Sometimes when I am try to be gentle I do not succeed in being clear.

      Different students have different advantages.  Some advantages are
fair and some are not fair.  For example, in an academic enterprise I see a
genetic predisposition to intellectual ability as a fair advantage.  In
contrast, in an academic enterprise I see as an unfair advantage a genetic
advantage that is unrelated academic achievement and instead is purely
physical and the academic enterprise requires as a condition for graduation
exhibiting of that physical ability.

      Money is an advantage that takes many forms.  A predisposition
towards extroversion when coupled with money often manifests itself in the
academic enterprise by spontaneous or planned social collectives.  One
ought to expect durable social collectives to seek to optimize socially
validated achievement while simultaneously minimizing explicit costs (e.g.,
high grades with minimal studying in an academic enterprise).

      When greek houses, as durable social collectives, encourage their
members to see value for future generations in the trash of the current
generation (e.g., feed the house's test bank) there are both immediate and
distant benefits and costs that might spring from that tradition.  More
efficient studying is a benefit all professors urge on their students.
Mere pattern recognition (e.g., the answer sequence on QuizTwo is A, B, B,
B, C, D, D, C, A, C) is not.

      Fraud cuts both ways.

      A student knowing and intentionally misrepresents a material fact
(i.e., "I have read the question and based upon my actual knowledge I
believe the answer to question 1 on Quiz Two is A.") when the student
merely regurgitates a memorized answer pattern on an exam that is repeated
from semester to semester, that is known by the students to be repeated
from semester to semester, and the professor does not make available to
-all- students copies of the exam that is repeated from semester to
semester when the professor has a reasonable basis to believe that -some-
students are collecting those old exams (via any method of collection).
The student knows the professor unreasonably, but actually, believes the
old exam is secure and the old exam is not to be read by a student taking
the "new" exam.  The new exam identical to the old exam can not pass trade
secret muster relative to the new student, only relative to the old
student.

      The student commits fraud by reading the old exam knowing that the
old exam will be the new exam.  If the student does not commit fraud it is
because the reliance of the professor is not justifiable.  The duties of
academic responsibility in play at all universities, however, tend to err
on the side of minimal security efforts by professors equating with
justifiable reliance by professors.

      However, I also believe the professor commits fraud by using the old
exam as the new exam.  The fraud of the professor is to, with no less than
objective knowledge, knowingly evaluate similarly situated students using
fundamentally discriminatory methods where the discrimination has nothing
to do with academic achievement.

      When everyone wearing a greek sweater finishes an exam in half the
time as those not so clothed, and when everyone wearing a greek sweater
"earns" a higher grade than those not so clothed, then the professor's
reliance is not justified:  which might excuse the student, but only
further damns the professor.  Of course, it is feasible that correlation is
causation and the greek sweater only is worn by intellectually superior and
extraordinarily diligent students.  Such, however, is not my experience
once that clothing exits the classroom.

Michael

Professor Michael J. O'Hara, J.D., Ph.D.
Finance, Banking, & Law Department
College of Business Administration
Roskens Hall 502
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Omaha  NE  68182
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(402) 554 - 2823 voice  fax (402) 554 - 2680
http://cba.unomaha.edu/faculty/mohara/web/ohara.htm