My Afternoon with the Academic Honesty Council

My university holds these little mock trials for students who are accused of cheating. Well, at least for the students who are accused of cheating and who insist up and down that they didn't do it. Since I teach hundreds and hundreds of students at a time, I end up referring a few cases a year to the administration.

Shockingly, I've only had one student appeal to the point where it went to the Council. Most of the time it's a situation like, "The assignment asked you to state the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus in your own words, and this is verbatim from MathWorld." or "You have answered the question from the other version of the exam."

The Council reminded me of something out of the trial scenes from Law and Order. No real rules, lots of drama. Suspect that this is not the most effective way to make decisions.