The Right Decision for a Student Who Would Fail

Winter was coming early. It was the first week in December and there was a chill in the air, and a dampness, too. Not a leaf was left on any tree, except of course, the conifers, and there was a scant, bare, skeletal look about the branches. And there was no sun. Dark, damp, gloomy, even in early afternoon, was the feeling felt by Professor Turnbull on that bleak Decempber day. Typical of winter in Whitehall, Minnesota, in late December, but not right after Thanksgiving.

He was in a hurry as his class was starting in fifteen minutes. He had to walk the campus promenade from his office in the Administrative Building to Bradley Science Hall and he felt the chill and damp in every bone of his body.

Bradley Science Hall had an artificial warmth to it, and yet, he liked it. In all his fifty years of life, he had always preferred to be warm rather than cold but his home was in a northern state, and so he dressed for the weather. As he approached his classroom door, he fished in his pocket with his gloves still on to get his key, and when he opened the door, a student came up to him.

"Dr Turnbull," the young woman said, "How much credit will be deducted if I do not turn in my paper a week from Friday but have to wait until two weeks from Monday?"

The professor and the student walked into the room together. She looked up at him with earnest eyes. He ran his hand through his gray hair, and then asked her: "Are you having a problem researching this topic?"

She answered in the affirmative. He stared at her. She had a bright look about her, light brown hair, with some blonde patches around her face. He wondered if they were natural or placed there by a local salon stylist. Attractive face, and a pleasant smile were her attributes.

"Tell me the problem you are having, and perhaps I can help," He responded.

She proceeded to explain to him that she could not find exactly what she was trying to discover about the topic, which was microbial therapy, or, using certain bacteria to fight diseases. In other words, bugs for drugs.

"Come see me after class, and I will give you a list of teaching assistants who can give you some time for this project. They may help you with the subject."

"Oh thank you" was her reply.

She had done fairly well on her other assignments, and passed the exams for the class with a higher than 80 average. During class, she sat in the front row. She seemed engaged, and she followed every sentence he spoke and every diagram he drew on the white board. At times, she asked questions which furthered class discussions.

After giving her the list of three names of upperclassmen who had taken this same course, he went to the cafeteria of the Science Hall to meet a colleague for a cup of tea.

He and his colleague had a thoughtful discussion on their problem students and what they each might do to lessen the load for their pupils.

Dr. Rose spoke: "For my research assignments, I hand out a program to follow step by step. I do that the first week. Didn't you do something like that?"

Dr. Turnbull answered that of course, in his syllabus, there is a format to follow.

He mentioned that he had given a list of tutors to help this one student.

Dr. Rose, a contemporary of Turnbull's, always maintained that his first goal of education was to help the students learn, even if he had to spoon feed the material to them.

Dr. Rose nodded in approval.

On the Friday the assignment was due, this young student turned in a completed research paper. Then she handed Professor Turnbull a gift. Other students also gave him presents, coffee mugs, pens and an assignment notebook.

"This is our next to last class, and I wanted to give you an early Christmas present." Dr. Turnbull thanked the young lady. He unwrapped a cashmere tartan plaid scarf. "Thank you!:

"Study hard for the final on Thursday," he advised her.

That following weekend, the last weekend of the school semester, Dr. Turnbull had two major tasks to complete. He had to grade final examinations and he had to read through and make comments on student research papers.

First, the tests. All of the students did well, including Miss Harwell, the young lady who he helped on her paper. All passed and he did not need to create a "curve" for his students. He was very pleased. He finished that task on Saturday. On Sunday, he made plans to have dinner with Dr. Rose and Mrs. Rose at a local restaurant. He planned to spend all day Sunday on reading the student papers.

Most of the papers were good, none stood out as exceptional but all were plausible and seemed to examine the concept of microbiological therapy well enough to earn the passing grade they desired. One paper caught his attention. Young Miss Harwell had written a paper that, to Dr. Turnbull, was outstanding. He reread it several times because it impressed him so.

That night, he brought this outstanding example of student work to dinner so that Dr. and Mrs. Rose could read it and he could find out if they shared his opinion.

Over coffee and dessert, Dr. Rose indeed agreed that this was a great paper. But he felt that there was something familiar about it The following morning, Dr. Rose called Turnbull and told him: "i just remembered why that paper of your student's was so familiar. It was written two years ago by one of my students on the same subject. Miss Harwell changed a few words, put it in a different order, added a few new paragraphs, but basically it's the same paper."

Plagiarism.

He was numb.

Then, he reacted. "Ill have to decide what to do."

Dr. Rose said: "I would just fail her myself."

Dr. Turnbull had never failed any student. He was very proud of that fact. However , he had a serious breach on his hands. He called the student to his office for an aftternoon appointment. She asked if it were necessary, because she wanted to drive back to her home that very day. He said: "Yes, it's necessary."

When she came to his office, she seemed to have no idea why she was called in. After the explanation that she copied another student's work, which she denied, she asked what she could do.

"Rewrite your own paper.

In two weeks.

Incomplete grade until then

or

Fail the class."

Mis Harwell began to cry. She then told him that the graduate student teaching assistant did not have the time to help her and handed her his paper because he told her that Turnbull didn't read them any way.

Professor Turnbull said: "If I fail you, then I, too, am a failure. "

And Miss Harwell cried even more but promised to rewrite the paper.

Turnbull said: "Let me give you some other references which I should have given you earlier." She accepted other studies eagerly.

"I will do this Professor and thank you so much."

Ten days later he received a package via FedEx from Miss Harwell. It was the research paper. It was not as good as the one she had originally turned in, but it made sense, and it did uncover some new information. It earned her a passing grade.