The Ranger (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 82, No. 21, Ed. 1 Friday, April 13, 2007 Page: 3 of 28
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April 13, 2007 * 3
The Ranger • www.theranger.org
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By Natalia Montemayor
Student plagiarism
Lee further defended his point by saying that
grandfather clause.
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St. Philip’s instructors clash over plagiarism complaint
By Jonathan Munson
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Instructor is accused of acting unethically
and trying to cover up his actions.
Theater Chair Jeff Hunt reports on the success of the recent tour with District 9 trustee James A. Rindfuss, to Faculty Senate Chair Terry
Walch. Secretary Stella Lovato and Professor Ignacio Orozco listen to the results.
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Quinn said, but Aggrey’s colleague did not go through . mation of character — but Quinn did not express any
with the plan.
Despite all of this, nearly a year after Quinn filed
the formal complaint, no action has been taken, and
Aggrey is still up for promotion.
“It’s a little bit of a black hole,” Quinn said, refer-
ring to the district’s ethics department and the way
complaints are handled.
“He submitted that complaint at the district level,
but this is considered an academic matter. The district,
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.......
Last Wednesday, members of Faculty Senate dis-
cussed a new Web server that was installed district-
wide late last summer.
Migration to the new server is scheduled for May
21.
Music Chair Jessica Howard informed her co-work-
ers of the information she received at a Technology
Committee meeting March 21.
“Any faculty that is teaching online must take
specific steps if they want to keep their class running
smoothly,” senate secretary Howard said.
Howard registered on the new server March 21 to
give it a trial run, and quickly noticed a glitch in the
system.
“After you create a ‘new user’ folder, register your-
self on the server, but check to make sure that you are
signed into the system itself,” Howard explained.
Howard said a discrepancy kept her. from signing
into the system, even after she had registered herself
as a user.
“It was just some random glitch in the system, so I
called Mark Goodspeed to help me with the problem.”
Goodspeed is the webmaster and multimedia spe-
cialist for this college, and is the primary reference for
faculty who may experience difficulties with the new
server.
Howard went on to explain that all files saved on
the old server must be moved to the “new user” folder
if they are to be used through the new server.
“A Web development certification is also required in
order to be a member on the server,” Howard said.
According to mathematics and computer science
Professor Gerald Busaid, faculty members who aren’t
Web certified can take eight classes to attain the
requirement.
Those who are tech-savvy can do so through a
Policy of the Alamo
Community College District
does not allow students to
be expelled for plagiarism.
Consequences still
. outweigh the short-term
benefits.
Students may be drawn
toward plagiarizing by not
understanding a writing
assignment, or by being
issued a topic too broad or
too structured to allow use
of their analytical thinking
skills.
Plagiarism is a habit
grown from repetitive and
uncreative assignments given
in high school English class-
es, English Professor Gerald
McCarthy said.
Listed under academic
dishonesty, plagiarism is
defined as using someone
else’s work in the academic
environment without giving
proper credit.
• Examples include not cit-
ing sources in an academic
paper, borrowing parts of
someone else’s writing, as
well as buying a paper from.,
a classmate or online source
and submitting it as original
work.
Students may be required
to complete an alternate
assignment, receive a fail-
ing grade for the project, or
could be dropped from the
course.
Ultimately, it is up to the
instructor to punish the stu-
dent in a manner they see fit.
“It should be used as a
teaching tool," McCarthy
said. “A way of showing
students what is right and
wrong.”
creator’s credits to say “Created by Djan Aggrey” — on
some of the pages. Some still read “Created by Dr. L.
Adelson.”
Quinn also explained that, “in trying to ‘offer’ more
for his students,” Aggrey added 35 extra practice exer-
cises and 308 research questions to the already estab-
lished traditional course syllabus. Quinn explained that
this would add another 40 hours of class work to a very
good student’s workload.
The added workload may be normal for a four-year
institution, such as MCLA, but not for a summer course
at a two-year institution such as St. Philip’s College,
Quinn explained.
This is not the first time that Aggrey has acted
unethically, Quinn said in an April 11 phone interview.
The complaint that Quinn filed also accused Aggrey of
cheating on final exams.
When reviewing with his students, he would give
them the actual questions on the final exam, Quinn
said, adding that Aggrey did the same thing when
students would take tests to receive Microsoft Network
Certification. He said that Aggrey would give his stu-
dents copies of past certification tests to study rather
than offering hands-on training in the test material.
“As if he is sitting in the classroom, right?” Aggrey
said in response to Quinn’s accusations.
Quinn also alleged in the interview that Aggrey
also attempted to falsify enrollment records by ask-
ing a colleague to add some extra students to his own
class roster so that he could receive full enrollment.
