Open Hearing Addresses Cheating

"I'm tense because I'm waiting for my chance to argue," Trinh said during a recess. "I'm restraining myself."

In the open hearing Thursday night, Trinh and junior Brianne Roth pleaded not guilty to academic cheating charges that stemmed from a homework assignment in Coggins' Computer Science 120 course last semester.

After several students expressed concerns at the end of the semester about their classmates' cheating, Coggins turned in 24 students for working in groups on the programming assignment. The Honor Court is now holding hearings for the charged students during a three-week period that began Monday.

Investigator Brad Newcomb began Trinh and Roth's hearing by stating that the students should have reasonably known that groupwork was a violation of the Honor Code. "The students cannot plead ignorance of the code," he said.

But Trinh's defense counsel, Ruwani Opatha, said Trinh's action was not a violation. "This collaboration was not unauthorized."

Trinh was charged with giving unauthorized aid in connection with placing programming code in an accessible area of the Internet. Roth was charged with seeking unauthorized aid.

As of press time, the hearing had not reached a conclusion. The outcome can be found online at www.unc.edu/dth.

Adrienne Bryant, Roth's defense counsel, said Coggins had encouraged groupwork and that Roth did not knowingly violate the Honor Code. "Though she had experience with computer programming, she found herself in need of assistance."

During his testimony, Coggins confirmed that he encouraged groupwork but said he clearly and repeatedly told students to work on graded assignments individually. "I told them, `Yes, you may work in groups, but you may not use them in assignments that are graded,'" he said.

But during cross-examination, Coggins said that while most of his policies concerning the Honor Code were documented on his Web site, his groupwork policy concerning graded assignments was not.

Trinh made little effort to hide his emotions, staring directly at Coggins during the questioning, throwing his pen and legal pad down with discontent, mumbling under his breath and even laughing aloud during Coggins' testimony.

Coggins later testified that he knew Trinh, one of the top students in the class, was leading a help session for struggling students. "I knew that Michael Trinh had volunteered to initiate and lead a study group," he said. "I encouraged that to Michael in person.

"Voluntary study groups, in this case, went over to the dark side and did more than they were supposed to."

Some students from Coggins' spring class came to hear their classmates' cases. "We were supposed to work in groups, but he didn't specify how," said one student.

And a number of professors came to the hearing to show their support.

Sanjoy Baruah, a computer science professor, said many faculty members in the department, including department Chairman Stephen Weiss, were sympathetic to the charged students. "It was a very atypical course," Baruah said. "I find it hard to believe many of these students would be dishonest in any way."