Santa Clara University

Academic Integrity

An excerpt from the Student Handbook

Both the University Bulletin and the Student Handbook outline the University’s expectations that all members of the University community are expected to be honest in their academic endeavors. Engaging in any form of academic dishonesty or other acts generally understood to be dishonest by faculty or students in an academic context subjects a student to academic and judicial action. For the full text of the academic integrity protocol, go to the Provost’s website at www.scu.edu/provost/ and look for the link to Academic Policies and Procedures.

What is Academic Integrity?
Academic integrity is applying honesty and responsibility while learning and broadening your knowledge in higher education. These two important ethical values assist in abiding by a code of academic values towards learning. Academic integrity is essential in establishing good study habits and researching skills enabling you to develop and convey your own ideas. Your own ideas effectively mean respecting others’ intellectual property, thus trusting that you are submitting your own personal work. It involves regulating your own behavior without requiring the professor’s close supervision. In essence, academic integrity entails being aware of your own decisions and accepting both positive and negative outcomes that may arise as a result of your actions.

Why Does Academic Integrity Matter?
The Santa Clara University Bulletin states that "personal honesty and intellectual integrity [i]s fundamental to teaching, learning, scholarship, and service." Firm confidence in an individual’s or group’s honesty establishes credibility and gives academic research the weight of authority. In contrast, a lack of academic integrity calls the work of an individual and that of an entire institution into question.

Dishonesty also has more direct consequences. If one plagiarizes or cheats, even unintentionally or unknowingly, it discredits all of his or her work. Professors often react to academic dishonesty by, at the very least, giving an "F" in the course-such incidents serve as a black mark on a college transcript, which stand in the way of graduate school and careers alike. In 1987, a Senator’s presidential campaign ended when it was discovered that he had committed plagiarism on a law school assignment. Moreover, dishonest behavior hurts everyone in the class because plagiarism and/or cheating create unfair, unethical, and immoral advantages for the perpetrator.

A commitment to academic excellence brings with it a commitment to academic integrity. Respect of others’ work brings respect to one’s own work and maintains the environment necessary for progress.

Where Can I Find Information About Academic Integrity?