Faculty Statement on Academic Integrity

The intellectual venture in which we are all engaged requires of faculty and students alike the highest level of personal and academic integrity. As members of an academic community, each one of us bears the responsibility to participate in scholarly discourse and research in a manner characterized by intellectual honesty and scholarly integrity.

Scholarship, by its very nature, is an iterative process, with ideas and insights building one upon the other. Collaborative scholarship requires the study of other scholars' work, the free discussion of such work, and the explicit acknowledgement of those ideas in any work that inform our own. This exchange of ideas relies upon a mutual trust that sources, opinions, facts, and insights will be properly noted and carefully credited.

In practical terms, this means that, as students, you must be responsible for the full citations of others' ideas in all of your research papers and projects; you must be scrupulously honest when taking your examinations; you must always submit your own work and not that of another student, scholar, or internet agent.

Any breach of this intellectual responsibility is a breach of faith with the rest of our academic community. It undermines our shared intellectual culture, and it cannot be tolerated.

Policy Information & Resources

For additional information, College and Engineering students should consult the CC/SEAS Academic Integrity site, and General Studies students should review GS academic integrity and community standards policy information.

For more information on academic misconduct, students should review resources available from the Columbia University Center for Student Success and Intervention, and their school bulletin: Columbia College, Columbia Engineering, Columbia General Studies.

Note to Core Faculty

Core faculty who suspect a student of academic dishonesty should contact the Center for the Core immediately.