 "Photo: Ken Muir")
Pressures to get good grades, get accepted to a prestigious university or land one's dream job, may lead to cheating to get ahead.
David Callahan, author of "The Cheating Culture," a book about declining ethics in American society, spoke at 3:30 p.m. Monday at the Allen Theatre in the Student Union Building.
The more temptations people face, Callahan said, the more corners they are likely to cut.
Two-thirds to three-fourths of students, he said, have admitted to cheating while in college, and an estimated 57 percent of students admitted to cheating while at Tech.
"They pull out that second moral compass when the heat is on," Callahan said, "when the price is right."
Technology, he said, such as text messaging answers to a test, using camera cell phones to photograph test questions and typing answers or formulas into calculators all serve as cheating aids.
Even good students and high achievers cheat, Callahan said.
"These days, it seems it's easier to find ourselves on slippery slopes," he said, "both at school and at work."
Cheating reflects deep trends in America, Callahan said, and is highlighted by the figureheads of society - celebrities, CEOs and athletes.
The "winner take-all society," he said, drives people's obsessions to cheat or cut corners to receive rewards.
The recent foreclosure of American's homes, Callahan said, has been exaggerated by mortgage brokers' selfish motives to cheat customers out of money.
A secured middle-class existence is not easy to obtain without succumbing to questionable ethics, he said.
Fear is the driving force to cheating, he said. Modern American individuals worry about their livelihoods and are willing to forfeit some of their principles to guarantee their standard of living.
"It's crucial to hold on to our values when the heat is on," Callahan said.
There are three ways to fix the cheating culture, he said, that involve changing how figureheads, institutions, society and, most importantly, how individuals behave.
"We need to police ourselves," Callahan said. "That's hard to do."
Society needs "tougher" government watchdogs to enforce honesty, he said, and schools need a bigger push of academic integrity.
"Nobody is looking," he said, "and, in some cases, there are sleeping watchdogs, or, in some cases, watchdogs that have been put to sleep."
There are absolute rights and wrongs in this environment, he said, and rules are in the society's best interest.
Anna Ribeiro, a philosophy professor who attended Callahan's lecture, said there needs to be less demand placed on students to ensure that they perform honestly.
"There are so many more demands placed on students today," Ribeiro said, "that I can understand how sometimes they just - out of purely not having energy to do the work they have to do - they might resort to that."
Tech's rules concerning cheating are fair, she said. The more ethical violations persist, the more explicit and enforced the rules need to be.
The lecture was presented with "good conviction," said T.J. Kirk, a senior construction technologies major from Accokeek, Md., but Callahan missed out on "positive ways" to curb cheating.
There needs to be more positive reinforcement for those who practice academic integrity, Kirk said.
"I did not come here to sugarcoat the reality," Callahan said. "We need to fight the corruption, not succumb to it."
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