The Shadow Scholar

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Shadow-Scholar/125329/?sid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en


I found this article in the newsletter sent by the Chronicle of Higher Education. My first reaction: this is some craziness!!

It definitely sparked some spicy commentary in the online discussion section. As for me, as often, I am as yet undecided as to how I feel about this. Obviously, passing off the work of a ghost writer as one's own is wrong. I do not think that the blame for the practice should be placed on the Academy per se. I do think that the model of the large University in which students are pretty much anonymous does allow for this type of trickery, but in all honesty, as an educator and as an educate-ED individual, my instinct has always been that people get out what they put in. If students have come to college purely to receive a diploma, because that is what the workforce requires, and wish to cheat their way through... I am not condoning it, but as a professor I would not spend an inordinate amount of time trying to track these people down. Those students who are truly interested in the subject matter and who put in the time will reap the rewards one way or the other. The others will at best skate by and at worst eventually be caught and forced to pay the consequences for their deception.