Cheating cases not connected, officials claim

Monday, August 10, 1998

Cheating cases not connected, officials claim

EDUCATION: Alleged offenders never punished, professor now
investigated

By Lawrence Ferchaw

Daily Bruin Staff

Professor Andras Bodrogligeti, a 28-year veteran of UCLA, said
he and his teaching assistants caught six students in the act of
cheating, and 30 with crib sheets during the final exam.

Nearly 19 months after that December 1996 elementary Uzbek exam,
none of those alleged to have been involved have been punished. At
the same time, the professor’s summer class was cancelled and an
investigation of allegations against him began.

UCLA administrators say the two cases are not connected and that
the dean of students continues to investigate Bodrogligeti’s
cheating allegations.

Even before the exam, Bodrogligeti said he was curious to know
how many of his students would do on the test.

"You could not make (the students) work. They did not
participate at all," Bodrogligeti said.

Before the professor could even administer the exam, he and his
teaching assistants had to spend more than 20 minutes moving the
students who wanted to sit together.

Once the exam began, one student said she saw cheating.

"There was whispering, someone would say, ‘What’s the answer to
No. 5?’" said Jennifer Oh Hess, a student in the class who has
since graduated.

"I was there to take the test. I wasn’t watching people like a
hawk, but I saw people cheating," she added.

One of Bodrogligeti’s teaching assistants, Halil Kaya, was
watching and he pointed it out to the professor. The assistant
turned over one student’s test to reveal a crib sheet, a reduced
copy of pages from Bodrogligeti’s textbook.

The professor and his teaching assistants then collected the
test booklets and went through them to remove the crib sheets.
That’s when he said a "commotion" broke out both in the classroom
and in the men’s rest room where some students went. One of the
teaching assistants went there and found texts.

"You see cheating, but not of this dimension and of this
nature," Bodrogligeti said. "This was organized."

The dean of students, the office that investigates student
misconduct, is looking into the charges that the alleged cheating
was organized.

"There may appear to be some merit to that, which concerns us,"
said Robert Naples, assistant vice chancellor of student and campus
life.

Bodrogligeti said he collected more than 100 cheat sheets and
then let the students continue taking the test.

"Without crib sheets, nobody could write a single word,"
Bodrogligeti said.

Shortly after the incident, Bodrogligeti referred the 30
students to the dean of students to be investigated. Only about six
of those students are under investigation, though.

"The professor gave (Senior Associate Dean of Students Cary
Porter) a number of crib notes," Naples said. "He was not able to
link these notes with individual students."

The dean would have pursued charges against all the students if
the professor had been able to say which notes had belonged to
which students, according to Naples.

One week after the referral, Bodrogligeti said those six
students came to his office.

"They occupied my room, surrounded and threatened me. One pushed
my head down to the desk," the professor said.

"Halil Kaya came by and saved me from the situation," he
added.

The dean of students is also investigating the alleged
confrontation.

The professor said the students threatened to go to Pauline Yu,
dean of humanities, and somehow coerce her into getting him to
withdraw his allegations.

"I’ve had absolutely no role in the cheating incident," Yu said.
"It’s not my responsibility to have anything to do with incidents
of student cheating."

Kaya, meanwhile, has since been expelled from the university,
allegedly for compiling a study guide and selling it for $200.

Bodrogligeti has filed charges in the Academic Senate against
Yu, who has in turn filed charges against him. Neither party would
comment on the nature of their charges.

"There is dissension between the two. They have a strong
difference of opinion with regards to substantive issues," said
Bodrogligeti’s attorney Matthew Krieger.

Yu would not confirm the nature of the charges, saying personnel
matters are confidential. However, the Los Angeles Times reported
that Yu alleges Bodrogligeti gave preferential treatment to
athletes, and refused to hold office hours or meet with
students.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has reported that
Bodrogligeti’s charges stem from claims of age discrimination.

"He’s a 30-year veteran of UCLA. This is a man who has dedicated
his life to education. To accuse him of anything improper is
outrageous," Krieger said.

Meanwhile, Bodrogligeti has said he believes the university has
not punished the students because they are all Korean, and the
university fears alienating that community.

Nearly 40 of the slightly more than 50 students in the class
were Korean, according to Bodrogligeti. University officials,
however, said that ethnicity is immaterial in this case.

"What matters in cases of academic dishonesty is that … an act
occurred; the ethnicity of the person involved, or allegedly
involved, is irrelevant," said Brian Copenhaver, provost of the
College of Letters & Sciences.

Copenhaver said he has gotten about six letters in response to
the story in The Times and has prepared a letter to send in
response.

Some at the university have wondered why it has taken this long
to investigate the incident.

"There is more than meets the eye," said Chand Viswanathan,
chair of the Academic Senate.

While not able to speak about the specifics of the case because
of UC policy preventing such disclosure, administrators say that
despite the length of time the investigation has taken, the
students will be punished if found guilty.

"We’re not happy that a case would take this long, but I think
it’s oversimplifying to say that this was referred and it should
have been resolved in one or two months," Naples said.

Without setting a specific time, Naples said he hopes the
investigation will be concluded soon.

After an allegation of cheating is referred to the dean of
students’ office, a dean assigned to the case gathers information
and then talks to the students involved. At this point students can
either admit guilt, deny guilt and face a hearing with the Student
Conduct Committee, or be exonerated if the dean does not believe
there is sufficient evidence.

Several hundred cases of cheating are referred each year to the
dean of students. Punishment for cheating can range from suspension
to expulsion.

"The university is not very serious about imposing standards on
students and making them stick – I don’t see any evidence that they
are," said Jeff Smith, a lecturer in the writing programs
department.

Based on his own experiences after referring suspected cheaters,
Smith said there is an alliance between the students and
administrators against the faculty.

"I think the main thing is the consumer mentality. We’re like
K-Mart, provide them what they want and if they complain, we give
them exchanges," Smith said.

Administrators disagreed with this assessment.

"Cheating is taken more seriously at UCLA than at any
institution that I have worked," Naples said.

"If someone is going to come here and cheat at this institution,
we don’t need to include them in our community of scholars," he
added.

Bodrogligeti said he is upset that he has not yet had a hearing
on the cheating charges.

"I’m the professor, I teach the class, why didn’t I get a
response?" Bodrogligeti said.

After The Times article drew a connection between the
allegations of cheating and the investigation of the professor,
administrators denied that there was a connection.

"The process that deals with faculty discipline and grievance
issues is in one part of the universe," Copenhaver said.

"The process that deals with student academic dishonesty issues
is in another part of the universe and there is no relationship at
all between those processes," he continued.

The chair of Bodrogligeti’s department said the summer class was
cancelled because of budget shortages, not because of the cheating
allegations.

"After the university required us to take care of the financial
side, it made it unprofitable for the department (to offer the
course)," said Antonio Loprieno, chair of the department of Near
Eastern Languages and Cultures.

For Hess, Bodrogligeti’s former student, the politics involved
in this case seem unclear.

"I just feel the students should be punished," Hess said. "They
cheated and they should suffer the consequences."