From Yale Daily News:
A Yale biology professor who taught at Peking University this fall as part of a joint program between the two schools has accused the Chinese school of turning a blind eye toward plagiarism, raising questions about the academic integrity of an institution that is a central partner in Yale’s internationalization efforts.
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology professor Stephen C. Stearns ’67 sent a passionate, 958-word e-mail to his students at Peking this month, bemoaning the rampant cheating he witnessed while teaching two courses at the university. In his message, Stearns said he was “leaving with very mixed feelings” because of the behavior he had observed.
“The fact that I have encountered this much plagiarism … tells me something about the behavior of other professors and administrators here,” Stearns wrote. “They must tolerate a lot of it, and when they detect it, they cover it up without serious punishment, probably because they do not want to lose face. If they did punish it, it would not be this frequent.”[Full Text]
Read also A Reader’s Comment on Professor Stearns’ Letter, Rao Yi Responses to Professor Stearns’ Letter, and Rao Yi: Professors Should Write Recommendation Letters Themselves from China’s Scientific & Academic Integrity Watch.
