Southern University in Baton Rouge, La, a historically black college, fired its registrar, Cleo Carroll, in 2003 after learning he had falsified the grades of 10 students. Diplomas were revoked and Carroll is now facing federal charges.
After Carroll's firing an investigation was launched, and he was found to have made $9,100 from 1991-2003 in bribes for grade changes. With only 10 students involved, that is a nice chunk of change.
While we applaud Southern for doing the right thing and firing Mr. Carroll, we cannot help but see the incident as ironic. Freshmen are bombarded with seminars and paper on plagiarism and its pitfalls. Students break out in sweats over paranthetical documentation as if it were a workout because professors lecture on its value to the point it seems like our very grades depend on it. To have school employees, and a high official in charge of grading nonetheless, caught cheating does not speak well for academia.
Here at AU grades are submitted through the my.american.edu portal and are protected by many layers of passwords. While a similar incident has not happened here, checks and balances should be in place to ensure AU remains above the fray
