Cheating in university classes is bad; students caught cheating should be punished. Sounds simple, but apparently it's not.

Tuesday, after more than a year of preparation, members of the Chico State University Academic Senate took only an hour to shred and return to committee a proposed campus policy on "academic integrity."

The proposal was the result of a student-led drive to do something to stem the flood of cheating and plagiarism that has swept the campus.

Scott McNall, provost and university vice president for academic affairs, said students came to the administration with a concern about problems they were seeing.

"The students came to us saying, The quality of our degrees is being degraded, and we know they are being degraded because we have observed a system of cheating in our classes, and the faculty is doing nothing'," McNall said they were told.

In the manner of academic effort, a committee including students and faculty was formed, and for the last year the panel members have studied how other schools promote academic honesty on their campuses.

Thomas Whitcher, Associated Students director of university affairs, a member of the integrity committee and one of two student members of the Academic Senate, outlined what the panel had done to collect information.

He said after the committee was formed, the campus sponsored a forum on cheating. Members of the panel studied a publicity campaign at Cal State Fullerton, where, according to Whitcher, the students are being targeted with messages about "how not to cheat, how not to plagiarize."

Last October, members of the committee attended a conference in San Diego conducted by the Center for Academic Integrity.

McNall said Whitcher and the committee consulted with "essentially all" organizations that have done work on academic honesty in the country, including meetings with the California State University system attorneys, and the director of Student Judicial Affairs at UC Davis.

Ultimately the panel crafted a proposed seven-page policy on cheating, and a three-sentence statement for students to live by.

"I understand it is the policy of CSU, Chico that I act honestly in all academic work. I will neither give nor receive unauthorized aid. I accept the responsibility to uphold academic integrity in all I write, say and create," says the proposed statement.

The policy defined cheating as "using or attempting to use unauthorized study aids, information or materials in any academic exercise. This also includes either helping or attempting to help another person cheat."

That definition was the first part of the proposal to draw fire.

Senator Marc Siegall, a professor in management, asked if one of his students created a set of flash cards, would those be an "unauthorized" study aid?

The proposal says the faculty "shall inform students of all course grading requirements and academic honesty in writing" in the course outline, called the syllabus.

Siegall asked if that means he has to list all the ways to cheat.

Another part of the proposal said, in order to discourage cheating and plagiarism, the faculty shall "vary exam and quiz formats."

"Does this mean I have to keep coming up with different ways to present exams?" asked Siegall.

Another part of the plan requires faculty members to report suspected incidents of cheating to the campus Office of Student Judicial Affairs. The proposal then calls for faculty to not post a grade for a student until judicial affairs has decided the case.

However, Siegall pointed out he is required to post student semester grades before he can get paid, and to make sure the grades are in on time, the university can withhold a paycheck until they are.

"I don't want to put my paycheck at risk because I suspect somebody has done something naughty," said the professor.

After questioning several aspects of the proposal, Siegall said he hoped nobody confused his "sarcastic tone" with disapproval of the concept.

Siegall was not alone in his assault on the proposal.

Senator Jim Postma, chair of the chemistry department, said after 25 years of teaching he would have trouble listing all the ways to cheat he has learned. He also said he is disappointed because the proposal is "less of a positive statement on academic integrity than we have now."

He said he had met with Whitcher and discussed the proposal some time earlier. Postma complained he had provided the student leader with several ideas on how to craft the document, and none of his ideas were present in this version.

Postma criticized the proposal because it included no mechanism for students to turn in cheaters they discover.

Paul Persons, a political science professor and a member of both the Chico State Senate and the CSU statewide Senate, said he didn't like the use of "shall" in the directions to faculty to do certain things. He said that appeared to make the list of responsibilities orders.

He was also critical of the fact that the proposal does not make a provision for a suspected cheater to have an "advocate" with him or her when the charges are leveled.

Whitcher said the UC Davis anti-cheating policy has taken 30 years to evolve, and the proposal he and the committee had created was "baby steps" to get things started at Chico State.