According to a recent New York Times article, students in college are increasingly plagiarizing because they see nothing wrong with it. Many students in our generation assume that online sources are at their disposal as stores of information, ripe for the picking.However, the article also says that the majority of recent plagiarism cases at the University of California, Davis, were not because students were unaware that they were cheating, but they occurred instead because those students were too lazy to try to write well themselves.

The Times article seems to me to be an oversimplification. It's true that students don't come to college fully aware of what constitutes plagiarism and what the consequences are. But I think the underlying factor is much closer to a recent interpretation offered in the Huffington Post by David Callahan, editor of cheatingculture.com.

In the article, Callahan writes, "Surveys find that between two-thirds and three-quarters of students admit to some cheating in the previous year." The article also claims that small colleges at which students may focus more on learning for the sake of learning, think about grades as a way of measuring how much students are learning and thus experience less cheating. Larger schools, at which students may view college more as a step toward getting a job, may experience more cheating.

Perhaps Callahan's interpretation can also be understood as saying that students in small schools are valued more as individual entities and thus feel worse about violating that trust and breaking their academic integrity. Students at large schools, though, may be viewed merely as numbers and thus lack the close relationship with faculty that would perhaps deter them from cheating.

Now, Brandeis is not a large school and is definitely no UC Davis, but that doesn't mean we should be ignorant of the temptation to cheat. As a small research university, Brandeis has to make sure it distances itself from the cheating culture found at large universities and emulates the academic integrity of small liberal arts colleges.

However, the University is in an awkward position when it comes to this. By all accounts, we are a small to medium-sized school, a far cry from the large schools Callahan references.

But just like the large schools to which Callahan refers to, this university certainly has its share of majors designed to prepare students for the workplace. A large number of students who major in Business or Economics have clear professional aspirations. Additionally, there are many students at Brandeis who choose to major in sciences-especially Biology. These students likely view their majors as steps in the professional ladder, and many plan on applying to medical school.

Perhaps the environment that promotes cheating can easily be found here, too-not as a result of our numbers, but because of the academic climate. Do we do enough to promote, as a small liberal arts school would, learning for learning's sake? Or is this university simply one of the steps to making money after graduation?

There are a few things we can do to make sure that the former is true. One possibility is to foster faculty-student interactions. The recent Wabash report informed us that many students do not feel they have formed close relationships with professors. By encouraging such relationships, we can make sure that students don't get an experience similar to that of a large school. Just as the faculty strives to develop relationships with students, students would benefit from seeking relationships with professors. This, perhaps, would create a climate in which students don't want to cheat because they feel obligated to maintain the trust of their professors.

Additionally, the analysis of studies concerning the patterns of cheating in colleges across the country can help our university understand the larger context of our academic community. Perhaps it would be beneficial for the University to conduct its own anonymous study inspecting just how many students here have cheated on assignments or exams and then compare the results to patterns at other universities. If we find a disproportionate number of instances of cheating at Brandeis, maybe it's because we are-whether we realize it or not-trying to emulate the large schools where students show up and professors don't even know their names.

This all being said, it is still very possible that we don't actually have a problem with cheating. However, we should still strive to check our academic climate so that with our dual position as a pre-professional school and small liberal arts college, we don't fall off to the wrong side. Understanding that we have the potential to foster an atmosphere of academic integrity should help us to avoid the trap of unwittingly fostering the opposite.

We should take heed of small liberal arts schools. We should make the academic climate centered around learning and not about a career so that when students are tempted to cheat, they'll feel guilty for going against their academic principles.