Today’s Montreal Gazette broke the news of a McGill professor who put her name to a journal article that was largely written by ghostwriters for a pharmaceutical company.? The article quotes McGill Provost Anthony Masi’s statement:
?McGill University is committed to the highest standards of honesty and integrity in research and scholarship and takes substantiated allegations of research misconduct very seriously…
?The University has an established process for investigating and dealing with such allegations, will look into this matter and take appropriate action.?
Yes, of course.
The readers’ comments to this article are most interesting, and McGill would do well to take note.? Of particular relevance is the post of August 24, 2009 – 8:02 PM:
I disagree with the people who claim plaigiarism would get you expelled if you were a student. ?I have yet to see a student get expelled at McGill for plagiarizing.
Whether or not this is correct, I think this speaks volumes to the perception of our academic standards being propagated by recent attitudes of our administration.
And an update… from the comments section of the Gazette:
How McGill handles this case is more relevant to its reputation than the questionable actions of Dr. Sherwin.
How true.