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dukie8
04-30-2007, 08:47 PM
this isn't really basketball related but i don't know where else to post it:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aHRf60iI4Y20

i was blasted with emails at work today and am surprised that nobody has mentioned it on here. it's tough to tell what went on but i am glad that duke is taking the high road. it would have been easy to sweep under the rug and avoid the additional negative press it has generated.

SeattleIrish
04-30-2007, 09:51 PM
dukie8:

I'm unclear on just what the offense was. At one point the article states:

In 2005, the Harvard Business School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management and others rejected 150 applicants who tapped into an online database to see if they had been accepted.

In another section it states:

The course professor noticed similarities in answers given by some students on a take-home exam, Hemmerich said.

Can anyone share a little more information on this? The article was very vague.

thanks,

s.i.

JBDuke
04-30-2007, 09:51 PM
And that's our own Boswell quoted extensively in the article. I'm sure this is NOT how he would prefer to have his name in the paper...

hurleyfor3
04-30-2007, 10:18 PM
If the students really did cheat, and received their punishment after a compeletly fair trial, I'd call that good news for Duke. It sure beats the way Duke has handled similar matters recently.

Ralph-Wiggum
04-30-2007, 10:43 PM
Can anyone share a little more information on this? The article was very vague.

thanks,

s.i.


I don't know many of the details, but on the radio I heard something akin to how a number of students collaborated on a take-home test when they were clearly informed that there was to be no collaboration.

Here's a bit more information (though it's not too detailed either). (http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2007/04/30/News/34.Punished.For.Cheating.In.Mba.Class-2888102.shtml)

dukie8
04-30-2007, 10:46 PM
dukie8:

I'm unclear on just what the offense was. At one point the article states:

In 2005, the Harvard Business School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management and others rejected 150 applicants who tapped into an online database to see if they had been accepted.

In another section it states:

The course professor noticed similarities in answers given by some students on a take-home exam, Hemmerich said.

Can anyone share a little more information on this? The article was very vague.

thanks,

s.i.

it sounds like they were collaborating on a take-home exam:

"The course professor noticed similarities in answers given by some students on a take-home exam, Hemmerich said."

i was hoping someone closer to the action could some light on it. i'm sure that fuqua is swirling and everyone there knows what went on (almost 10% of the class got taken down).

freedevil
04-30-2007, 11:07 PM
Alluding to the culture of "I must get a good grade or else" that has affected many schools does seem to suggest that a lot of kids knew what was going on. I hope it wasn't just the professor noting similar answers that unveiled this, I would hope some students would have the decency to turn these other kids in.

hc5duke
04-30-2007, 11:52 PM
http://biz.yahoo.com/weekend/mbacheat_1.html

The exact same thing happened in my MEM program, except nobody got caught.

dukemomLA
04-30-2007, 11:58 PM
I don't know why you consider this such bad news. Yes, it sucks that MBA candidates resort to cheating. HOWEVER, I felt the article was actually favorable to Duke. It made it clear that this issue was handled quickly and decisively. It also noted that Duke -- more than other schools -- take their honor code seriously!

dukeENG2003
05-01-2007, 09:26 AM
http://biz.yahoo.com/weekend/mbacheat_1.html

The exact same thing happened in my MEM program, except nobody got caught.

That saddens me to hear as a class of 2004 MEM graduate. Cheating was NOT a prevelant part of the program when I was there. Heck, most of us found the business classes to be so easy relative to the graduate level engineering courses we were taking, we didn't even think of cheating in them.

devilmon
05-01-2007, 12:35 PM
As a Fuqua alum, I am disappointed. However, it reflects positively on our administration. We had a similar incident back in 2001, but there were not as many students involved.

BTW, it was front page news in local papers in Durham on Friday of last week.

CMS2478
05-01-2007, 12:48 PM
Was it some sort of writing test??? Because if it was matching/multiple choice/true false/fill in the blank............I don't know if they could have really enforced the ruling. I was accused of cheating in my Biology class at ECU bc myself and another girl had similar answers on a multiple choice test. But we both had the right answers so what does that prove??? NOTHING!!! I'm guessing it had to be essay questions or something where it would be completely obvious.

By the way I am a teacher and you give a take home exam and tell them not to collaborate.............YEAH RIGHT!!! :rolleyes:

cspan37421
05-01-2007, 02:43 PM
Hi. Long-time lurker, first-time poster.

Business Week posted an article entitled, "Duke MBAs Fail Ethics Test". What is wrong with that title? Only that the students were not yet MBAs. So rather than reporting that Duke stopped a bunch of cheaters from progressing through business school, they gave the impression that Duke's MBA graduates are unethical.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the article closes with some fawning words for UNC's b-school honor council.

