What should I do when I suspect plagiarism or cheating?

Obviously, the best approach to academic dishonesty is to try to prevent it from happening in the first place. On occasion students are accused of cheating when, in fact, they believed they were operating within the letter of the law for a particular course. For example, many freshmen are unfamiliar with standard procedures for how and when to quote or give credit to others. You avoid many misconceptions when you clearly specify your standards and expectations for when they may collaborate with their fellow classmates and how and when they must give credit to others.

Plagiarism and cheating are considered to be very serious offenses in the College. The College does have a policy regarding academic honesty, which is printed in the current College catalogue. Your best recourse when you suspect that a student is cheating is probably not to try to handle the situation yourself. With a first offense, students are not usually subject to severe penalty, but it is best to report instances of academic dishonesty in case the student is following a similar pattern of behavior in another class. If you are being supervised by a faculty member, you should report the suspected incident immediately to that faculty member. After that, or if you are not being supervised by a faculty member, the dean of students in the College should be informed about the situation.