When Your Professor Asks You to Cheat: A Conversation with Dr. Joel Heng Hartse

Summary

We all know that academic integrity matters. But do we all agree on what academic integrity really is? Somewhere beyond the nuances and gray areas is blatant cheating. And that’s always wrong . . . but what if your professor asks you to cheat? This episode explores:

  • How well students understand academic integrity.
  • Why Dr. Heng Hartse designed a course that required cheating.
  • What he and his students learned from it.
  • How it feels to cheat, and why some students feel forced to do it.
  • A discussion of the article “What Happened When I Made My Students Cheat.”

Our guest is: Dr. Joel Heng Hartse, who teaches at Simon Fraser University. He wrote Sects, Love, and Rock and Roll (Cascade Books, 2010); Dancing About Architecture is a Reasonable Things to Do (Cascade Books, 2022); co-authored with Jiang Dong Perspectives on Teaching English at Colleges and Universities in China (TESOL Press, 2015); and is the author of the article “What Happened When I Made My Students Cheat,” published in Inside Higher Ed (November 9, 2022).

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender.

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Your Host

Christina Gessler

Dr. Christina Gessler is the creator, show host, and producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in U.S. history.
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