Commitment to Ethics and Opportunity

Since its founding, the Brennan School of Business has insured that all its academic programs provide students with an understanding of the concepts and theories of ethical decision making. This is done through a variety of curricular and co-curricular programs, ranging from:

• Case study analyses 
• Service learning courses 
• Student sponsored lectures
• Off-campus volunteer programs

The first endowed chair in the Brennan School of Business was designated by its donors to be the Christopher Chair in Business Ethics. This chair has enabled the business program to place an ever increasing focus on ethical business practices, through annual lectures, workshops and other faculty and student initiatives that ensure that ethics are taught and practiced in every part of the curriculum.

Realizing that students who matriculate in the Brennan School of Business must conduct themselves in accordance with the highest standards of academic integrity during their course of study, the following Academic Integrity policy has been developed to guide their actions.

Academic Integrity

Whatever the assignment, students are encouraged to engage in critical thinking and to use quoted or paraphrased material in ways that appropriately support their own ideas. In written or oral work, a student may make fair use of quotations, ideas, images, etc., that appear in others’ work only if the student gives appropriate credit to the original authors, thinkers, owners, or creators of that work. This includes material found on the Internet and in electronic databases. Student plagiarism is the deliberate presentation of the writing or thinking of another as the student’s own. Failure to maintain academic integrity will not be tolerated. The following definitions are provided for understanding and clarity:

Inappropriate attribution of sources

• Use of quotation marks, but failure to provide a citation for the material.
• Providing a citation for material, but failure to use quotation marks for material that appears in others’ work. Please note, quotation marks are used when three or more consecutive words are taken directly from others’ work. Exceptions are made for commonly used phrases such as “triple bottom line” or “corporate social responsibility”. When in doubt, be safe and use quotation marks.

Paraphrasing others’ work without providing a citation to that work

• Paraphrasing is presenting others’ ideas or thoughts but doing so entirely in one’s own words.
• Attribution must always be given in a citation at the end of the paragraph, even if the name of the author/s is included in the body of the text.

Direct plagiarism

• This entails using others’ material word-for-word and presenting it as one’s own work without any indication that the words are those of another.
• Simply changing one or two words or phrases does not materially change the character of this form of plagiarism, which is the most serious.

Whatever the assignment, it must be clear that the student is using the quoted or paraphrased material in support of his or her own ideas, and not taking credit for the quoted/paraphrased material.

Cheating entails the use of unauthorized or prohibited aids in accomplishing assigned academic tasks. Obtaining unauthorized help on examinations, using prohibited notes on closed-note examinations, and depending on others for the writing of essays or the creation of other assigned work are all forms of cheating. A student who assists another in cheating will be held to the same standard.

Academic dishonesty may also include other acts intended to misrepresent the authorship of academic work or to undermine the integrity of the classroom or of grades assigned for academic work. Deliberate acts threatening the integrity of library materials or the smooth operation of laboratories are among possible acts of academic dishonesty.