In the past week, students of Huazhong Agricultural University have reported their tutors' academic fraud with their real names. The 129-page PDF has 125 pages of text and 34 fake papers to prove it.
Although Professor Huang Mouruo from the School of Veterinary Medicine of the School of Animal Science and Technology has been suspended from all positions and work on campus, this decision is only a temporary measure announced in the briefing. The matter is not over until the final findings of the investigation are released and a formal penalty decision is announced and implemented.
Coincidentally, at the end of 2020, there were two similar incidents in the academic circle. The first is that Lu Xiang, a former master's student at the School of Chemical Engineering of Tianjin University, reported his former tutor Zhang Yuqing and his daughter Zhang Simeng for academic fraud with a 123-page report letter.
The School of Chemical Engineering of Tianjin University issued a notice saying that after investigation, the academic misconduct of Zhang Yuqing, a professor of the college, was true, and he admitted that he had academic misconduct and was willing to bear full responsibility, Tianjin University had terminated the employment contract with Zhang Yuqing, and other related issues were being further investigated. However, as of today, Tianjin University has not released the results of further investigations. According to netizens, Zhang Simeng has been dropped out of Monash University in Australia.
The second is the sudden death of Li Yuan, a 26-year-old graduate student at the University of Geosciences, after his thesis was invalidated due to academic misconduct by his supervisor, resulting in him needing to rewrite his thesis and postpone his graduation.
According to the information in Li Yuan's mobile phone, he has endured the suppression of education by teachers for a long time. In September 2019, Li Yuan's first paper was invalidated due to the impact of his supervisor's academic misconduct, Li Yuan was forced to write a "productive" paper on oil and gas exploration without project data due to his supervisor's utilitarian academic thinking, in the first half of 2020, Li Yuan repeatedly urged his supervisor to revise his thesis, but was ignored, and in September 2020, his supervisor made a surprise and intensive revision of his thesis, forcing Li Yuan to work at high intensity every day, and finally died suddenly in the early hours of the morning.
In all three cases, there was a fraud by the tutor, how should the student choose?
From the perspective of public opinion, of course, the first type is more encouraged, and resolutely report academic misconduct, even if it is their own mentor. Judging from the report letter, the whistleblower Lu Xiang pointed out that he voluntarily dropped out of the master's degree in 2016 because he could not bear this kind of fraud, but he only reported it after four years when he remembered his classmates, and he did not report it until they all graduated. This also shows that he knows that reporting a tutor has a great impact on students.
This was indeed confirmed in this year's whistleblowing incident.
According to China Youth Network, the fresh graduates who participated in the report have all met the graduation requirements, and they know better than anyone that once Huang is found to be an academic misconduct, they will almost certainly not be able to graduate on time, and it is unknown whether they can even graduate. One of the typical representatives of this, Mr. Zhang, as a fourth-year Ph.D. student with a master's and doctor's degree, was originally expected to graduate with a Ph.D. in June 2024, but if he could not obtain a Ph.D., Mr. Zhang could only find a job as an undergraduate. In this regard, Zhang said:
"At least I'm sure I won't be able to finish my studies, because I'm a senior haha. "Since you have chosen this path, you must know the consequences, and you are all adults. >Even if I have been in trouble for the past 6 years, I have saved many 6 years by exposing him. ”
In the second case, the impact was even more pronounced. Because of the tutor's academic misconduct, Li Yuan's hard-earned graduation thesis was invalid and he could not graduate normally. For masters and doctors, it is undoubtedly a sunk cost of several years. Once you give up, you lose your degree, and years of hard work are in vain. Therefore, it is normal for most people to know that their tutors are academically misconducted, and they also choose to grit their teeth and stand firm.
In terms of system, many colleges and universities have set up hotlines for reporting academic misconduct, publicizing the contact information of special positions or special personnel, such as email, telephone, office address, etc.
After a student reports the academic misconduct of the tutor to the university, in principle, the university should be able to change the tutor to minimize the impact on graduation.
