The revelation that hundreds of University of Central Florida students in a senior-level business class received an advance version of a mid-term exam has exposed the widening chasm in what different generations expect of each other -- and what they perceive cheating to be.
The incident has sparked debate and soul-searching far beyond Florida, with some seeing the case as a classic example of the philosophical divide between many students and faculty members about just what constitutes cheating -- and how it can be prevented. Further, it shows just how difficult it can be to stamp out and respond to large-scale incidents of academic dishonesty.
What has been most disturbing to some -- and perhaps the real engine driving the continuing national interest in the case -- is the response and defense mounted by the students. To some observers, the incident has amplified fears about the moral character of the generation that is now coming of age.
The even larger problem is the social dynamic put in place by this larger permissiveness, she said. "When people get the idea that everyone cheats, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy," she said. Among individuals, cheating can become habitual. As the attitude that it is common grows more widespread, so does the toll it exacts.
We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves. We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us.
