GMC News
Academic Integrity Important Among Junior College Students
(Milledgeville, GA) Georgia Military College is a recognized leader in character development education. The goal of GMC’s Character Education Program is to insure that each student leaves GMC better prepared to meet future ethical challenges and better prepared to be leaders and participating citizens in their communities. We are delighted when we discover our efforts in elevating character are working. Recently, we received such news.
In the spring of 2003, 352 GMC students taking the Contemporary Ethics Course* participated in a Student Academic Integrity Survey designed by the Center for Academic Integrity. Our results were compared to a ‘national norm’ of 23 schools that also participated in the survey. Of these schools, three were two-year colleges and 20 were four-year public universities. The results showed that GMC students rated the severity of penalties for cheating to be very high, exceeding the national norm by 34%. GMC students’ understanding of policies concerning academic integrity (i.e. cheating, plagiarism) was also very high, exceeding the national norm by 57%. GMC students rated their support of these policies to be very high, exceeding the national norm by 19%, and rated the effectiveness of these policies to be very high, exceeding the national norm by 28%.
Ms. Beatriz Joseph, GMC Vice President for Institutional Research and Planning, said, “The results of the survey show that GMC students understand the academic integrity policies and are knowledgeable that there are consequences for their actions. It is evident that the faculty supports the policies and that the students respect these policies and are abiding by them.”
*The Contemporary Ethics Course is a critical part of GMC’s Character Education Program. All junior college students must successfully complete this course as a prerequisite for graduation. The course enables students to further develop critical thinking and ethical decision-making skills and to examine the foundations of ethical reasoning. For more information about GMC’s Character Education Program, please visit our website: www.gmc.cc.ga.us.
