National higher education law and policy expert hired to head Syracuse University’s Academic Integrity Office

National higher education law and policy expert hired to head Syracuse University’s Academic Integrity OfficeApril 22, 2009Jemeli Tanuijetanui@syr.edu

Gary Pavela-a nationally renowned consultant on student rights, responsibilities and legal issues in higher education-has joined Syracuse University as head of SU’s Academic Integrity Office, Vice Chancellor and Provost Eric F. Spina has announced. Pavela will assume his new role in June.

Pavela will be the first permanent director of SU’s Academic Integrity Office (AIO). The AIO, established in July 2006, provides resources and support for the schools and colleges and individual members of the University community, and coordinates University-wide academic integrity initiatives. The AIO is an office within the Division of Academic Affairs and reports to Associate Provost for Academic Programs Sandra Hurd.

“Gary’s extensive background and national prominence make him precisely the right person to take SU’s Academic Integrity Office to the next level, as well as underline how fundamental the AIO’s work is to our educational mission,” says Spina. “His unique perspective and broad experience position him perfectly to lead campus-wide efforts that will continue cultivating an environment in which we all aspire to the highest academic ideals. We are deeply grateful to Ruth Stein-the AIO’s interim director-for her dedication and fine, collaborative work in having established a firm foundation on which we can now build confidently.”

Pavela’s work will include advancing SU’s innovative academic integrity (AI) education program for the campus community that begins with the admissions process and emphasizes the centrality of AI to campus life. He will also work with students to inform and educate them about academic integrity expectations; provide information to students about strategies for reducing academic dishonesty; coordinate remedial academic integrity education for first-time violators; work to build faculty commitment to the reporting of AI violations, collaborating with faculty to develop educational strategies for promoting student academic integrity; and train student peer advisors and resident advisors to address academic integrity issues.

“Nationally, everybody who works in the area of academic integrity knows of Gary Pavela. We think getting such a well-respected national leader says a lot to SU students and faculty about how much this University values academic integrity,” says Barbara Fought, associate professor of broadcast journalism in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and chair of the AIO director search committee. “The search committee was impressed with Gary’s strong ethical foundation and his knowledge of the issues-he’s been a prolific writer and speaker across the country about academic integrity issues-plus we really liked his passion for empowering students as the primary educators of both students and faculty on the importance of academic integrity.”

“I’m looking forward to working as part of a team building upon the new and creative academic integrity program Syracuse already has in place,” says Pavela, who believes that forging greater partnership between students and faculty is essential to academic integrity. “Universities are ancient institutions designed to discover and teach the truth-as best we can see the truth. That value is often implicit in what we do. I hope we can find ways as a community to make it more explicit.”

Pavela brings to SU a strong background in academic integrity and considerable higher education experience. He writes law and policy newsletters to which more than 1,000 colleges and universities subscribe, and he teaches in the honors program at the University of Maryland. He clerked for Judge Alfred P. Murrah of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and was a faculty member for the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, D.C (the training arm of the United States Courts). He has been a fellow at the University of Wisconsin Center for Behavioral Science and law and serves on the board of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.

Pavela has been a consultant on law and policy issues at many leading universities, including Brown University, Bryn Mawr College, Colgate University, Georgetown University, Lehigh University, Smith College, Stanford University, the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the U.S. Naval Academy and Vassar College. In 2008, he was designated by the U.S. Department of State to address the International Interdisciplinary Conference on Implementation of Western Educational Standards in Post-Soviet States in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Pavela was a consultant to the Governor’s Task Force on Campus Safety for the state of Wisconsin (2007) and spoke to Virginia Tech faculty and staff at the July 2007 Symposium for Managing At-Risk Students (sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education). He has appeared on the CNN, FOX, PBS and CNBC networks and his work has been cited in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, the National Law Journal, Business Week, Time, Newsweek and U.S. and News & World Report, among other publications.

In 2002, Pavela was designated a fellow of the National Association of College and University Attorneys. In 2005, he received the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators’ Outstanding Contribution to Literature and Research award. In 2006, he was designated the University of Maryland Outstanding Faculty Educator by the Maryland Parents’ Association.

His latest book is “Questions and Answers on College Student Suicide: A Law and Policy Perspective” (College Administration Publications, 2006).For more information on Pavela’s work, visit http://www.garypavela.com. For more information on SU’s Academic Integrity Office, visit http://academicintegrity.syr.edu/.