The relationship between students and faculty is the keystone of the educational experience at NYU Steinhardt.  This relationship takes an honor code for granted. Mutual trust, respect and responsibility are foundational requirements.  Thus, how you learn is as important as what you learn.  A University education aims not only to produce high quality scholars, but to also cultivate honorable citizens.  

Academic integrity is the guiding principle for all that you do, from taking exams, making oral presentations to writing term papers. It requires that you recognize and acknowledge information derived from others, and take credit only for ideas and work that are yours. 

You violate the principle of academic integrity when you:

• Cheat on an exam;
• Submit the same work for two different courses without prior permission from your professors;
• Receive help on a take-home examination that calls for independent work;
• Plagiarize.

Plagiarism, one of the gravest forms of academic dishonesty in university life, whether intended or not, is academic fraud. In a community of scholars, whose members are teaching, learning and discovering knowledge, plagiarism cannot be tolerated.  

Plagiarism is failure to properly assign authorship to a paper, a document, an oral presentation, a musical score and/or other materials which are not your original work. You plagiarize when, without proper attribution, you do any of the following:

• Copy verbatim from a book, an article or other media;
• Download documents from the Internet;
• Purchase documents;
• Report from other's oral work;
• Paraphrase or restate someone else's facts, analysis and/or conclusions;
• Copy directly from a classmate or allow a classmate to copy from you.

Your professors are responsible for helping you to understand other people's ideas, to use resources and conscientiously acknowledge them, and to develop and clarify your own thinking.  You should know what constitutes good and honest scholarship, style guide preferences, and formats for assignments for each of your courses. Consult your professors for help with problems related to fulfilling course assignments, including questions related to attribution of sources.

Through reading, writing, and discussion, you will undoubtedly acquire ideas from others, and exchange ideas and opinions with others, including your classmates and professors.  You will be expected, and often required, to build your own work on that of other people.  In so doing, you are expected to credit those sources that have contributed to the development of your ideas.

Avoiding Academic Dishonesty

• Organize your time appropriately to avoid undue pressure, and acquire good study habits, including note taking.
• Learn proper forms of citation.  Always check with your professors of record for their preferred style guides.  Directly copied material must always be in quotes; paraphrased material must be acknowledged; even ideas and organization derived from your own previous work or another's work need to be acknowledged.
• Always proofread your finished work to be sure that quotation marks or footnotes or other references were not inadvertently omitted.  Know the source of each citation.
• Do not submit the same work for more than one class without first obtaining the permission of both professors even if you believe that work you have already completed satisfies the requirements of another assignment.
• Save your notes and drafts of your papers as evidence of your original work.

Disciplinary Sanctions
When a professor suspects cheating, plagiarism, and/or other forms of academic dishonesty, appropriate disciplinary action is as follows:

• The Professor will meet with the student to discuss, and present evidence for the particular violation, giving the student opportunity to refute or deny the charge(s).  
• If the Professor confirms the violation(s), he/she, in consultation with the Program Director and Department Chair may take any of the following actions:   

• Allow the student to redo the assignment
• Lower the grade for the work in question
• Assign a grade of F for the work in question
• Assign a grade of F for the course
• Recommend dismissal

Once action(s) is taken, the Professor will inform the Program Director and Department Chair, and inform the student in writing, instructing the student to schedule an appointment with the Associate Dean for Student Services and Public Affairs, as a final step.  Copies of the letter will be sent to the Department Chair for his/her confidential student file and the Associate Dean for Student Services and Public Affairs.  The student has the right to appeal the action taken in accordance with the School's Student Complaint Procedure as outlined in The Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development Student Handbook.

When dismissal is recommended, that recommendation will be forwarded to the Associate Dean for Student Services and Public Affairs, who will convene all parties involved.  An appeal of the decision at this step is submitted in writing to the Vice Dean, including full documentation to support the appeal.  

*The NYU Steinhardt Statement on Academic Integrity is consistent with New York University Policy on Student Conduct, published in the NYU Student Guide.