The Web certification courses are in the Instructional Maymester'was the most convenient time to install a
Technology and Innovation Center in Room 716 of
Moody. The courses vary in length.
Busaid said the course could be completed within a
week if a faculty or staff member goes every day.
“What is totally wrong- about this process is the
notification that wasn’t given in order to become Web
certified. I don’t see how this possibly could help the
students,” Busaid said.
Busaid suggested that the senate support a proposal
to extend the deadline for Web certification beyond
May 21 and was met with some opposition.
“We are trying to get better servers for our students,
and everyone gripes and moans the moment anything
goes wrong,” history Professor Jonathan Lee.
as a rule, tries to have minimal involvement. They pre-
fer that these matters be handled at the college level,"
said district ethics Officer Carol Riley. Quinn sent his
formal complaint directly to Riley.
Quinn hasn’t had much luck at the academic level,
either.
On March 8, he sent an e-mail notifying Dr. Lanier
Byrd, vice president of academic affairs, of the Aggrey
situation, but received no response.
He even attached the entire package of docu-
ments that were originally sent to Riley in 2006, as
well as e-mails that he sent to Patricia Candia, who
served as interim president of St. Philip’s College
until March 1 when Dr. Adena W. Loston took over
the position.
Quinn notified Candia about the situation Feb.
15, but after no action had been taken, he decided to
contact the new president by e-mail March 12 and 13
— still, no response.
Quinn also e-mailed Chancellor Bruce Leslie about
the same situation April 4, but again, he has received
no response.
'‘No follow-up. No feedback. No closure,” Quinn
said.
If Aggrey receives a promotion, he will be making
an extra $1,400 per year, Quinn said.
Aggrey said he thinks that — since St. Philip’s has
a new president, and the district, a new chancellor
— Quinn is just trying to reopen the “can of worms.”
He called late Thursday to notify The Ranger that
By doing so, he would have received an extra $3,000, he is considering legal action against Quinn for defa-
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worry, saying “the best-defense is the truth.”
“If this guy has held onto this for almost a year
now, there has to be something he’s looking for,”
Aggrey said.
“Are we here to pick on our own kind, or are we
here to teach?” he added.
“I won’t fight with him. I have no time,” Aggrey
said. "If he wants to turn me into a sacrificial lamb, all
the more power to him.”
new server because that is when most employees have
free time.
Howard added to the debate by saying, “The timeli-
ness issue is a legitimate complaint, but we shouldn’t
delay the migration of the new server.”
The senate voted to delay the discussion for a spe-
cial session a week later so that the specific issue could
be discussed in further detail.
Plans to have all district computers upgraded to the
Windows Vista operating system by spring 2008 also
were discussed.
“Vista is a scary thing when you start looking at it,”
theatre Chair Jeff Hunt said. “The security aspect of it
is obviously downstream.”
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Faculty Senate troubleshoots new districtwide Web server
Sonia M.Torralba
Nearly a year ago, the district received a formal
ethics complaint about a St. Philip’s College business
information solutions instructor accused of committing
plagiarism, an act that would score a student an F, at
the least.
The instructor, however, is up for promotion.
The complaint was filed June 6 by Tim Quinn, a
St. Philip’s business information solutions instructor.
It included a detailed explanation, as well as computer
print-outs, of a colleague’s. Web page, which he said
was an exact copy of the Web page belonging to the
retired Dr. Leonard Adelson and William J. Spezeski.
Both were computer science instructors from the
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.
Even the untrained eye could see the flaws in the
ITSC 1301, Intro to Computers, Web page that Djan
Aggrey, business information solutions instructor, tried
to pass off as his own, Quinn said.
Aggrey maintains that Quinn has had it out for him
since the beginning. “Tim Quinn will do everything he
can to make sure I don’t get promoted.”
Aggrey explained in a phone interview Thursday
that he was assigned the two sections of the course at
the last minute, on May 26. He used the MCLA Web
page as a template for his own.
“I took their model. I did not go and take their
exams. I did not take their assignments,” Aggrey said.
Three days before filing the complaint, Quinn
received e-mail confirmation from the MCLA profes-
sors, stating that Aggrey had never contacted them in
regard to the Web page they had created.
Aggrey’s course schedule page referred to software
that St. Philip’s has never used. The first “assignments”
link in Week 4 of his page connected directly to MCLA’s
Web page.
Aggrey made sure to change the Web page’s
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San Antonio College. The Ranger (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 82, No. 21, Ed. 1 Friday, April 13, 2007, newspaper, April 13, 2007; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1352310/m1/3/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting San Antonio College.