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Statement of Purpose

Statement of Purpose
Eberly College of Science Committee on Academic Integrity

The Eberly College of Science will uphold the the Academic Integrity Policy and Procedures of the Pennsylvania State University. The overall charge of the Eberly College of Science Academic Integrity Committee is to facilitate an environment that fosters the highest level of academic integrity in the college. In carrying out this mission, the committee (and the University) recognizes the ultimate responsibility for creating and maintaining this atmosphere rests upon the faculty and their students. The committee will thus serve two purposes.

Education
The committee will develop guidelines to help faculty educate their students on academic integrity. Another goal will be to successfully educate faculty in how best to establish a classroom atmosphere that fosters mutual respect and understanding. From these, we believe, will natural good behavior follow.

The college has seven departments, with diverse professional climates. Our first task will be to help these departments clearly state what expectations they have of their own students. In formulating these expectations, each department must clearly state what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable behavior; unacceptable behavior should be categorized into three levels of severity. The committee will then gather these expectations and organize them into a cohesive policy that will insure as much continuity between departments as is possible. The committee will then examine the policy and develop tools to help individual faculty easily communicate these expectations to their students. These tools may include, but will not be limited to, web site development; Freshman Year Seminar modules; and visits to departments from committee members to discuss "Best Practices".

Judicial
The committee must also help faculty and students deal with transgressions to the policy. Our overriding goal will be to minimize this aspect by doing the best job possible in education. Nonetheless, transgressions will occur. It will be the mission of this committee to establish a clear policy that will clearly and explicitly outline what faculty should do in instances where a breach in academic integrity occurs. Our main philosophy in this section will be to minimize the impact these transgression have on faculty time and effort. The committee will use information gathered from the individual departments to formulate a common policy that faculty can use when dealing with cases that occur in their classroom; this policy will have provisions for recognizing the different professional climates in each department.