Debra Damron, formerly director of University Relations, has been appointed director of extension communications for CES. Damron will serve as managing editor and oversee the information unit that supports extension offices and their programs statewide. She began her new duties Jan. 24.

The Student Investment Fund has performed well for the SOM students who manage it. For the nine-month period ending Sept. 30, 2004 the fund earnings were 10 percent, beating the S&P 500 returns of two percent. The fund also beat the S&P 500 for 10-year earnings with 12.5 percent for the fund compared to 11.1 percent.

UAF parking services is now offering bicycle locker rentals. Lockers are located on West Ridge by IARC and at the Gruening Building. Rates are $9 per month or $100 annually with a $50 key deposit required. For more information call 2749, e-mail fypark1@uaf.edu or stop in at 111 Eielson.

Tamara Lincoln and Marvin Falk, Rasmuson Library, provided entries in the new Encyclopedia of the Arctic. Lincoln wrote the section on labor camps and Falk the sections on the Dalton Highway and UAF Professor Emeritus Michael Krauss.

Dave Musgrave, SFOS, will lead a Minerals Management Service-funded project to map sea surface currents in the Beaufort Sea and Cook Inlet. The mapping project is part of SFOS' sea-air-land modeling and observing network project.

Patty Gray, CLA, recently wrote The Predicament of Chukotka's Indigenous Movement: Post-Soviet Activism in the Russian Far North, published by the Cambridge University Press.

Perry Barboza, IAB, and Katrina Knott, IAB graduate student, published an article in the December issue of Zoology. The journal's cover featured a photo of a LARS muskox.

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Academic Integrity

In the last few years, questions about honesty and integrity have been raised in a variety of ways by high profile national events. A well-known TV personality was convicted of using insider trading to make some extra money she didn't even need. The name of a prestigious national accounting firm has become synonymous with corporate impropriety. Several religious organizations have been shaken to their cores by exposure of abuses perpetrated by clergy on young people whom they had vowed to serve. Respected reporters at prominent newspapers have resigned after admitting to fabrication of portions of news accounts. In literature on higher education, I regularly read about cases of fraud in scholarly inquiry and publication, including a recent account of a survey of academic economists in which 40 percent of them responded positively to the question, "Has your work ever been stolen?"

What effect have these events had on those of us in higher education, especially on our students? I fear that what at one time was shocking is now routine. I fear that "everybody's doing it" has become a rationale for ignoring, if not participating in, questionable--even unethical--practices. I fear that our reluctance to explore and acknowledge our personal differences in expectations of ethical behavior may have led us to a position of silence on important matters of integrity about which I am confident we have substantial agreement.

Where does this leave our students? Is it not understandable that they, at least, wonder if practicality trumps integrity in some instances? It bothers me that national surveys reveal that one-third to one-half of undergraduates admit to cheating on a major test or paper during their college years. I can't believe that high a fraction of our students would argue that cheating is okay.

My conclusion is that there is some deficiency in the ethical environment that we provide in contemporary higher education, and I am convinced that it is our obligation to take steps to change that environment. Therefore, I intend to appoint a UAF Task Force on Academic Integrity and charge it with providing suggestions for action. As part of this exercise I will be sponsoring campus events dealing with the issue in an attempt to foster a broad campus discussion. I feel strongly that we should attempt to implement measures that can have a positive, lasting effect on the academic climate at UAF. I hope that each of you shares my belief and my commitment to become involved in this effort.

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