Do Christian students cheat too?

Maclean’s magazine (Feb. 12) reported that “a whopping 53 percent” of university students confessed to cheating on written assignments. A further 18 percent said they cheated on exams. Is academic fraud a concern for our Christian institutes as well? The Herald asked Mennonite Brethren schools to comment on the problem of student cheating and what they’re doing to address it.

ETEM  Once in a while at ETEM (the Evangelical Theological School of Montreal), we catch someone who takes a good chunk of their paper right out of a book or an article and doesn’t bother to signal it. Most of the time [these students] don’t see this as cheating. They have problems seeing academic life as part of real, ordinary life. Or, they really have no concept of how to write a paper. Some teachers have a pastoral approach. For example, they may give the student a chance to rewrite their paper. Others will just give a zero and explain why.

—Éric Wingender, dean

CMU  At CMU (Canadian Mennonite University) we work at nurturing a culture of honesty and academic integrity. In most years, we discover a few cases where students have cheated. The consequence may be a failing grade for the submission, a failing grade for the course, or even suspension from the university (though we haven’t exercised that option).

—Wesley Toews, assistant dean

ACTS  The ACTS registrar states there are between 0–3 plagiarism cases per semester among the whole student body [of which MB Biblical Seminary is part]. These usually involve international students who understand that quoting from an authority figure is appropriate or who have difficulty with English. Some students simply make the decision to cheat when under pressure. The matter is dealt with seriously, with a policy that moves from receiving an F on the assignment and having it noted in the student’s record to terminating the student’s studies.

—Doug Berg, associate dean