Academic

Dean's Nightmare At NYU Law

By Dan Filler

 As an associate dean who deals with exam problems, I felt NYU Law Associate Dean Liam Murphy's pain.  As reported in ATL, a visiting contracts professor at NYU - Jide Nzelibe - administered a recycled exam.  More precisely, he'd given out his contracts final to Northwestern students as a practice exam last year.  Amazingly enough, some NYU students reported this transgression to the deanery.  A number of students who had seen (and worked through) these old exams  acted honorably, and arguably against rational self-interest, diming out  the instructor.

What is a dean to do?  Apparently Murphy suggested three options: pass/fail for all; a new exam for all; and, ignore the information and pretend that no one farted.  At ATL, Elie says that" the students may be punished for the professor's mistake."  Punishment for one student may be a benefit for another, however.  There is no good answer.  I'd personally vote for the P/F-for-all option...but I'm curious what others think.

Note to all you aspiring administrators: this sort of thing (with lots of variations, of course) happens surprisingly often.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on December 22, 2009 (boomark / email).