SIU President Glenn Poshard defended his doctoral dissertation Wednesday against accusations he had lifted portions of the 1984 document from other works without properly attributing them.
Poshard did say, however, he may have inadvertently left out some citations.
"I could have made a mistake," Poshard said. "I'm not saying I didn't."
The Daily Egyptian recently obtained copies of Poshard's dissertation and original works from a source close to Alumni and Faculty Against Corruption at SIU. The source, who insisted on anonymity, said Poshard used verbatim excerpts in his dissertation that were not cited or quoted.
The DE compared available documents with originals from the Morris Library and checked with one book's authors to verify their validity. The comparison verified the source's documents.
Samuel Goldman, an SIU Board of Trustees member, said Wednesday night he was sure he and other board members would discuss the matter with Poshard today.
Whether this will affect his employment with the university is up to the board, Poshard said.
"I take my direction from the Board of Trustees," Poshard said. "They're the ones who are appointed, and I answer directly toward them. Eventually they have to decide - just as I had to decide in another case - if this warrants that kind of action."
Poshard said August 1984 - when his dissertation was completed - was one of the busiest times of his life.
Just two weeks after his dissertation was completed, Poshard was appointed to the Illinois State Senate following the death of Sen. Gene Johns.
"This is not an excuse, and I would never offer it up as an excuse but at that point in my life, I had a family," he said. "I worked two jobs. I was running for the Illinois State Senate. I was trying to get my dissertation finished."
Poshard said he would need more time before explaining why some pages have nearly identical text to works that are not cited.
"I haven't seen this (dissertation) in 24 years," he said. "I really haven't picked it up and read it."
Poshard said he had only 30 minutes to look over the report the DE provided him.
The newspaper dropped off the source's documents at the Stone Center around 2 p.m. at Poshard's request, and the interview with Poshard began shortly after 5 p.m.
Despite multiple instances of similar text or misplaced citations, Poshard remained confident he had been honest in his dissertation.
Poshard said his dissertation committee had approved his work.
"They approved the style," he said. "How could they have missed it?"
Poshard said his method of citing, which he said allowed for omitting quotes when information is cited in a footnote, could help explain several examples where he used long, verbatim passages without quotation marks.
"No one on my committee said that when you reference and cite something correctly that you have to go up and put quotes around it," he said.
Multiple academic experts said Poshard did not exercise enough caution while citing and attributing his 111-page dissertation.
Alan Perlman laid out a simple and widely accepted ground rule - if it's not original content, it needs to be cited.
Perlman holds a doctorate in linguistics from the University of Chicago and has assisted attorneys on plagiarism, copyright and authorship for more than 20 years. He said sloppy citing in lengthy papers is common. But absent citations and attributions go beyond what would be considered academically admissible, he said.
"(The author) went beyond error and took credit for what wasn't his," said Perlman, who viewed more than 20 pages of documents without knowing the author's name.
On page 54 of his dissertation, Poshard appears to have modeled his chapter summary, without citation or quotations, after a passage from author James Gallagher.
The last time Poshard cites Gallagher is on page 49, leaving Poshard at a loss to explain the nearly verbatim text on page 54.
"Unless I just failed to cite it," Poshard said. "What else can I say?"
That's plagiarism, says Dan Wueste.
Although Wueste, director of the Robert J. Rutland Institute for Ethics at Clemson University, did not review any of the documents, he said plagiarism is theft of words.
He said innocently omitting citations is still plagiarism.
"That's his definition," Poshard said.
Tricia Bertram Gallant, academic integrity coordinator at University of California, San Diego, said by most contemporary standards, Poshard's dissertation contained instances of unquoted verbatim text and insufficient citation.
However, Bertram Gallant, who viewed the report without knowing the author's name, said there is no academic consensus on the definition of plagiarism and special citation rules sometimes apply to a thesis, on the graduate or undergraduate level.
The plagiarism report
Highlighted sentences and paragraphs in the copy of Poshard's dissertation given to the DE marked potentially plagiarized sections. Highlights and other markings denoted the parts of the original works - included as photocopies - from which Poshard's dissertation may have been lifted.
Fourteen of the accusations of error in the report contain verbatim text without citation. Sixteen contain verbatim text with a citation but without quotation marks.
Most of Poshard's sentences or paragraphs in question include nearly all of the words in the original work in order. Several additional words are included in the suspect sections and a few of the original words are not included.
A total of 19 works by 22 authors are included in the list of accusations.
All but one of the suspect sections is in the 41-page second chapter, entitled "Review of Related Literature."
One example of verbatim text without citation follows.
From Poshard's dissertation, page 39:
"A problem which further confounds the issue is the wide range of differences that exist among school districts themselves. For some schools, the addition of programs for the gifted is simply an extension of an already existing rationale and set of provisions for able students. In other schools, a modest innovation in content or teaching method represents a major change which stands in conflict with traditions and practices."
From "Instructional Climate in Illinois Gifted Classes," by Steele, House, Kerins and Lapin, page 2:
"Another problem which further confounds the issue is the wide range of differences that exist among school districts themselves. For some schools the addition of programs for the gifted is simply an extension of an already existing rationale and set of provisions for able students. In other schools a modest innovation in content or teaching method represents a major change which stands in conflict with the traditions and practices of most teachers in the district."
AFAC History
Alumni and Faculty Against Corruption at SIU was formed in 2004 after SIUE professor Chris Dussold reportedly copied his two-page teaching statement and was fired.
The group has had a running battle with the university and its professors.
In a Nov. 30, 2006, SIUC Graduate Council meeting, Poshard reportedly said linguistic professor Joan Friedenberg was among a group of "academic terrorists" that "lay in the weeds and throw bombs at everybody."
Since Dussold's firing, AFAC members said they have investigated other possible acts of plagiarism at SIU. In a September 2006 article in the Southern Illinoisan, SIUE alum and former AFAC spokesman Tyson Giger said the group's goal is "not to get people fired."
"Our group simply wants everyone to be treated in a manner consistent with university policies," Giger wrote in the statement.
Daily Egyptian writer Jordan Wilson can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 252 or editor@siude.com
Daily Egyptian writer Joe Crawford can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 254 or jcrawford@siude.com
Sean McGahan contributed to this report.