As they say, if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

The URL is

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/apr2007/bs20070430_110466.htm

I encourage DBR readers to consider posting a comment on the BW site as I have done. It has not yet been approved and posted, though.

SMO
05-01-2007, 03:35 PM
I've completed take home exams during undergrad and at Fuqua. The expectation is, and should be, that no one cheats. That's why there's an honor code. You think this professor will have to worry about the next time s/he gives a take home exam after these people were busted??

Elementary through high school might be a different story, but once a student chooses to attend a school with an honor code we should expect them to adhere to it.


Was it some sort of writing test??? Because if it was matching/multiple choice/true false/fill in the blank............I don't know if they could have really enforced the ruling. I was accused of cheating in my Biology class at ECU bc myself and another girl had similar answers on a multiple choice test. But we both had the right answers so what does that prove??? NOTHING!!! I'm guessing it had to be essay questions or something where it would be completely obvious.

By the way I am a teacher and you give a take home exam and tell them not to collaborate.............YEAH RIGHT!!! :rolleyes:

hc5duke
05-01-2007, 03:59 PM
That saddens me to hear as a class of 2004 MEM graduate. Cheating was NOT a prevelant part of the program when I was there. Heck, most of us found the business classes to be so easy relative to the graduate level engineering courses we were taking, we didn't even think of cheating in them.

I was also class of 2004 MEM. Just to give you a couple examples, the finance class had take-home exams that the prof encouraged us to work in gruops of 2-3 (I think), but no more. IIRC about a third or close to half of the class (out of about 40) ended up working on it together, just not all at the same time. Marketing had software simulation (Pharmasim?) where teams were supposed to simulate one time-frame per week (I think). Many of the teams I talked to ran multiple simulations (which was clearly forbidden, but there was no way to tell), and only kept the one that gave the best results. I'm not saying cheating was rampant, but it did happen, with majority of the students.

dukeENG2003
05-01-2007, 04:13 PM
pharmasim I know people used a couple iterations, but if I remember correctly, there was at least some limitation to the number you could run (I wanna say 10), so its not like you could optimize, you at least learned something from the cause and effect even if you WERE cheating. . .

And I can't believe people cheated on the finance exams, that class was so ridiculously easy, why did they need to? (I was the guy always falling asleep in the back row of that class, if I even bothered to make it to class that day, needless to say, Skender wasn't a big fan of me. . .)

CMS2478
05-02-2007, 09:40 AM
I've completed take home exams during undergrad and at Fuqua. The expectation is, and should be, that no one cheats. That's why there's an honor code. You think this professor will have to worry about the next time s/he gives a take home exam after these people were busted??

Elementary through high school might be a different story, but once a student chooses to attend a school with an honor code we should expect them to adhere to it.

BUT..............not everybody in the world is 100% honest!!;)

hurleyfor3
05-02-2007, 09:42 AM
I didn't see this already posted to the off-topic board. Feel free to delete.

hurleyfor3
05-02-2007, 09:44 AM
New Bloomberg article (May 2) about how much Duke sucks:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=abxjRDTNl8lo&refer=home

And it doesn't even mention sucking in basketball.

bird
05-02-2007, 10:24 AM
NPR aired a blurb during its news summaries this morning (May 2). An article also appeared in my morning paper.

It isn't paranoid if they are really out to get you.

Oh, and thanks Nifong.

tombrady
05-02-2007, 10:34 AM
New Bloomberg article (May 2) about how much Duke sucks:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=abxjRDTNl8lo&refer=home

And it doesn't even mention sucking in basketball.

pretty fair assessment though. if this happened to any other school, you'd probably say the same thing. it sucks, esp. graduating in '06 while all the sh!t is fresh and steaming, but in 5 years I think Duke will be better off for it all. Growing pain, etc etc. Nothing wrong with pumping even more money into promotion.

The Gordog
05-02-2007, 10:54 AM
Link please.

bluebear
05-02-2007, 12:59 PM
Not to be overly inflammatory but I find several things curious about that article..(maybe just a little inflammatory)

1) Duke is on a record pace for giving...

