The Accepting Responsibility program, a restorative alternative to Academic Integrity hearings for first-time offenders, was entered into the revised Code of Academic Integrity in August. It was previously a pilot program used in individual courses, but not adopted as official University policy.
The program was incorporated into the Code of Academic Integrity on Aug. 24 after the Faculty Senate voted to expand the program from its pilot stage at its May 4 meeting.
Before the Faculty Senate vote, the AR program was available exclusively to instructors of roughly 60 courses beginning in Spring 2024, program co-founder Prof. Michael Clarkson, computer science, told The Sun.
The Faculty Senate voted 97-4 in favor of making it a Universitywide option.
The AR program is voluntary for both the faculty and students involved, and it allows faculty members aware of an academic integrity violation to opt between a formal hearing and investigation or the AR program, according to Article I, Section C.
Prior to the creation of the program, students accused of academic dishonesty attended a hearing to determine if a violation took place, and consequences often involved a note on the offender’s academic record calling out the violation. Academic records and the notes inside are visible to employers and graduate schools.
The AR program, created by Clarkson and Elizabeth Karns, a senior lecturer for statistics and data science, does not affect the offender’s academic record in this way.
“We were looking for ways to make it focus on educational outcomes and an opportunity to learn from mistakes, rather than it being focused on grade penalties and long-term consequences in terms of academic records,” Clarkson told The Sun.
If a faculty member decides to offer the AR program to a student, the student receives a violation notification outlining the issue, evidence of the violation and a proposed grade penalty, according to the revised Code of Academic Integrity. The student then has three business days to decide whether to accept responsibility or request an Academic Integrity hearing.
If the student accepts responsibility, they admit the violation, accept the penalty and agree to complete an AR workshop within two weeks, according to Clarkson.
“AR is a forward-looking educational intervention,” Karns wrote to The Sun. “In this unique moment, where a student is held accountable for their actions, they have a chance to improve their future actions.”
The workshop includes preparatory and follow-up work, plus a small group session led by trained facilitators. It focuses on reflecting on personal values, understanding the impact of the violation and developing strategies to avoid future misconduct, Karns wrote in a statement to The Sun.
In the small groups, students do not disclose what they did or why they are attending the program, Karns wrote, adding that the meetings are “focused on the [students’] future.”
Karns drew further inspiration for the workshop from her experience teaching STSCI 3600: “Integrated Ethics in Data Science” and observing academic dishonesty workshops utilized by other schools such as University of California Santa Cruz and University of California San Diego, she wrote.
“Most students want to do better, whether it is their time management, study skills or personal issues,” Karns wrote. “The workshop gives them a chance to identify their values that matter to them — not to me or the facilitators — and to figure out ways to support their own situation. I am always impressed with the awareness they demonstrate and their compassion for others in the workshop.”
Karns explained that she has seen many benefits from the workshops, which started in the Spring 2024 semester.
“Occasionally after a workshop, a student will stay and ask for more resources to deal with their particular situation,” Karns wrote. “This is a really good result — most students who cheat do it because of some kind of pressure. Sometimes we encourage them to talk to an advisor about dropping a class or to go to use the tutoring services. We know about many resources on campus and urge them to seek help.”
The 60 courses that used the AR program during the pilot program saw low rates of confirmed repeat academic dishonesty, Clarkson said.
“When we look at recidivism rates from the Accepting Responsibility program, we've seen this through about 60 courses since Spring 2024 and around 300 students, and what we've seen is that during that time, there have only been two true cases of recidivism among students,” Clarkson said.
Harlan Flamm is a member of the Class of 2029 in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. He is a contributor for the news department and can be reached at hpf7@cornell.edu.
