The Office of Student Conduct released the Disciplinary Statistics for 2008-2009 Thursday, which showed a rise in plagiarism cases and alcohol referrals.
The OSC saw referrals for 342 students in 2008-2009, the highest number of adjudications that Duke has seen in more than five years. Despite notable increases in alcohol and plagiarism referrals, administrators said they feel little alarm regarding the rising statistics. Stephen Bryan, associate dean of students and director of the OSC, said the increases might have positive implications.
Plagiarism cases rose from 11 in the 2007-2008 academic year to 24 in 2008-2009, but Bryan said the numbers reflect greater faculty awareness of cheating rather than an actual rise in academic dishonesty.
“I don’t think they indicate an increase in the rate of cheating as much as it indicates our efforts to implement the ‘three Ps’—prevention, promotion, policing.”
In the 2008-09 year, individual abuse of the alcohol policy made up 44 percent of adjudicated charges, with 173 students facing disciplinary action. Tom Szigethy, associate dean and director of the Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention Center, said his office hopes to implement changes using an “environmental management approach,” targeting the culture of excessive drinking on campus.
Szigethy said the office has already offered information sessions about alcohol abuse and worked with resident assistants, True Blue and the party monitoring system to encourage moderate drinking.
“The negative behavior that comes from alcohol is what’s troubling,” Szigethy said. “It’s more about giving a voice to the majority of the students who support moderate drinking as opposed to giving the spotlight to students who condone high risk drinking.”
Bryan said having residence coordinators in dorms has also helped to catch and defer high-risk drinking. Since RCs were introduced in 2002, the number of alcohol abuse referrals has risen steadily, which Bryan said is a positive reflection of increased awareness of student behavior.
Bryan also pointed out a similar pattern of increased awareness in the rise of adjudications within the Greek student conduct system. Additionally, Bryan said the number of individual Greek students referred to OSC rose from 108 to 116.
Still, Bryan said OSC is always looking for ways to decrease negative statistics.
One area in which the statistics improved was in the number of off-campus adjudications. Overall cases dropped from 152 to 138, including a decrease from 115 to 84 alcohol misconduct cases.
Christine Pesetski, assistant dean for off-campus and mediation services, said the numbers indicated the successful efforts of Duke Student Government, OSC and Off-Campus Services to increase communication and awareness of student responsibility on and off campus. Pesetski said she was pleased by the “preventative response” taken by discussing appropriate behavior for living groups when they interact with the neighbors and with law enforcement.
“A sign in them dropping for me is that students are thinking more about their actions.” Pesetski said.
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