promptly notify the student of the grade penalty and to what degree the student's grade will be affected. This notification should also include the student's right to appeal. Please refer to the handbook for further information.

Alcohol Policy

Faculty should also be familiar with the Cornell University policy regarding Alcohol and Other Drugs.