Today is graduation day at Maryland's historically black Coppin State College. But not all the degrees that will be awarded today are created equal. At least four of the six criminal justice students slated to receive their Master's degrees did failing work in the program--but they will graduate anyway after a lawsuit filed by fourteen disgruntled students and a timely expose by The Chronicle of Higher Education put the college in a very tight, very public spot. Highlights include students who plagiarized their research papers, students whose papers consisted of what one professor called "gibberish," students who failed their required comprehensive final exam--twice; students who sued when they found out they were failing; and a college president who overrode the criminal justice department's prerogative to determine who passes and who fails because "We have a capital expansion campaign, and we can't afford bad publicity."

Why shouldn't disgruntled students be allowed to sue if it places sufficient pressure on a college administration to allow them to achieve their goals?
We can all agree that plagiarism and gibberish are bad things, but these were working adults who were clearly disgruntled for a reason.
We should not suspect that, just because these are students, that there complaints are unfounded.
Read this quote, for instance:

"As a graduate student, my thesis is my thesis," Coates said, "and I have a problem if the instructor tells me that's not good enough."

I suspect that may have happened in this case, and it seems like a good grounds for a lawsuit when you consider the expense and anguish involved.

This is what the professor in question had to say about why he steered the student away from his thesis topic:

Monk said he told Coates that his idea for a thesis topic was "not practical, that it wouldn't be doable in six months."

"I've never censored any students in my life, and I was supportive of his topic of choice. I didn't think he could complete it in time," Monk said. "Under no circumstances did I say, 'Go write about the meat rack.' "

And this is how a columnist for the Baltimore Sun interprets the students' litigiousness:

14 students filed a lawsuit last month that alleged, according to Roylance, "that the [criminal justice] department failed to adequately prepare them for their final exams and research papers, and miscommunicated the requirements of the program."

Excuse me? Some 20 students are in the program. One, 34-year-old Joycelyn Evans of Catonsville, works full time and opted to write a research thesis for the course. Others could choose the comprehensive exam and a shorter research paper. Of the 14 who sought to graduate this semester, eight flunked the exams. Four had seminar papers accepted by the college -- allowing them to graduate, even though those papers were deemed unacceptable by the department head. Two others, including Evans, completed all the work and will graduate.

And assuming the fault did lie with Coppin's faculty, shouldn't those failing students have made danged sure those preparation and communication issues were fully addressed before they took the exam a second time? Do they have any idea how many college students, past and present, would love to have a second crack at an exam they'd flunked?

Conservatives are usually accused of "blaming the victims" when we bring these questions up. Indeed, in a society that has elevated victimhood to near deity status, we should not be surprised that 11 people would twice flunk a college exam, claim they've been terribly aggrieved and then file a lawsuit.

But the real victims may be those Coppin professors, who have to teach many students who may have come from a Baltimore school system where, until recently, social promotion was all the rage.

I think it's pushing things to argue that the professors are the victims here. But I'd need to see a lot more evidence before I believed the students were.

'...a college president who overrode the criminal justice department's prerogative to determine who passes and who fails because "We have a capital expansion campaign, and we can't afford bad publicity." '

Sounds like a corporate CEO who decided to "adjust" the quarterly results because "We have a capital expansion campaign (secondary stock offering), and we can't afford bad shareholder relations."

This isn't your "typical" education situation. As one of the articles reports, the students are mostly "adults working as police, parole and correctional officers and as social workers". They are in the master's program under tuition reimbursement programs from their employers (it is my assumption based on the above), and they are earning master's degrees because the possession of said degree will result in a specific percentage increase in their salary, based on typical civil service policies.

In short, the whole thing is a joke, which is sort of what the current President of Coppin also pretty much said.

I suspect that the content of "Criminal Justice" courses roughly parallels the content of ed school courses in rigor and intellectual value.

The fact that the US university system tolerates these joke-style programs is the bigger problem. If Coppin follows through on the study that it promises, it might remedy this particular case, but the question continues on what causes the problem. The biggest cause, it seems to me, is that right now there are too many institutions of higher learning. The current network of state colleges and junior colleges in particular grew up in the 1950s and 60s during the baby boom to serve a much larger student population. They are hanging on now with programs like Criminal Justice Studies, getting tuition payments for non-courses from local governments who incent the students to take them with guarenteed raises.

