The committee formed to review plagiarism accusations against SIUC's long-range plan Southern at 150 has submitted its report to SIU President Glenn Poshard earlier this week.
The three-member committee assembled by Poshard on Sept. 8 to review the allegations wrapped up its investigation last week and delivered the report to the president's office Monday, committee spokesman Mike Lawrence said.
Lawrence, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, said the committee has disbanded, and its work is complete.
"I think we did a very thorough job," Lawrence said. "It took several weeks, but it had to take several weeks so we could touch on all the pieces we thought we needed to touch on."
Earlier this semester, a group called Alumni and Faculty Against Corruption at SIU accused Southern at 150 of lifting material from Texas A&M University's long-range plan Vision 2020.
Southern at 150, which Chancellor Walter Wendler initiated in 2001, is a set of guidelines and goals to make SIUC one of the top 75 public research institutions by 2019. Vision 2020 aims to make Texas A&M a top-10 public university by 2020.
Poshard assembled the committee and asked them to review the allegations shortly after they were published in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Lawrence would not discuss contents of the report. He said Poshard would decide how to handle the committee's findings.
"It is really up to his discretion," Lawrence said.
President's office spokesman Mike Ruiz said Poshard is reviewing the report but has not set a procedure for handling its findings.
Wendler is chairman of Southern at 150's executive committee, leading the effort of more than 200 people from inside and outside the university who drafted the plan. Wendler also led the so-called "Skunkworks" team that steered planning for Vision 2020 at Texas A&M. He was first executive assistant to the president and then vice chancellor for planning and system integration at the school.
During the meeting of the Faculty Senate on Sept. 12, Wendler said he had no apologies for the similarities and said he often referred Southern at 150 crafters to look over Vision 2020.
Wendler said Southern at 150 is a good plan and that anyone who looks carefully at it would agree.
The alleged plagiarism was brought up by supporters of Chris Dussold, a former SIU-Edwardsville professor who was fired in 2004 for plagiarizing his teaching statement.
The Alumni and Faculty Against Corruption at SIU have searched for plagiarism among administrators for Dussold's wrongful termination suit, which claims university officials exempt themselves from plagiarism charges.
In January, Wendler apologized to an author for using a book excerpt without attribution in the 2005 State of the University address.
SIUE Chancellor Vaughn Vandegrift apologized in July for copying material from the White House, United Food and Commercial Workers Union and the King Center of Atlanta during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech.
Brandon Weisenberger can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 254 or brandon_weisenberger@dailyegyptian.com.
