Yesterday, the associate dean came to see me. The latest cheating student contacted him. She did not attempt to see me, and she also did not attend class. Then, last night, she sent me another email. There was no message, just a duplicate of something she had already submitted, her third written assignment. There were no changes, it also did not meet course expectations, and it included instances of plagiarism from at least two websites.

This morning, I received an email from her father, who apparently is an attorney (it was from AOL, but he had an e-signature with his title). He was seeking to meet with me tomorrow. I did not respond, but instead called the Judicial Affairs officer. We discussed the circumstances at length, and I decided to refer the case to his office. He explained that due to confidentiality, I cannot discuss the situation with her parents if she is not present, without written consent from the student. So I emailed the father and told him that I had referred the case to Judicial Affairs, and that the student should contact them directly.

I sent Judicial Affairs copies of all of the work, with my evaluations, copies of the various assignment guidelines, as well as links to the websites from which she cut and pasted the well-written parts. I went through my grading spreadsheet, and determined that she has missed 6 (of 23) classes, including yesterday's. She never handed in a journal, and she has not met expectations on any of the three written assignments. I won't be evaluating the groups until the end of the semester, but although she has been in class for many of the group activities, as far as I can tell, she has not been an active participant. (I use partial peer evaluation to determine group grades as well as a brief essay and my observations of student and group participation in class. Students hand in the written materials at the last class.) She has made no posts in the online discussion board (students are required to post 14 times throughout the semester).

Judicial Affairs understands that she is failing the course, even without the plagiarism. Although it is now a university matter, he said one possible outcome may be that he convinces her (and her father) to not dispute the failing grade, because otherwise, the result may be that she is disciplined with suspension in addition to course failure.

I am relieved it is now out of my hands. Too bad it has taken so much of my time, during the very busy end of semester.