Faculty Resources

Letter from the Provost

Dear Colleagues:

As we work to prepare our students to create the future, in terms of their knowledge, technical expertise, reasoning and communication skills, we are mindful also of our responsibility to prepare them to become professionals. If they are to represent the standards and qualities of a Michigan Tech graduate, we need to prepare them to recognize and react appropriately to the ethical and moral issues that they will face in their challenging careers.

Our students will leave Michigan Tech with expertise in their chosen disciplines. However, as our world becomes increasing complex and interactions global, they need a strong set of ethical principles to help guide their personal and professional decisions.

The mission statement of the Center for Academic Integrity is: “Academic integrity is essential to the success of our mission as educators. It also provides a foundation for responsible conduct in our students’ lives after graduation.”

Please take a moment to review Michigan Tech’s academic integrity policy and the resources on this website. We should remind our students of the importance of knowing and following the rules. More importantly, we must emphasize that these foundational values are not obsolete holdovers from the past, but rather are needed more than ever in this time of exponential change.

How can we help to promote academic integrity? Our students will benefit from clear, consistent expectations in terms of honorable conduct. As we develop course syllabi, we can strive to be clear in distinguishing activities where collaboration is required, encouraged or allowed, and work that must be original and individual. Also, if we are consistent about reporting a first infraction, students will learn that academic misconduct is unacceptable. The Academic Integrity team believes in using a first offence as an important learning opportunity, and it is widely recognized that repeat offences are very rare. Graduates who conduct their personal and professional lives within an ethical framework will be a credit to their family, their university, and their profession, and we can be proud of the part we played in their education.