2) Some prominent Duke alums have chosen to give MORE to help support the University and protect its reputation

3) Some prospective students are scared off by the party-hard reputation of Duke

It's curious that on these boards we've been hearing from a number of posters on how Brodhead is destroying Duke by making it more like some competitors...and yet here from a major media source we have the exact opposite story. Now, I think this story is a lot of bull..the 1.1% drop in apps is not significant (especially given the record last year)..there are probably just as many students who choose Duke for its social atmosphere as reject it for being a party school...and Duke has been on a hot streak for 2 decades and was due for a correction..I'm also not advocating that Duke move in the direction that this article implies..
But I point this out because things are not always black or white. Duke faces an identity crisis in wanting to maintain it's differences from the Ivies (which many define by the social atosphere, athletics, etc) and yet continue to compete academically. With that crisis comes a narrower crop of potential students. Duke can't be everything to everyone and incidents like the LAX mess bring this identity crisis to light by exposing preconceived perceptions. Ultimately, all of this will blow over and this will likely be a minor set back for Duke..It takes suprisingly little to become a "hot school...but I think its clear that there are a lot of different perceptions about Duke that influence applications, yield...countering these differing perceptions is not only challenging but often schizophrenic..

Bluedog
05-03-2007, 12:56 PM
I sent the authors an e-mail presenting my disappointment with the article, particular on their selection of biased quotes. Here's my e-mail and Chris Burrit's reply:

Dear Mr. Burritt and Ms. Credeur,

I wanted to express my disappointment at reading your recent article "Duke's Image Faces More Polishing as Applications Sag," which gave readers an extremely biased and untrue portrayal of Duke. Although I'll give you some credit as you did actually provide some positive quotes via Duke administrators, so the article was not completely one-sided a la "Sex & Scandal at Duke" by Rolling Stone. However, I want to address several key points that I feel are terribly misguided:

1.) "It's not the magnet it used to be." Yes, record applications the last seven out of eight years really indicates it is slipping majorly. This 1.1% drop is so significant; much moreso than Yale's 9.7% decrease, which you fail to mention by number. The quality of applicants this year also are stellar - I don't think many schools can claim they reject 57% of high school valedictorians. And it's still the second-most applications in Duke history with a 19.7% acceptance rate. Duke has the 5th most Rhodes Scholars among private schools in the country - most of whom have come since 1990. Yep, Duke is really bringing in pathetic students now.

2.) "Fresh scandal" "Tarnished Image" "Alcohol Abuse" "Breaking Up Fraternities" - nice buzz words so that more people read your article. Alcohol abuse is rampant on all college campuses - Duke is not known as having major problems. Just look at the Princeton Review studies you cited. Is it even listed among the top 20 for alcohol or drugs? No, not even close. You say 37 freshman went to the hospital for alcohol-related incidents? Wow, a whopping 2% of the freshman class! Also, the title of "breaking up fraternities" makes it seem like the administration is actually planning on that; while, if you took the effort to ask anybody on campus what's actually going on, they'd tell you that students and administration alike think the report has some very premature recommendations, and that particular recommendation is not going to happen. The report also recommended breaking up the Wellness Center - a group of about 30 vegetarians who promise not to drink alcohol in college...very useful report, who only used 2 references - one of which was the Rolling Stones article, an article with one of the lowest journalist integrities I have ever read.

3.) Nice selection of biased quotes. "extra blow" "reputation has been tarnished" "negativity on campus" "known as a party school" Couldn't find anybody not in the Duke administration who actually likes Duke? And the cheating scandal, I believe, has shown the strength of Duke's honor code in that the system ultimately worked. The administration dealt with the issue swiftly and is handing down harsh penalties instead of sweeping it under the rug - yet, of course, no praise for that. I can tell you that the majority of people are extremely positive on campus and do not see it as a party school. Yes, according to a recent survey released in April 2007, a whopping 10% of students hooked up with two or more people in the last 12 months, while 33% hadn't at all in the last 12 months. Clearly, there are crazy, wild, rampant, uncontrolled parties going on all the time at Duke with numbers like those.

4.) "academics have to come first" - As I said before, a school whose students routinely pick up Rhodes, Fulbright, Truman, and Goldwater Scholarships, and that was ranked 6th in the WSJ Feeder Rankings clearly demonstrates the vast majority of students have the mindset that academics come first.

You also take the word of the accuser (who said they were drunk, etc) despite the fact that her entire story was declared false by the Attorney General of North Carolina. I don't understand what it takes. The Attorney General stated that she was either "drunk" or very "impaired," while having taken 3 different prescription medications and consuming alcohol. And you still take her word, and feel it is pertinent to include it?

There were many things misleading about this article, and I hope you try to rectify them in the future by giving a more accurate portrayal of your subject.

Best regards,

----------------
Eric, We were surprised how difficult it was to get Duke administrators to
comment. We attempted unsuccesfully to attend some of President Brodhead's conversations with alumni and to interview him. Both requests were turned down. That said, I understand the points you make and appreciate your msg. I understand it's exam week for students so best of luck on those and best of luck as you move on from Duke. Chris