The Herald Sun of Durham, North Carolina, is reporting that nine first-year students at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business face possible expulsion after the largest cheating scandal in the school’s history. Thirty-eight students were brought before Fuqua’s judicial board on charges of improper collaboration on a take-home test given in a third quarter class. Of the 38 accused students, four were cleared of wrongdoing, nine were found guilty of “extremely severe offenses,” and the remainder were found guilty of “severe” or “minor” offenses related to the incident. Those students found guilty of the most severe offenses face expulsion from the school, while most of the other students face a one-year suspension from the program, pending the results of a likely appeal by the students. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the charges arose after a professor noticed unusual similarities between student responses on an open-book take home test. Fuqua’s honor code prohibits students from lying, cheating, and stealing, among other offenses, and also requires students to report violations of the code. Fuqua administrators, along with several students, are framing the incident as an example of how seriously the school takes ethics and integrity, and one student said that Fuqua’s willingness to welcome some of the students back to campus after the one-year suspension is a measure of the school’s compassion. With so many high profile corporate scandals in recent years, business schools are under more pressure than ever to produce graduates who will make responsible, ethical business decisions. Given this pressure, it is almost certain that Fuqua and the accused students will be subject to serious public scrutiny as the case continues to develop.
In lighter news, the Wharton Business Plan Competition (BPC) came to a close last week. A Wharton second-year student teamed up with several pharmacology students and a neurosurgery resident to create the winning team’s product and pitch. Their team, NP Solutions, developed a polymer based injectable hydrogel treatment for back pain related to degenerative disc disease, taking home the grand prize of $20,000 in capital plus in-kind legal and accounting services. Runner-ups include a low cost, high performance flash memory company in China, a higher output, lower cost biogas processing method, and a make-your-own candy cafe. At least one of the companies honored in the final round was also recognized at the semi-finalist level of MIT’s business plan competition, while others grew out of Wharton’s respected Venture Initiation Program. For more on the winning teams and the competition, be sure to check out the Business Plan Competition website.
