Comment by sophacles
4 years ago
The students do need a bit of punishment - they are adults who chose to act this way. In this context though, switching their advisor and requiring a different research track would be sufficient - that's a lot of work down the drain and a hard lesson. I agree that expulsion would be unfair - (assuming good faith scholarship) the advisor/student relationship is set up so that the students can learn to research effectively (which includes ethically) with guidance from a trusted researcher at a trusted institution. If the professor suggests or OKs a plan, it is reasonable for the students to believe it is a acceptable course of action.
If the student blatantly lied about why and how he made those commits then that’s grounds for expulsion though.
1. What the student code at umn says and what i think the student deserves are vastly different things.
2. Something being grounds for expulsion and what a reasonable response would be are vastly different things.
3. The rules saying "up to and including" (aka grounds for) and the full range of punishment are not the same - the max of a range is not the entirety of the range.
4. So what?