the seminary itself, he understands, from the get-go, (as in day one of student orientation) the ramifications of what will be required with this vocation. This man understands that, as a priest, he will forego many of the riches and material enticements of his fellow man—the BMW, the condo in Aspen, the 50-foot yacht, the weekly jaunts to the most expensive restaurants in town and the hefty bank accounts. Instead, this man should begin to focus on his growing spirituality and the spiritual well-being of others around him. And this awareness should intensify as the man draws closer to the day of his ordination. Who, during their priestly formation, taught these goofs to play grab-ass with as many twenty and fifty dollar bills as possible? I must have missed that lecture while I was in seminary. Do you mean to tell me that Skehan arrived at St. Vincent Ferrer parish only to find out (to his horror and astonishment) that he was now required to lead a simple and humble life?
By the way, kudos to the countless number of priests who practice integrity day in and day out. I have three good friends who are pastors and they get on me, from time to time, about my frustrations with our Church. I see their point. They don’t want to hear me lambaste their vocation any more than I want to hear them say that all school administrators (of which I am one) are corrupt. The Church is massive, and the crooks only make up a miniscule portion of the Catholic presbyterate. We should focus more on all the good that goes on in The Church. We can’t nullify the importance of the priesthood because of a few bad seeds. If that were the case, we might as well do the same with any other profession or vocation.
For, as the Ancient Greeks used to say, Where there is a sea, there are pirates.
Yes, indeed. And cancers as well.
6. The Cancer of Justifications and Academic Integrity
About twenty years ago, I ran into a former student of mine who’d come back to visit the campus while on spring break from the University of Florida. When I inquired about her grades, the young lady groaned that she was struggling to maintain a 2.6 GPA. This is a story we educators have heard many times before, especially since honors and advanced-placement courses tend to inflate high school grade-point averages. While 4.8 and 5.0 GPA’s are impressive, they’re also unrealistic. Personally, I find them silly.
I kidded with her, “Do you think you might need to study a little more? Cut down on the parties?”
“Nah, it’s not that. I just wasn’t prepared for the rigors of college. What can I say?”
I smiled politely, and then I remembered something. This young lady had quite the reputation for being less-than-honest back in the day; there were a few times I suspected her of cheating in my own class, but could never catch her in the act. She wasn’t an evil kid just someone who, like so many of her peers across this country, had mastered the system by sliding by on cute and clever instead of by honesty and hard work. Then she reached the big leagues and found her academic life breaking apart like a flimsy sand castle in the pounding surf.
Cancer: Pay the Price Now or Suffer the Consequences Later
We could argue that academic misconduct is a bit like juicing up on steroids. The performance may be flashy, even eye-catching at times, but it’s ultimately artificial. After a while, the juiceheads start to come apart at the seams. And so it goes with academics. Anyone can juice up a GPA with cheating and then brag about their impressive average, but they’ll eventually hit a wall. In the world of sports, particularly with the sport of football, these examples abound. NFL star Lyle Alzado had a celebrated career at defensive end but paid the ultimate price after cancer tore its way through his brain, reducing the once menacing hulk to a humble pile of skin and bones. Only at the end did Alzado lament his stupidity for taking the easy, undisciplined road. Just prior to his death, he pleaded with the youth of America to build their bodies the natural way, the right way.
The Slippery Slope Engenders the Cancer of Justifications
My first experience at snow skiing came at the Heavenly Resort out in Tahoe. I learned pretty quickly that if I didn’t wedge my skis, I would pick up momentum at an alarming rate and find myself racing across California’s powder at a dangerous speed. According to the skiing horror stories I’ve heard, this is how people end up colliding with evergreens, and plowing through lines of people waiting to ride the lifts. A slippery slope involves much the same concept. The mind starts on this downhill race, refuses to wedge, and winds up in a perilous predicament. The process goes something like this: It’s ten at night and my daughter should have been home by now. My god, she’s been in an accident. She’s lying upside down in a ditch. Nobody sees her. She’s alone. She’s dead! Your daughter walks through the door two minutes later unscathed.
Students fall into the slippery slope/justification predicament all the time.
It’s very competitive out there, and I need to keep up. If I cheat just a little, I’ll make better grades. Better grades will result in a higher GPA. A higher GPA means I can get into a top college. If I attend a primo school, I’ll get a better job and the better the job, the higher the salary. And so on and so forth. In other words, the object of the game is to win, not necessarily do the right thing. This new and rising social group has been referred to as The Winning Class.
Cheating, Like Cancer, Makes a Home
Monetary reasons aside, do students have a moral problem with cheating? Not enough, according to David Callahan, the author of The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead. He writes, “Something strange is going on here. Americans seem to be using two moral compasses. One directs our behavior when it comes to things like sex, family, drugs, and traditional forms of crime. A second provides us ethical guidance in the realm of career, money, and success.”6 In other words, some folks out there consider themselves to be fine, upstanding citizens. They’d never dream of committing burglary, assault, arson, rape or murder. Would they, however, consider a little insurance fraud? How about over-inflating charitable contributions for tax purposes? Maybe they’d be tempted to purchase a term paper or whip up a lie that could help save them thousands in child support. Well… At least they’re not really hurting anybody, right? I can still remember the bumper sticker that read, WHEN CLINTON LIED, NO ONE DIED—left-over campaign jargon from the ’04 election and an obvious reference to George W. Bush and America’s involvement in Iraq. I had to keep reminding myself that this is what we get during election years, and we’ll be seeing more of this Leave me alone because there’s always someone out there who has done worse than I nonsense. Using this wayward logic, we’d all be off the hook in light of what Hitler did in the 1930s and 1940s.
Just Do What it Takes
Callahan traces America’s get-ahead-at-all-cost mentality back to the Gilded Age of the late 1800’s, culminating with the greed and excesses of the 80s and 90s. With the dawn of deregulation, he says, government agencies were stripped of much of their oversight power. Cheaters moved in where the checks and balances faded, and a new class of Americans emerged: the winning class.7 Regardless of the reasons, I see more cerebral hijackings with high school students that end up in moral Siberia— all in the name of grades, GPA’s, and increased social stature. Charles Gibson, of ABC News, interviewed several college students on the network’s 2004 special on cheating. When he asked the group why they went to college not one of them said, “To get an education.”
The Winning Class. Just keep your eye on the prize. Everything else is merely conversation.
If I may, I’d like to propose a new slippery slope to students: If I work hard and study, I’ll make higher grades. Higher grades
