CHUTZPAH.

While I was resigned to fighting plagiarists in my classroom, I had not expected to have to fight one for credit for my own dissertation. A doctoral student at Northeast Urban University -- I'll call him Mr. X -- presented my dissertation as his own. He received a Ph.D. and took an excellent research job at Prominent African University. Through my subsequent efforts, he lost his degree, his job, and his reputation.

Read the rest (via Milt's File.) The good news:

I shared this experience with my students; they found it fascinating. But they still don't get it. We have a tradition on my campus where seniors "will" wishful gifts to faculty members. This past spring the seniors said they hoped that I could someday "bitch-slap the ass who stole my dissertation." They also wished that I would have "the ability to not check every single source a student uses in a research paper."

Note that they did not will me the ability to not have to check every source. Instead they think it's unreasonable of me to take such care to ensure that they are not plagiarizing. I fear they think that is some vile pleasure of mine.