But when it comes to specific operations, it is very troublesome to change instructors. First of all, some supervisors' research directions are relatively niche, and changing supervisors means changing research directions. The work I did before was in vain, and even if I could get my degree in the end, I would lose a lot of time because of the change of program in the middle of the process. Second, there are some tutors who are sorcert-type, and their influence is basically all over the school. If you want to switch to other tutors, many people will not accept them out of the mentality of not wanting to offend, and even feel that the student who reported the tutor is a "thorn".
Zhang Yuqing, like Tianjin University, even after being punished by the National Natural Science Notification in 2022, still made a hard statement on Pubpeer about the National Natural Science Foundation Committee.
The attitude towards the National Natural Science Foundation of China is so arrogant, how can a tutor like him let students change tutors smoothly?
Huazhong Agricultural University is fortunate to be a collective report, 15 students in the whole research group, 11 people in the real-name joint report, and the remaining 4 people are aware of the report, but they did not directly participate in the collective report. This led to the urgent establishment of a tutor group in Huazhong Agricultural University to be fully responsible for the training of graduate students in the research group. At present, the students who reported are in contact with the new tutor group for a "two-way choice" with the new tutor.
Finally, the report may also cause dissatisfaction among the original laboratory colleagues. Although students involved in the fraud problem are often unaware, students, technicians and other related personnel will also be affected by the joint relationship. This is also why the whistleblower in the Zhang Yuqing incident had to wait four years before his classmates graduated.
In 2011, the American Psychological Association (APA) published an article on its website discussing the issue of academic misconduct by tutors. The main point is that when you suspect academic misconduct on the part of your supervisor or research supervisor, the first thing to do is to review the evidence, and on the basis of understanding and clarifying the definition of academic misconduct, record and preserve the content of conversations, emails and other evidence that helped form a conclusion.
This is also Lu Xiang's approach, he sacrificed his degree to report bad mentors, and he can be regarded as a hero. But we can't expect everyone to be a hero, the mentor holds the power of the student's graduation, and the "hard hit" is too demanding for the student.
So for students, there are three pieces of advice. First, have a strong psychology; second, know how to maneuver and communicate, and be able to deal with this matter wisely; third, you must have your own bottom line and learn to protect yourself, but you can't go beyond the bottom line to fake. If the paper related to you is officially revoked, please be sure to collect the key content of your scientific research so that you can ensure that you are in danger when you need it in the future.
Of course, there is a clear correlation between academic misconduct and the character of the tutor, and the best course of action is definitely to prevent it from happening. Keep your eyes peeled when looking for a mentor. Generally, it is necessary to understand the following aspects (from senior brothers and sisters or on the Internet):
(1) Squeeze time: often send some chores and chores that have nothing to do with academics, wasting normal study and life time and energy.
(2) Squeeze money. Frequently ask students to pay various amounts in advance, suggesting or asking students to give them treats or gifts......
(3) Intervention in daily life. Students are required to be on call, students are not allowed to fall in love, and interfere with daily communication and leisure time arrangements.
(4) Psychological injury. Speak ill of students, treat students as retainers and slaves, use them at will, and don't care about training, but scolding students is better than anyone else, causing psychological trauma to students.
(5) Harassment of students. Female students should especially pay attention to this, fire prevention, anti-theft and anti-brother, and even more so anti-pervert.
(6) Misappropriation of achievements. For example, student A is the main person who completes the work, and should be the first author, but the tutor ranks the second or even the third author for no reason, and the first author is occupied by others. Also, pressuring students' theses and deliberately delaying students' graduation dates in order to continue to squeeze students' cheap labor......
In the case of the above, especially in Articles 4, 5 and 6, once it happens, do not choose. Whenever these things happen after the entry, care should be taken to preserve the evidence. When there is no way to return, there can be evidence to report.
If you can't solve the problem, you will choose to drop out. Human life is very long, so don't let that lead to the hasty destruction of yourself. When choosing to withdraw from school, be sure to resist the pressure of your family. Many students want to drop out of school when they are oppressed by their tutors, but they are pressured by their families. Under double pressure, it can lead to tragedy.