Contact: Sammy McDavid
Mississippi State officials took steps Monday [Dec. 17] to have four persons arrested for their alleged roles in the theft and dissemination two weeks ago of a standardized college algebra examination form.
Names of the male suspects will not be released until all have been charged formally and have turned themselves in to the university's police department.
One suspect is a former student, while the other three were enrolled for the 2001 fall semester. Two of the three have scheduled classes for the 2002 spring semester.
Because the semester break began Friday with fall commencement, none of the suspects are on campus at present.
One of the arrest warrants alleges theft of university property; the other three, receipt of stolen property. All charges are considered misdemeanors under Mississippi law.
As the warrants are being executed on the first working day after fall graduation, school officials took steps to see that a similar incident doesn't happen again.
"Obviously, this is a most unfortunate and embarrassing situation," said Roy Ruby, vice president for student affairs. "It's a situation every educational institution faces and none wishes ever to see repeated."
In addition to charging the four individuals in Oktibbeha County Justice Court, Ruby said the university will hold the students accountable within the campus judicial system, which deals with violations of the student code of conduct. If found guilty by the student judicial council, the enrolled students face suspension or expulsion.
The enrolled students also will be charged under the university's policy on academic dishonesty and could receive a grade of "F" in the algebra course if found guilty. The former student would face institutional action should he apply for readmission.
As a result of the security breach, some 800 final exam scores had to be thrown out by the department of mathematics and statistics. Since it is unlikely that the university will be able to determine for certain exactly who may have benefited from the pirated copies, the department is offering two options to all students who were enrolled in the course.
One is to take the average of the grades they had received in the course prior to the final exam as the official semester grade. The other option is to take a make-up exam that will be offered following a study review session early in the spring semester that begins in January.