High-profile plagiarism isn't unique to Illinois

Consider the scenario:

A prominent figure at a large Illinois university lifts chunks of his thesis from other sources. A university panel investigates and determines the instances of academic theft were minor and inadvertent.

The accusers are infuriated. The accused claims he's being persecuted. University officials stand by their findings, despite charges they are excusing blatant academic fraud.

That chain of events made national news when Southern Illinois University President Glenn Poshard was accused of plagiarizing parts of his dissertation. Now, the same scenario has played out at Northern Illinois University.

It's the latest in a string of academic "outings" of alleged plagiarists, and comes amid growing questions about how universities define and deal with plagiarism.

It also demonstrates the tightrope university officials must walk between preserving academic integrity -- and preventing academic witch hunts.

The NIU case

In May, four tenured NIU engineering professors filed a complaint against Promod Vohra, the dean of the College of Engineering and Engineering Technology at the DeKalb university.

The professors provided evidence that Vohra's master's thesis -- earned at NIU in 1988 -- included at least 20 sections taken verbatim from engineering textbooks and manuals, but did not include any quotation marks or internal citations.

Some of the lifted passages took up more than half a page, a Daily Herald review of the thesis found.

Still, a university panel determined the copying did not constitute plagiarism -- demonstrating that not all academics adhere to a single interpretation of the term.

The NIU English Department defines plagiarism as "a paper copied in part from one or more sources, without proper identification and acknowledgment of the sources."

The committee charged with investigating Vohra's case decided the definition was not that simple.

The committee took into account that Vohra is an engineer. For engineers, the panel concluded, the central question is whether the problem is solved -- not how it's written up.

The committee also maintained that plagiarism involves the intent to deceive.

Vohra, the committee determined, had not intended to deceive anyone about the nature of his contribution. Rather, he hadn't been coached in proper methods of citation.

SIU in Carbondale made a similar finding in the Poshard case.

SIU professor Gerald Nelms, who investigated Poshard's dissertation, documented 40 citation infractions; yet, Nelms said in a written report that Poshard did "not warrant the label of 'plagiarist,' which, I think most academics would agree, should be reserved for those individuals found to have adopted textual material from other sources with the intent of cheating."

But many academics -- and plenty of laymen who spoke out against the ruling -- don't agree that the label of plagiarist should be reserved just for those who intended to cheat.

"With the absence of attribution, there's no defense," said Timothy Dodd, director of the Newnan LSA Academic Advising Center at the University of Michigan and a senior scholar with the Center for Academic Integrity at Clemson University. "Ignorance of the law is no defense."

Citation requirements are in place for practical, as well as ethical, reasons, explained Daniel Wueste, director of the Rutland Center for Ethics at Clemson University in South Carolina.

"If someone's going to make a move from where you've gotten, they've got to be able to go back and see how you got there," he said.

And the rules, Wueste said, should apply equally to engineers and English majors.

"If you write a thesis, there are a whole set of expectations that come with that," Wueste said. "If they want the cache that comes with having students write theses, then they have to play by the rules of thesis writing."

Plagiarism politics

But plagiarism allegations aren't always about playing by the rules.

Indeed, experts in the field of academic integrity say a disturbing trend has emerged in which faculty members use charges of plagiarism to advance personal or political agendas.

"I care deeply about the state of integrity on our colleges and universities," Dodd said. "But I'm concerned about the motives behind the outings of deans and presidents and provosts.

"I'm concerned that it's retaliation, retribution or political disagreement that's at the root of so many of these outings," he added.

University of Illinois Associate Vice Chancellor for Research Howard Guenther agreed that high-profile plagiarism controversies are "coming up more and more.

"I have noticed that people try to use our office as a weapon for one reason or another," Guenther said.

Plagiarism has a deleterious effect on academia, but so too can anti-plagiarism crusades, academics say.

In excusing Poshard, the SIU faculty member warned that "overzealous prosecution" of citation infractions could have "a chilling effect on scholarship in general."

In recent years, the presidents of SIU, Wesley College in Delaware, Hamilton College in New York and Central Connecticut State have been accused of plagiarism.

Plagiarism cases involving high-profile, controversial professors also have occurred at Columbia University, Harvard University, University of Nevada and University of Colorado.

Both Vohra and university officials believe he is a victim of a politically motivated smear campaign.

When contacted for this article, Vohra responded by e-mail, "I have been completely exonerated after a six-month exhaustive investigation process.

"I feel it may be more important to find out the motivation of the accusing faculty for trying to take my good name through mud and continuing to attack me despite a detailed investigation by the university."

Vohra's accusers have been dogged, sending packets of anonymous material, including the 20-year-old thesis, to the newspaper despite university rules prohibiting such disclosure.

NIU attorney Ken Davidson questioned why the accusers have been so persistent, after a university panel investigated and dismissed their claims.

"There are motivations behind this that are questionable," Davidson said. He noted that some of the accusers had long-running disputes with the university or had applied for Vohra's job.

Wueste said NIU should worry less about the motives of the accusers and more about ensuring similar academic violations do not occur again.

"The message being sent to engineering … students at NIU is, 'Don't worry about this citation stuff, it's not important,' and that's not what the dean alone is saying, that's what the committee is saying," Wueste said.

Next steps

If handled properly, plagiarism allegations can make a university stronger, professors agreed.

"We need to take these moments and exploit them as opportunities to advance scholarly standards on campus," Dodd said. "Universities should take the opportunity to elevate the discourse and not sweep it under the rug."

Ohio University, advised by Dodd, took a proactive approach after its engineering department was rocked by a sweeping plagiarism scandal.

Like Vohra, dozens of Ohio students had copied sections of other people's work and included them, without quotation marks or citations, in the literature review section of their theses.

In response, Ohio University instituted a series of new initiatives designed to promote academic integrity. Those included appointing an academic integrity adviser, requiring a technical writing class for all engineers and running theses through a software program to screen for plagiarism.

The university also asked students to rewrite plagiarized passages. Two faculty advisers who oversaw many of the offending theses were disciplined.

Dennis Irwin, dean of the Russ College of Engineering and Technology at Ohio University, had advice for any university trying to cope with charges of plagiarism.

"I think the first thing people have to understand, is we have external constituents -- students, alumni, professionals and the public, if you're a public university," Irwin said.

"I think talking about specific definitions of plagiarism can lead you down dead ends," Irwin said. "It really comes down to what your external constituents expect, and they expected more from us than what they saw.

"I'd take even one instance very seriously."