Appeals process depends on how fast the committee wants to meet. Could be this week, though they won't normally meet. Usually it's all resolved in three weeks, but we're almost at the end of term, so I don't know.

To the best of my knowledge, the committee in question has never overturned a faculty decision, so that's on my side. Still, it's an annoyance and a burden and I'm a new teacher (no tenure or anything) so I'm not sure what kind of hoops they might want me to jump through to break me in.

Okay. I'll go check your page right now....

Yeah, well, I'm young and idealistic, if just a wee bit cynical.

The best professors I ever had were the ones with keen senses of humor and a good knowledge of their stuff. That combination actually makes people learn.

And BTW, if you start out early as a prof, you get grey pretty fast.

Very funny, imajinit. Angloesque, I think you are very brave and smart to have done what you did. Plagarism is a very serious problem for a student. One of my professors committed plagarism and it changed him from being arrogant, to having some humility. He went on to be a great Bible scholar, but he didn't take anymore shortcuts. Btw, he was failed and kicked out of school, also.

I check when it grabs my attention. I try to have a good handle on each student's voice and knowledge, and when they deviate from that even a little, I check. I also do spot checks and periodic checks. But every time I've seen plagiarism it's been because their writing voice changes from what I am used to.

--T.

This is such a tough issue. I teach third grade, and already it's something I have to explain and warn my students about. The scary thing is, this whole bend-the-rules-until-they-break thing is getting way out of hand. My students push every time they are given a directive - they want exception after exception after exception. They've mastered this, and they're only eight. What is going to happen with these kids hit college?

Sure, punish the student for plagiarism but expulsion, little harsh don`t you think, no! I guess you don`t think so because the student is gone right! hope you don`t find yourself in a
bad spot someday and need someone to cut you some slack and instead cut the rope on ya.

As one teacher to another, I have to say good for you Angloesque. Dont give it a second's thought. Apart from anything else, if you didn't fail this cheater you would've been cheating all the other students who did their own work.

As for the whole expulsion issue, if this student realised that expulsion was the price of plagarism and still plagarised then I say fair enough. I hope it seves as a warning to others. God, I sound really right-wing.

I'm just curious, how you find out that they're copying it from the internet? Do you go to google and put in quotes a few sentences from their essay or what?

Sure, punish the student for plagiarism but expulsion, little harsh don`t you think, no! I guess you don`t think so because the student is gone right! hope you don`t find yourself in a bad spot someday and need someone to cut you some slack and instead cut the rope on ya.

This is happening in college. In college, you shouldn't plagiarize at all, and if you do, you should be expelled.
Also, how is purposely cheating the system the same as being in a bad spot? Nobody forced her to plagiarize.
Expulsion is a common and appropriate punishment for plagiarism. I remember my biology teacher always telling the class that if he caught one of us plagiarizing not only would he fail us, but he would do all he can to get us kicked out of the school, and I can't help but agree that he's doing the right thing.

Rock on sista! You hit the nail right on the head. This is about so much more than plagarism. This student needs to take responsibility for her actions and start playing by the rules. Hopefully she'll learn from this, get her act together and go to another school and be successful. You've done your part. Now she has to do hers. If she's lucky, her parents will butt out and let her "do her time" so to speak. Unfortunately, I find all to often that students like this came from a family of enablers; parents that felt that it was their job to support and fight for their child no matter what, even when the child had clearly done something wrong. That isn't preparing the child for the real world and it's not good parenting.