2008 Woodie Awards
UPDATED: Poshard accused of plagiarism
Catherine Klene
Issue date: 8/30/07 Section: News
Southern Illinois University President Glenn Poshard denied allegations of plagiarism found in his 1984 doctoral dissertation Thursday and said he will not step down from his position as president.
An article published Thursday in the Daily Egyptian, Southern Illinois University Carbondale's student newspaper, accused Poshard of plagiarizing parts of his dissertation after receiving information from an anonymous source.
After an extensive investigation, the DE claimed Poshard failed to properly cite or quote up to 30 separate portions of the 23-year-old document. Of those sections, 14 were said to be taken verbatim from another source without any form of citation.
Poshard, who has spoken out against academic misconduct and dishonesty in the past, said in the article that he may have accidentally left out some citations but did not commit plagiarism.
"I could have made a mistake," Poshard said in the DE article. "But I'm not saying I did."
Poshard said he had not seen the dissertation in 24 years, and when he presented the document to his dissertation committee, they approved it, including his citation style.
"They approved the style," Poshard told the DE. "How could they have missed it?"
SIU Board of Trustees Chair Roger Tedrick released a statement Thursday saying the board will stand behind Poshard. Tedrick also said the board was aware of plagiarism issues concerning Poshard's dissertation prior to the allegations made on Thursday.
"For the past several months, the board has been aware of the possibility that these assertions could be forthcoming as part of a lawsuit filed by a former employee," Tedrick said in the statement.
SIU Communications Director Michael Ruiz said prior to Thursday's allegations, the dissertation was run through the Web site www.turnitin.com, which runs content through a plagiarism prevention service in an effort to find plagiarized content.
"It came back and didn't find anything," Ruiz said. "Without doing some kind of exhaustive search, you weren't going to find the stuff that the person who submitted it to the (Daily Egyptian) did."
An article published Thursday in the Daily Egyptian, Southern Illinois University Carbondale's student newspaper, accused Poshard of plagiarizing parts of his dissertation after receiving information from an anonymous source.
After an extensive investigation, the DE claimed Poshard failed to properly cite or quote up to 30 separate portions of the 23-year-old document. Of those sections, 14 were said to be taken verbatim from another source without any form of citation.
Poshard, who has spoken out against academic misconduct and dishonesty in the past, said in the article that he may have accidentally left out some citations but did not commit plagiarism.
"I could have made a mistake," Poshard said in the DE article. "But I'm not saying I did."
Poshard said he had not seen the dissertation in 24 years, and when he presented the document to his dissertation committee, they approved it, including his citation style.
"They approved the style," Poshard told the DE. "How could they have missed it?"
SIU Board of Trustees Chair Roger Tedrick released a statement Thursday saying the board will stand behind Poshard. Tedrick also said the board was aware of plagiarism issues concerning Poshard's dissertation prior to the allegations made on Thursday.
"For the past several months, the board has been aware of the possibility that these assertions could be forthcoming as part of a lawsuit filed by a former employee," Tedrick said in the statement.
SIU Communications Director Michael Ruiz said prior to Thursday's allegations, the dissertation was run through the Web site www.turnitin.com, which runs content through a plagiarism prevention service in an effort to find plagiarized content.
"It came back and didn't find anything," Ruiz said. "Without doing some kind of exhaustive search, you weren't going to find the stuff that the person who submitted it to the (Daily Egyptian) did."
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