At some point the problem of overcapacity needs to be addressed. Publicity may help -- but we also need confident, optimistic, well-spoken leadership.

John,
A post filled with speculation, assumption, and opinion solves nothing and sways nobody.

While I respect your opinion, I can't believe it without some corroborating sources. Could you post those, if they are available on the internet?

I've clearly labeled my assumptions, which are based on my experience. The newspaper report says the students in the program are largely adults who are currently employed in the criminal justice system.

It is a reasonable assumption that these employers have tuition reimbursement programs -- they are presumably large local government agencies, which typically do. I've worked for several in my area, and this is the case in my experience. I think it is justifiable to make a reasonable assumption like this.

Second, as a former civil servant, I can say as well that I received a pay increase simply on the basis of having a master's degree. This was simply a part of civil service policy for this local government. I suspect that such local government policies are frequently published on the web. I was making what I felt was a reasonable extrapolation, which I clearly labeled as such, based on my experience. Considering the largely informal nature of the posts on a site like this -- the comment facility does not support footnotes, for example -- I don't feel the need to support my clearly labeled assumptions beyond this.

Were I writing for a public policy journal, I would proceed differently, but this ain't that. I think my ideas are worth considering, and they are worth what folks are paying for them. Are you perhaps holding my posts to a different standard from what applies to any others?

It's worth pointing out that one of the articles cited in the original post says this:

"Battle [the school's president] conceded, however, that the episode - the students' complaints and the failure of 11 of the program's 20 graduate students to pass their exams - has exposed serious problems in the criminal justice program.

"'There have been challenges in that department for some time. This did not happen overnight,' he said. 'We're making some hard decisions in that department administratively. We're also doing a thorough academic review.'"

In effect, he is saying the program is a joke. I added some speculation as to why. The whole picture -- what seems to me a sense of entitlement to whatever benefits accrue from going through a largely bogus program -- isn't pretty, certainly, and I can see how some people would find these aspects of human nature disturbing.

Dear Dr Let Em Lo (1st comment):

It's a bit hard to tell when you're serious and when not. I wrote you as much, but surprisingly your email (foo@spammmm.com) wasn't valid.

Threads are nicest when commenters express themselves clearly and to the point under discussion; unfortunately that sentiment **isn't universally shared.**

Coppin State is denying the Chronicle of Higher Education's Allegation:

Battle denied there were any plans to give degrees to students who had not earned them, and he said the allegations in the higher education journal were untrue.

Chronology is important here:

On May 15, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that Coppin State would be graduating eight students who had failed their comprehensive exams (twice) and written failing research papers.

On May 16, the Baltimore Sun reported that the president of Coppin State denied the Chronicle of Higher Education's allegations, and said that no students who had failed their comprehensive exam would graduate.

On May 17, the Baltimore Sun reported that indeed four students who had originally failed to pass their research paper requirement would be graduating on May 18. A "pass" had been engineered for them by the Coppin State administration, which overrode the opinion of both the students' professors and the department chair that the papers were incompetent (consisting both of "gibberish" and plagiarized text).

I am not sure if we can condemn only the students who felt they should have been graduated and the administration here.

It appears that this has been a program with minimal academic standards for quite some time. If my speculation is correct, local civil servants could avail themselves of this undemanding master's program to get a fairly easy bump in pay.

It would be interesting to look into the history of the program's enrollment and graduation rates. I hope either the Baltimore Sun or the Chronicle of Higher Education will consider this. Just by the numbers given -- 20 or so master's candidates in one year -- this sounds like a popular program.

But has Coppin changed the rules in midstream? Was it at one time OK to plagiarize and/or write gibberish and just be waved through? If this is the case, Coppin has a bigger problem, because it needs to deal with expectations that have been created due to past policy. Battle's remarks make me wonder if this is the case. In a case like this, the administration may have little choice but to temporize with the problem in the way it has.

I suspect, by the way, that police officers on the street would have nothing but contempt for graduates of the Coppin Criminal Justice program.