Academic integrity is an important part of maintaining a thriving learning environment. Since colleges and universities want to keep the quality of education as high as possible, they are adamant about enforcing rules that preserve academic integrity. When students don't comply with these rules, the consequences can be dire, affecting not only a student's educational future but your professional future as well.
This is why it's important for students accused of academic misconduct to seek the help of an attorney advisor. An experienced legal professional can help you clear your name, and avoid getting you a record for employers and outside institutions to see.
What is Academic Misconduct?
In Rhode Island colleges and universities there are many guidelines put in place to maintain academic integrity. These rules are enforced to keep students responsible and transparent for creating their own scholastic works and respecting the works of others. Any actions that violate these rules are deemed academic misconduct.
Academic Misconduct Violations
There are various forms of academic misconduct. Here are some common definitions and examples of academic misconduct that might be punishable at your school:
Cheating: displaying deceit, dishonesty, or fraud in the completion of academic exercises.
- Using unauthorized materials, written notes, concealed information, or prepared answers to complete an exam or project
- Allowing another person to complete an assignment for you
- Sharing answers from a take-home exam unless specifically authorized by an instructor
- Copying from another student's exam
- Having a stand-in take an exam for you, or standing in for someone else
Complicity: knowingly aiding or attempting to aid another student to perform academically dishonest actions.
- Letting another student copy from your exam
- Allowing another student to use your ID to access a restricted lab or library
Plagiarism: the use of the intellectual material in an academic work created by another person without crediting the source.
- Passing off the ideas, words, or concepts of another person as your own
- Using the work of another in your work without crediting them, known as citing the source. Citing must be done correctly, and credit must be given for every direct quote, paraphrased ideas, summaries, or information that isn't considered common knowledge
Fabrication/Falsification: inventing or altering information in an academic exercise.
- Creating or altering citations for a paper
- Making up people, events, or interactions to complete an assignment
Consequences
Since administrators really look down upon academic misconduct, the consequences for it are almost always pretty harsh in collegiate settings. As a matter of fact, the consequences are so harsh that they affect more than your college career, but your professional life as well. Job prospects who have access to a student's academic record will question the integrity of a person who's acquired this violation. Government jobs, law professions, and careers in academia, for example, are prospects that may deny students employment due to this violation.
Rhode Island Academic Misconduct Advisor
A finding of responsibility for academic misconduct can jeopardize the academic and professional goals you or your college student have set. If you value the investment you've made into your education and your professional future, contacting a skilled student defense attorney is a must. Attorney Joseph D. Lento has helped students who've acquired serious academic misconduct charges recover from these allegations, and he can do the same for you. Contact him today for more information.
Rhode Island colleges and universities where Joseph D. Lento can help as your or your student's academic misconduct advisor during investigations, hearings, and appeals include, but are not limited to, the following schools:
- Brown University
- Bryant University
- Community College of Rhode Island
- Johnson & Wales University – Providence
- Naval War College
- New England Institute of Technology
- Providence College
- Rhode Island College
- Rhode Island School of Design
- Roger Williams University
- Salve Regina University
- University of Rhode Island
It is an unfortunate reality that academic misconduct charges can upend an accused student's life if not properly addressed, and Joseph D. Lento and the Lento Law Firm have unparalleled experience passionately fighting for the future of his clients at colleges and universities in Rhode Island and throughout the nation. He does not settle for the easiest outcome, and instead prioritizes his clients' needs and well-being. Joseph Lento is a licensed attorney in New Jersey and New York, is admitted as an attorney pro hac vice in state and federal court if needed when representing clients nationwide, and serves as an academic misconduct advisor for students facing disciplinary cases in Rhode Island and throughout the nation. Make certain your or your student's interests are protected - Contact National Academic Misconduct Advisor Joseph D. Lento today at 888-535-3686.
