To the Editor:
I am the “anonymous parent” that Steven Andrews mentioned in his article on Feb. 19. Mr. Andrews has been researching this outrageous situation with Professor Naser’s class AE289. Most of the information had been held until the Administrative Appeal Process was completed, in fairness to all, but as time wore on since December 2003, some information needed to be printed for the Fairfield students and faculty.
In mid-December Prof. Naser failed six students in this class for “plagiarism” to as he put it, “make a point.” Four of these students and their parents examined this situation and became outraged as the facts materialized, and began a long drawn out process of “Fighting City Hall.” The parents became involved as these four students are seniors and do not have the luxury of time to appeal forever.
This appeal was never just about the grade! The conduct of Prof. Naser brought up some serious questions and Dean Snyder wasn’t making the issues any clearer. To start with Prof. Naser flunked these four by using a “computer program” to police for plagiarism. Expert opinion is available at Fairfield’s library and cautions using these programs without human examination of the results, as well as offering definitions of plagiarism and writing standards. Snyder and Naser state these standards “are just one of many.”
A student requested a meeting as part of the official appeal process with Dean Snyder and three other students accused of plagiarism. The meeting was taped by a student with permission and no resolution evolved.
The appeals were then made officially to [Academic] Vice President Grossman who had the unenviable position of mediating this student and faculty disagreement. Grossman was terrific in realizing the situation Prof. Naser had placed these four students in. Due to Fairfield’s lack of having a writing standard that was never taught to these seniors, as well as the facts uncovered, Grossman completed his investigation and then CLEARED these four students of plagiarism. In one paper it was basically a grammatical punctuation problem as the sources cited were correct, and even checked by VP Grossman. There is a problem with Prof. Naser’s software when checking scientific and medical papers as his program notes other sources “plagiarized” but in fact these sources were never even discovered or read by the student! This is a known problem due to scientific and medical researchers’ defining their own work in many articles and papers over the course of many years solving a medical issue. The researchers’ definitions of their work remain the same each time. The student then cites the one source she used, but Naser’s program finds everything the researcher ever wrote on the matter, and then calls it “plagiarism.”
The conduct of Prof. Naser is being questioned further as he broke the university rules on athletic release time for two varsity athletes. Quizzes were not allowed to be made up as required by NCAA rules which is why Fairfield has such a rule to protect the student athletes. I don’t think Fairfield needs further trouble with the NCAA.
Another conduct issue of Prof. Naser was his apparent violation of the Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. This matter is being looked into by the U.S. Department of Education Family Policy Compliance Office in Washington D.C. This law is available online and the Web site offers very specific examples of what is expected for student privacy and it does not seem it should be taken lightly by Fairfield University. Prof. Naser notified the students he had failed them for the class, not just the paper as he stated he was considering, by sending out e-mail notices identifying my daughter by subject matter. One student even e-mailed right back to Prof. Naser about his error in sending out the wrong notification, but Naser didn’t correct it. NO, instead he forwarded six notices, all of which had my daughter’s subject as failing, to Dean [Susan] Peterson, who then in turn mailed these wrong failure notices of my daughter’s paper to the other student’s homes!
This is why the parents became involved, to answer last weeks Feb. 26 commentaries in the Mirror. Mr. Chad Puclowski ’02 needs to realize we are proud of our adult children’s courage to fight for their convictions. It is our understanding that most “mommies and daddies” pay the tuition bills, and we the consumer can and will be involved if needed. This shouldn’t have taken from December until March, and parents have involved the university President to finally get things moving. We are not going away. Our students needed help. We needed help. I would like to thank the faculty who aided us in researching this “plagiarism” problem.
Thank you Fairfield for four wonderful years, don’t let anyone tarnish your fine reputation. Just grow with the times as your students have.
Sincerely, William Keleher Medfield, Mass.
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