CAMBRIDGE, MA. Mar. 11 (DPI) — Harvard’s faculty is in a snit over its administration checking school email accounts to ferret out the source of media leaks about a cheating episode.
But readers expressed amusement that Harvard professors would be either arrogant or naive enough to think their status exempted them from scrutiny of email accounts issued by their employer.
Wrote one on nytimes.com: “Company email belongs to the company – Duh! Harvard people should know that.” Another: “Considering the fact that there are so many … at Harvard with such inflated notions of their own self-worth, it should come as no surprise.”
And more readers enjoyed the many ironies of an ethics breach in a government and politics class.
Wrote one: “How ironic that the cheating occurred in a class called Introduction to Congress.” Another: “Cheating, leaking, witch hunts and corrupted power – welcome to Harvard! Where America’s youth goes to learn how to behave before getting elected to Congress.” Both comments were highest recommended as of 10am Monday.
According to The New York Times, the school’s administration launched the probe months ago into a government class of more than 270 students, about half of whom completed a “take-home” exam and apparently shared information, collaborated and in some cases plagiarized work.
In the months that followed, the Boston Globe began publishing reports of the cheating scandal and the investigation that followed it. The Times described Harvard faculty members as “bewildered, and at times angry” and quoted them as saying the probe by the school was “dishonorable” and “disgraceful.”
The Times also quotes a former dean of Harvard College as saying “people are just bewildered at this point, because it was so out of keeping with the way we’ve done things at Harvard.”
According to some faculty members, the school violated its own ethics rules in the course of the probe, in which administrators examined university-linked email accounts without the knowledge of faculty members.