ZERO TOLERANCE: EECS professor Kris Pister believes that academic cheating hurts everyone. He claims that a clear cheating policy backed up by stringent punishment is the best deterrent.

EECS professor Kris Pister cracks down on cheating to prevent future incidents

Students who cheat in Kris Pister’s class either enjoy living on the edge, rebelliously flaunting authority, or were just absent the day in class when the EECS professor outlined the details of his strict cheating policy.

Academic dishonesty is a subject Pister feels strongly about. His Web site devotes a whole section to his cheating policy.

“Some faculty members will work with students who have cheated to understand the problem and the motivation and try to find an accommodation. I am not one of them. If I catch you cheating I will give you an F on the assignment and you will be reported to the Office of Student Judicial Affairs. If you have a previous case of cheating on your record, I will push to have you expelled,” he writes on his Web site.

At the beginning of every semester, Pister devotes class time to discussing his zero tolerance stance. He does so because he never wants to relive what happened several years ago.

One year, 13 out of 150 students in Pister’s class cheated on their final projects.

“Cheating has always been a big deal to me, but it sent me over the edge when almost nine percent of the class cheated,” says Pister.

His first reaction was anger, but, after confronting the students, he felt sorry for them.

“You get mad at the students but when you are face to face with them, they look miserable and you feel so bad for them,” he says.

In 2002-03 the University’s Office of Student Judicial Affairs logged 143 cases of cheating, up from 91 cases in 1998-99. The jump, according to case administrator Wayne Creager, is attributed to the increase in plagiarism cases, which have risen as students discover the ease of lifting material from the Web.

According to Pister, cheating doesn’t just mean copying from others, but also letting others copy from you.
He believes cheating is a serious problem in the College of Engineering, where the competition is fierce and the stress is high.

“Students tell me about fellow students who cheat and never get caught. If they are ever caught, there is only a minor penalty. That doesn’t discourage the problem,” he says.

Not only does cheating hurt the student, Pister believes, it also hurts the College. It reflects badly on Berkeley to turn out engineers who didn’t learn what they were supposed to.

Pister’s cheating policy is popular among most of his students. The year he failed the 13 cheating students was the year he received his highest teacher ratings.

“The feedback I get from other students is overwhelmingly positive. They are thankful when cheaters are caught, especially when they themselves are struggling to get through school honestly,” he says.

Since that incident, Pister has only seen one more case of cheating in his class. He says that his aggressive stance is the reason for the dearth of cases.

“Sometimes people don’t think cheating is a big deal, but they won’t do it if they know what the limits are. And if sometimes they push those limits, faculty must reinforce them.”

For more on Pister’s cheating policy go to www-bsac.eecs.berkeley.edu/~pister/etc/Cheating.htm

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