XPost: alt.politics.democrats.d, alt.guns, alabama.general   
   XPost: memphis.events   
   From: rkoch@banmlkday.com   
      
   A University of Arizona architecture instructor who plagiarized   
   the work of her former student has been granted tenure.   
      
   Susannah Dickinson, who was formally admonished for plagiarism   
   by the UA last year, recently received a promotion to the rank   
   of associate professor and a $5,000 raise, bringing her annual   
   pay to $70,000, the Arizona Daily Star has learned.   
      
   Details of the tenure award — effectively a permanent job   
   contract for a professor — are being kept under wraps by UA   
   administrators who say the information is protected from release   
   by the board that oversees the state’s public university system.   
      
   UA Provost Andrew Comrie, who’s responsible for overseeing the   
   quality of the school’s academic workforce, has barred employees   
   from talking about Dickinson’s plagiarism case to the media, to   
   students or to each other, an internal email shows.   
      
   The case is rare in academia, where plagiarism complaints   
   typically involve professors accusing students, not the other   
   way around.   
      
   The affected UA alumnus, Nicholas Johnson of Tucson, who earned   
   a master’s degree in architecture in 2012, said he’s   
   disappointed but not surprised the UA gave tenure to the   
   professor who poached his work.   
      
   University officials seemed intent on protecting Dickinson and   
   downplaying his complaints throughout the year-long   
   investigation, Johnson said in an email.   
      
   “The standard has been set: Professors at the U of A now know   
   the university will protect them and even promote them when they   
   steal student work,” he said.   
      
   GAG ORDER   
      
   Comrie’s directive tells employees to refer questions about the   
   case to UA administration. Dickinson and her dean, Janice   
   Cervelli, declined comment and referred questions to UA   
   administration when reached by the Star.   
      
   Robert Miller, director of UA’s school of architecture, cited   
   Comrie’s order in an email in which he cautioned his faculty and   
   staff to keep quiet about the case. Miller wrote the email last   
   October, a few days after the Star initially reported that   
   Dickinson had been censured by UA for plagiarism.   
      
   “You can readily imagine how damaging this story could be for   
   the university,” Miller wrote. “The provost has ordered that all   
   questions from outside the university be addressed with one   
   voice through a spokesperson in his office.   
      
   “The provost has explicitly prohibited us from discussing with   
   anyone particulars related to the individuals mentioned or   
   implicated in the story, including the media. Including the   
   faculty. Including students.”   
      
   Miller also cautioned employees to be “careful about believing   
   what you read,” in the Star — even though the UA has never   
   challenged the accuracy of the newspaper’s reporting on the   
   Dickinson case.   
      
   The UA declined to release documents related to the tenure   
   award. In response to a recent public records request, the   
   school provided the Star with a version of Dickinson’s personnel   
   file stripped of any information related to the plagiarism case   
   or the tenure decision.   
      
   Miller’s email cited an Arizona Board of Regents policy that   
   “prohibits the release of most personnel information other than   
   name, title, dates of employment and salary.”   
      
   UA spokesman Chris Sigurdson released a three-paragraph   
   statement last week on Comrie’s behalf. It did not mention   
   Dickinson by name but talked in general terms about how the UA   
   awards tenure.   
      
   “A tenure decision covers an entire body of an individual’s   
   scholarly endeavor and takes all work into consideration,” it   
   said, adding that the process includes internal and external   
   evaluation.   
      
   Tenure “would not be given nor denied on the basis of a single   
   occurrence,” it concluded.   
      
   TWO CASES, ONE REPRIMAND   
      
   There’s only one plagiarism finding in Dickinson’s personnel   
   file, even though the UA’s investigation confirmed two cases —   
   in 2010 and 2013 — in which she used Johnson’s work without   
   attribution.   
      
   The UA has not publicly released the documents related to its   
   internal investigation, but Johnson provided them to the Star.   
      
   Dickinson was Johnson’s thesis advisor for his masters   
   dissertation, a role that requires professors “to exercise the   
   greatest care not to appropriate a student’s ideas, research or   
   presentations to the professor’s benefit,” according to the   
   website of the American Association of University Professors.   
      
   “To do so is to abuse power and trust,” the association’s   
   statement on plagiarism says.   
      
   Johnson and Dickinson shared an academic interest in the field   
   of biomimetics, which looks at aspects of nature, such as   
   construction of a beehive, for ways to solve human problems.   
      
   The 2010 case Johnson complained of involved an application   
   Dickinson wrote for a visiting professorship overseas, which   
   Johnson said he found online as he was about to graduate. Two of   
   the application’s nine paragraphs were lifted from Johnson’s   
   work, the UA ruled in giving Dickinson a “formal admonishment”   
   for plagiarism.   
      
   The 2013 case was more extensive, involving a nine-page paper   
   Dickinson authored for an architecture conference. About 20   
   percent of it was taken word for word from Johnson’s master’s   
   thesis without footnotes or citations, the UA’s internal   
   investigation determined.   
      
   One review panel said that amounted to a second case of   
   plagiarism. While Dickinson included a one-sentence mention in   
   the conference paper that said Johnson had done much of the   
   research it covered, the professor still should have attributed   
   the sections of text she took directly from his thesis rather   
   than presenting Johnson’s writing as her own, that panel said.   
      
   But another review panel, with whom UA’s provost sided in his   
   final decision, excused Dickinson’s use of Johnson’s work in the   
   conference paper.   
      
   The second review group found that although Dickinson “did not   
   cite Mr. Johnson’s work conventionally,” her “use of Mr.   
   Johnson’s work in this context did not rise to the level of   
   misconduct — i.e. plagiarism,” Comrie said in his decision   
   letter to university President Ann Weaver Hart in May??2014.   
      
   CONTRADICTION   
      
   Comrie’s final ruling on the conference paper directly   
   contradicts what the university tells its students about   
   plagiarism.   
      
   One of the UA’s plagiarism prevention websites, for example,   
   uses bold type and asterisks to emphasize that plagiarism occurs   
   when “using another person’s exact words without including   
   quotation marks *and* citations.”   
      
   The UA typically receives about five complaints a year of   
   fabrication, falsification or plagiarism involving professors,   
   but most can’t be substantiated and are closed after initial   
   review, school officials have said.   
      
   The public seldom hears about such cases, even when misconduct   
   is confirmed, because of the university’s closed-door   
   investigation process and the practice of keeping results   
   confidential. Dickinson’s misconduct only came to public   
   attention because Johnson decided to speak out.   
      
   Johnson said he hopes his case raises questions about the lack   
      
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