Any journalism students found guilty of cheating allegations have received the appropriate disciplinary sanctions, according to Mike Car, coordinator of judicial procedures at San Diego State University.

This is in light of allegations made by Dianne Bartlow, a journalism instructor, that several of her students had fabricated interviews in her broadcasting class for the Fall 1996 semester.

After she discussed the incident with other journalism professors, the decision was made to give the students suspected of cheating a failing grade for the assignment but not for the class.

Some ended up with a B for the class; others received a C or D.

This initial decision was made “based on the fact that we were on deadline to turn in grades and the students didn’t have their ‘day in court’ so to speak,” said Tim Wulfemeyer, head of the journalism department at SDSU, in a January interview.

Car failed to reveal how many students were found guilty of cheating “because it could violate their right to privacy.”

“There probably is a lot of people in the department who know who was accused,” Car said. “And to say X got X and Y got Y then someone could put two and two together. A person could do this if they knew the number of people.”

However, Car did say none of those found guilty were expelled from the university.

“It’s fair to say none of them were expelled from the university,” he said. “So if you noticed a student dropped out recently, it wasn’t because they were kicked out.”

He added that some of those accused may not have received sanctions because of insufficient evidence.

“Just because somebody is accused of something doesn’t mean they did it,” Car said.

Investigations are closed, Car said.

Wulfemeyer said the faculty in the department decided to let the Office of Judicial Procedures handle disciplinary sanctions and that the School of Communication is doing no further sanctions.

If a student is found guilty of cheating, the least severe sanction he or she could receive is disciplinary probation, Car said. Probation typically lasts a year.

“If anything happens again even if it is unrelated to cheating and the student is found guilty, then they are suspended for a year,” Car said.

A record of offense is maintained in the judicial office for five years, he said. It is then shredded and erased from the computer.

“It depends on the severity of the offense,” Car said. “We had a student a few years ago who drew a loaded .357 Magnum on a student, and he was expelled.”

Wulfemeyer said the journalism faculty felt these sanctions were adequate.

“Plus, this puts the incident in the hands of the whole university,” Wulfemeyer added. “That way you can find out if a student is doing the same thing with other academic units. It keeps a campus-wide record of their behaviors.”

He said that since the incident has occurred, the professors in the journalism department are a little bit more on guard. He said he hopes the journalism department “will be able to arrive at a reasonable program-wide policy that would deal with specific types of behaviors such as fabrication.”

He said sometimes assignments are structured differently, requiring different sanctions.

“In journalism, there are certain things that cannot be tolerated, both academically and professionally,” Wulfemeyer said. “I hope lessons have been learned.”