Southern University announced that it plans to revoke the diplomas of 10 students who bribed a former assistant registrar to illegally change their transcripts, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Federal charges have been brought against Cleo Carroll for receiving $9,100 from former students to improve their transcripts between 1995 and 2003 after a two-and-a-half year investigation, according to The Chronicle.
The historically black university in Baton Rouge, La., will institute 15 new checks to ensure the integrity of the system and to prevent a similar situation from occurring again, according to The Chronicle.
According to Linda Bolden-Pitcher, registrar at AU, a similar situation has never occurred at AU during the 30 years she has been AU's registrar.
"Something like that we would probably catch pretty easily due to the audits," she said.
Grades are all submitted electronically, which reduces the chances of tampering, Bolden-Pitcher said. Each professor submits students grades through their my.american.edu accounts, which are password guarded.
"The grades go from [the professors'] computers to your recorders," Bolden-Pitcher said.
Grade changes cannot be completed through verbal consent. They must be submitted in writing with the signature of both the professor and dean, according to Bolden-Pitcher.
AU would most likely rescind a student's diploma or prosecute the student through the university's judicial system if a student were found guilty of bribing an employee to change a grade, said Ivy Broder, acting provost.
"If this were to happen at AU, the person changing the grade would most certainly be fired," Broder said in an e-mail.
Jeffrey Hanley, a freshman in the School of Public Affairs, said the same punishment should happen if a similar situation should happen here.
"If you bribed someone to get your grade changed, it doesn't matter," Hanley said. "Bribing's illegal - it's a criminal offense. Overall I think the academic integrity is fine on campus."
"I hate the fact that people think they can get away with this," said Nicole Vitale, a sophomore in SPA. "Some people work so hard to get their grades and others think that they can cheat the system."
John Fallon, a sophomore of the College of Arts and Sciences said it was fair that people had their diplomas taken away because they tried to take an easy way out.
"They thought they could get away with it just because they had some money, and that's wrong," he said.
