Examples Of Academic Integrity

Integrity (500 words max) - What does integrity mean to you? How does integrity relate to building communities of trust in academic, personal and professional settings? What expectations should Purdue have towards its students with regards to academic integrity? What consequences should students who do not uphold these standards face?

Integrity includes obeying the laws, disclosing information and taking responsibility. And I believe integrity is the bottom line of one’s moral character. Like what ex-executive director of the Ethics Officer Association said after Enron bankruptcy, “You cannot write enough laws to tell people what to do at all times every day of the week in every part of the world,” integrity is far more than following rules.

I heard that one of my high school friend witnessed cheating at exams several times but decided not to report her friends to teachers. She studied in one of best mechanical engineering degree, however, the cheating scandal cast doubt on the credibility of her department. In professional, integrity brings companies more sustainable working environments. My senior in the university worked in a project management corporation that often wins the bid of government project. She complained that she worked to midnight, and even on Saturday and Sunday in peak season. However, her manager told her to punch the clock at 19 o’clock. What’s worse, her colleague and she cannot get any overtime pay for business trip. The employee turnover rate is high. Many of her colleague leave the company, and the longest time her colleague stay in her department is only 1.5 years. Her managers and supervisors treat her bad, and her boss’s attitude are that we are a good company, that everything in public is legal and that we all worked overtime without any pay when we were young. Therefore, I encouraged her to record the conversation and obtain the evidences. Now she is preparing for a court mediation next week. Without integrity, the culture in company would affect production and stakeholders (in this case, project and government for example) negatively in the long run and may bring down the physical and mental

Sometimes integrity means that we need to give up something and brush our self esteem aside. When I was the Vice President in Graduating Students Committee, I was buried myself with school work, students committee work and part time tutor jobs. And I accidentally arranged 2 deans and 1 department to take photo at the same time while there were only 2 photographers available. It ended up that the dean of college of photonics had waited for 30 minutes and got angry at the photographer and me. After the photo shoot, I apologized sincerely to the dean, and I also wrote letters to his secretary, arranged free photo shoot for the dean and sent our association mug with his photo on it. Admitting mistakes is hard but right thing to do. I learnt to communicate with committee members more and ask for help on checking the details instead of doing all by myself. The process is difficult but necessary to the improvement for committee. Only by accepting the false can one person earn the integrity and respect that others trust and depend