07/29/2025

Summer Series Post-Blog 5: Looking back, looking ahead

by Greer Murphy, with contributions from Amanda McKenzie and Tricia Bertram Gallant

Greer:

Alongside my fellow panelists and coauthors, I am thrilled and more than a little sad that ICAI’s very first Summer Intensive series for integrity administrators wrapped up on a high note last week. Our conversations attracted a range of professionals from diverse institutions, positions, experience levels, and national origins. I couldn’t be more grateful for the experience. 

Regardless of our differences, especially the varied perspectives we hold and varied pathways we’ve taken into integrity work, I came away from the Intensive more affirmed than ever in the power of our shared values and common characteristics. As a collective, we academic integrity administrators are:

Clear-eyed about the magnitude of the challenges we face in higher education generally and in the sector specifically. 

In session #5 breakout rooms, participants talked about how the dizzying pace of technological change* complicated policy development and process improvement, which necessarily remain slower; we commented on barriers to creating and sustaining campus cultures of integrity, from scheduling time on academic senate calendars (hard), to finding common ground in establishing shared vocabularies for what integrity means and looks like in practice (harder), to pushing past the disengagement, disillusionment, and misconceptions our colleagues hold (hardest?) to keep showing up as our best selves every day. We aspired to integrate (no pun intended) other parts of our work, such as quality assurance and academic honesty, to maintain credibility, guarantee students’ learning, and better support the mission of higher education.

*And yes, the shadow of generative artificial intelligence loomed large. 

Creative and practical in our approach(es) to overcoming these challenges, and not afraid to iterate in finding small, significant victories. 

One participant shared how their institution responded to an uptick in reported cases by “pulling in faculty to process”--a tactic that might not work as well everywhere, but showed promise for them. Others observed how running an academic integrity office that does not exercise decision making authority in case resolution “can be limiting,” then went on to strategize with a resilience that illustrated the effectiveness with which they carried out job duties. Some successes, lightly paraphrased from breakout room notes, included:

• Having (or working towards) a dedicated department or team to address challenges;
• Developing (or planning to develop) a community of practice;
• Connecting (or taking steps to connect) various functions related to integrity across campus;
• Involving students in outreach efforts;
• Staying present even for difficult conversations;
• Conveying (or trying to) the importance of process over product;
• Continuing (or starting) campus-wide conversations about integrity to ensure momentum does not drop;
• Continuing professional development and education efforts (our own as well as others’) on these topics.

Finally, integrity administrators are committed to living our values as we seek to advance the causes and programming that will change institutions for the better.. Equity, transparency, communication, balance, and wellbeing were just some of the priorities that stayed front and center throughout the series. Even as we spent time dreaming together–and dreaming big–about the future-state of academic integrity on our respective campuses, we never lost sight of the present moment. 

In the summary words of one session #5 breakout room, “to do the right thing and provide for community and society” is an undeniably ambitious goal—but one that is not incompatible with continuing to support each other, right here, right now. As I wrote to friends recently, Are there any better colleagues anywhere than those we find in academic integrity circles? I don't think so.

Amanda:

I wanted to take a different perspective on visioning and focus on the connection between academic integrity and quality assurance - as they are inseparable. You cannot have one without the other. Given the current distrust of Higher Education and the rise of GenAI, institutions need to provide better assurances to the public that students are graduating with their degree competencies. This knowledge and skill must be verified. Quality assurance bodies and accreditors in North America have yet to embrace academic integrity in contrast to other organizations like TEQSA in Australia and QAA in the UK. At my institution, University of Waterloo, we incorporated academic integrity into the self-study report completed during program reviews. This helps embed academic integrity into the quality assurance process and ensures that it must be addressed every time a program is reviewed.

Tricia:

It is critical to make academic integrity someone's job because all values, even core ones, need a constant cheerleader to ensure the value is embedded in all decisions made. Having academic integrity professionals enables our campuses to be more proactive than reactive, especially in facing the ever-evolving challenge that artificial intelligence does and will continue to pose to degree integrity.

Take care, friends, and see you soon for more exciting ICAI programming—the International Day of Action is now just 11 weeks away!

Greer Murphy, EdD came to integrity work from a background in applied linguistics, teaching and learning, and writing program administration, and currently serves on ICAI's Board of Directors as Vice President for Strategy and Membership. Professionally, Greer directs the Academic Integrity Office at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Amanda McKenzie oversees the Office of Academic Integrity at the University of Waterloo. She was one of the co-founders of ICAI Canadian Regional Consortium (ICAI Canada), and an Officer and Board Member of the International Center for Academic Integrity (ICAI). 

Dr Tricia Bertram Gallant is the Director of Academic Integrity Office and Triton Testing Center at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), and Board Emeritus of the International Center for Academic Integrity.

The authors' views are their own.

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