In EASY MARKS: Cracking a University’s Academic Integrity Con, author Catherine Wagner recounts her experience as a 19-year-old student at North Carolina State University in the class of 2016 pursuing a double-major in Chemical Engineering and Spanish. Her professors were “warm and welcoming,” she was accepted as a tutor in mathematics and chemistry, and she was topping all her classes. And then, out of the blue, she got an email from one of her professors directing her to attend a meeting. Nervous about the tone and content, she attended with her parents where, without any details being offered, she was accused of cheating on a sub-section of one homework question with another student.
What follows is a railroading process designed by NC State to ensure that all students accused of cheating admit to guilt. Wagner describes how her attempts to prove she did not cheat were stymied at every turn, deliberately by the professors making the allegation and indirectly by the NC administration. Her story, vividly and expressively written, comprehensively reveals the authoritarian mindset that defines many universities nowadays where the administrators are more influential (and highly paid) than the academics. In Wagner’s case, the individual who was the driving force behind her ordeal was both: the director of undergraduate studies and a teaching professor. In collaboration with the professor who made the first accusation, this person concocted evidence against Wagner to make it seem as though she had helped another student solve a science problem in a manner not allowed by the university’s integrity rules.
The very triviality of this offense, against which the whole university apparatus was brought to bear (including tracking Wagner’s IP for her emails through university security) proves that the real goal was not to reduce cheating. Wagner through her own research discovers that, while reports of cheating at most American colleges are under 2 percent, the Chemical Engineering Department at NC State had accused 10 percent of students every year of such transgressions. Moreover, every single student so accused was found guilty. As Wagner points out, however, this is statistically impossible. Although marred by (understandable) repetition of the facts of her case, Wagner’s book is impressively researched and written. It is also thoroughly credible. While such abuses have been aired in cases involving allegations of sexual attacks and racism, Wagner shows how career ambitions—in this case, a professor who wanted to establish herself as an integrity expert—can also harm students’ career prospects. In her character and intellect, Wagner is exactly the kind of graduate any reputable university would be proud to produce.
Catherine Wagner’s EASY MARKS: Cracking a University’s Academic Integrity Con, is impressively researched and written and thoroughly credible and demonstrates how career ambitions—in this case, a professor who wanted to establish herself as an integrity expert—can also harm students’ career prospects.
~Kevin Baldeosingh for IndieReader