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The SIU Board of Trustees chairman endorsed a plan Monday to seek the opinions of top faculty concerning plagiarism allegations against University President Glenn Poshard.
The executive committee of the BOT was briefed on Chancellor Fernando Treviño's plan to deal with the accusations at a closed meeting Monday, according to a news release from the university. BOT Chairman Roger Tedrick said in a statement the board continued to support Poshard, but it welcomed a review of the allegations by "experienced and committed members of our academy."
Tedrick did not return four messages Monday seeking comment.
Treviño has asked seven faculty members - three from the Faculty Senate, two from the Graduate Council and two from the Faculty Association - to make recommendations to university officials on how to deal with the allegations. The leaders of the three organizations recommended the faculty members representing their bodies, he said.
Treviño said he would not reveal the names of the seven faculty members until he discussed the plan with the Faculty Senate at its meeting today.
"I want to go forward and have this discussion with the Faculty Senate because it may well be tomorrow they say, 'No, we really need nine people,'" Treviño said.
At its meeting today, the senate is set to vote on a resolution to recommend the BOT form a blue-ribbon panel of mostly senior faculty to address the issue.
Treviño said he would prefer the Senate recommend he form the committee.
"I think these are academic charges and they're not system-wide charges," he said.
The situation was complicated further by a Chronicle of Higher Education article Monday reporting Poshard's 1975 master's thesis about drug abuse by rural high school students also includes questionable passages.
The Chronicle stated in the article it obtained a copy of Poshard's thesis from outside SIU and found "cut-and-paste methodology" similar to that in his dissertation. The problems with the thesis seemed less egregious than those in the dissertation, the publication reported.
In one instance, in which the Chronicle referenced, the first two sentences of the thesis corresponds with the first two sentences of a 1969 U.S. government report entitled "Why are drugs being abused these days?"
From Poshard's thesis:
"Drug abuse is not a new phenomenon in America. Various forms of drug abuse have existed for years in the United States and other countries."
From the U.S. government report:
"Drug abuse is not a new phenomenon. Varying forms of drug abuse have been present for years in the United States and other countries."
The Chronicle reported Poshard did not use any quotation marks or citations in those two sentences.
University Communications Director Mike Ruiz said Poshard had no comment on the Chronicle's allegations.
Dave Gross, executive assistant for government and media relations, said in a statement he had not seen the accusation, but the Chronicle's article "confirms again that Dr. Poshard's underlying scholarship is not in question - these are technical and stylistic differences of opinion that date back decades."
Treviño said he read the Chronicle's article and the latest allegations seemed similar to those in Poshard's doctoral dissertation. The university would probably deal with them in a similar manner, he said.
"I'm sure if a policy applies to one, that same policy applies to the other degree," Treviño said.
Joe Crawford can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 254 or jcrawford@siude.com.
