Cheating Dispute Drags on at UCLA

Veteran UCLA Turkish language professor Andras Bodrogligeti couldn’t believe his eyes: There in the Dodd Hall lecture room, he and test monitors say they witnessed 30 students openly cheating on his elementary Uzbek final exam.

During the test, one proctor spotted a cheat sheet hidden beneath a student’s test papers, Bodrogligeti says. So the professor and his assistants walked the aisles, checking all 50 exam-takers.

Bodrogligeti says that what they eventually uncovered--and how it was handled--shattered his faith in fair play at the university where he has taught 31 years.

In all, the professor says he collected more than 100 crib sheets--reduced photocopies of entire pages of his Uzbek grammar book. In the process he says he saw numerous students consulting open textbooks or looking over the shoulders of classmates. There were students who refused to be moved to other seats. In the men’s room, his aides uncovered texts being used by still other students taking supposed bathroom breaks.

Bodrogligeti reported what had happened to university officials. He also told them about a subsequent incident in which he says several of the students caught cheating came to his office, threatened to have him fired if he did not give them credit for the course and attempted to physically intimidate him.

That was 18 months ago. Today, UCLA has yet to finish its investigation of the case. Meanwhile, the 72-year-old Bodrogligeti says the university has retaliated by investigating his conduct and eliminating some of his courses. UCLA isn’t doing much talking.

The affair features classic academic infighting usually carried on behind the scenes. Bodrogligeti and Dean of Humanities Pauline Yu have both filed charges against one another with the Academic Senate, the faculty governing body.

The school’s reaction to the cheating allegations has puzzled many of those involved.

“For the first time in my life, I am not proud to be associated with UCLA,” said Jason Gimm, one of two test proctors who said they witnessed the cheating. “What more did they need to act? We had proof. We confiscated the cheat sheets. We had names. But they did nothing.”

One of those implicated admits that the cheating went on, acknowledging that the Uzbek course was known as a sure good grade because it was easy to cheat in.

“It was wrong; it was stupid,” said the student, one of six being investigated by the university, asking that his name not be used. “I have no excuse.”

Although Bodrogligeti said he caught 30 students with crib sheets, the university allowed him to seek disciplinary action only against those six he says he actually saw using the materials during the exam. Despite the ongoing investigation, some of those six have been allowed to enroll in his other classes against his will, he complains.

“They smile at me, as if daring me to do something. But what can I do?” he said.

Bodrogligeti’s popular summer language program has been canceled and he says his class sizes are dwindling as word of his standoff with administrators spreads across campus.

Proctor Expelled

Further muddying the waters, proctor Halil Kaya, who was the first to witness the reputed cheating, was recently expelled from UCLA for allegedly selling study guides that officials say included copies of the test, according to university documents.

Dean Yu would not return telephone calls, and other university officials have declined to discuss details of the matter.

Brian Copenhaver, provost of the College of Letters and Science, would say only that the university is investigating Bodrogligeti’s charges.

“We investigate and take seriously all accusations of cheating,” he said. “It is a long time [since the incident], but the process is underway.”

Among the complaints Yu made about Bodrogligeti to the Academic Senate are that the professor engaged in “partisan treatment of student athletes,” including “blatant collusion on exams,” that he refused to meet with students and that he failed to keep office hours.

Bodrogligeti says he only complied with a request by the school’s athletic department to allow traveling athletes to reschedule exams. He offers several athletic department letters to support his assertions.

“It was a service to the athletic department at their request,” he said. “Many other professors do the same thing. It was perceived as some kind of special, underhanded favor to particular students. It was not.”

One of Bodrogligeti’s students said he was approached by the university and asked to answer questions about the professor’s classroom conduct.

The student, who was not involved in the cheating incident, said he refused. “They told me to keep it secret,” he said. “I didn’t want to be any part of it. Dr. Bodrogligeti is a very nice man. I have a lot of respect for him.”

The Hungarian-born Bodrogligeti says the university is reluctant to discipline the 30 students who he says cheated because all of them are of Korean descent. He believes that the university fears antagonizing a politically strong student community--more than 3,000 of the 30,000 people enrolled at UCLA are Korean or of Korean descent.

The student implicated in the cheating who spoke with The Times said, “Among Korean students, the professor’s class was known as an easy A.”

Copenhaver said the racial allegation “doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Bodrogligeti, who left Budapest in 1967 to accept a teaching offer at UCLA, believes that his difficulties began several years ago when he went against incoming Humanities Dean Yu’s wishes by refusing to retire at a time when certain administrators thought he should.

Some students who took the Uzbek test that winter afternoon in 1996 say they saw others cheating.

“I saw people looking at other students’ papers,” said former student Jennifer Oh-Hess. “I heard them whispering, calling out, ‘What’s the answer to No. 6?’ ”

Oh-Hess said she saw the professor and his proctors later come by and check each student’s test booklet--including her own--and saw them take papers from some students.

“I was pretty mad at the people who cheated,” she said. “It was unfair for those of us who studied.”

The student among the six implicated who spoke to The Times said cheating was widespread.

“About 90% of the people who took that test had cheat sheets,” he said. “People were handing them out before the test. . . . They said the proctors didn’t pay attention. I guess they were wrong about that.”

Bodrogligeti said that when he uncovered the cheaters, he confiscated the illegal notes but allowed students to continue the test. He said he soon found that many could not answer a single question correctly without the help.

“I really didn’t want to see them get into trouble,” he said. “But I wanted a hearing to find out what motivates so many students not to study, not to learn one word of the language, and then to try to pass through unnoticed.”

He said that despite repeated letters and telephone calls to Dean Yu and another academic official, he received no response.

In a meeting with Senior Associate Dean of Students Cary Porter, Bodrogligeti said, he offered the cheat sheets as evidence and said he wanted to issue a “deferred report” (an academic demerit that withholds course credit) against all students caught with the cheat sheets. He said Porter confiscated the evidence and has so far refused to return it.

Porter did not return a reporter’s telephone calls seeking comment.

Proctor Kaya said the six students who received deferred reports later came to Bodrogligeti’s office with a petition demanding that he drop the request. “They surrounded him, wouldn’t let him up from his desk,” Kaya said.

“They said they were going to complain. They said, ‘We will go to Dean Yu and have you kicked out of the university.’ One made a motion to hit him. It was outrageous.”

Last month, Kaya himself became the latest figure in the dispute. He was expelled from the university for allegedly selling copies of previous tests for Bodrogligeti’s courses for $200 apiece--sales conducted with the professor’s consent, according to university documents outlining Yu’s charges against Bodrogligeti.

The professor and Kaya say the materials were not previous tests but notes prepared by Kaya. Although Bodrogligeti says he was not aware of the sales and would not have approved them, he noted that UCLA has no formal policy against selling such materials.

A ‘Broken Heart’

A UCLA spokesman confirmed that the school has no such specific policy but said the university does have a student conduct code forbidding any behavior that might compromise the integrity of an exam.

For Bodrogligeti, the worst blow came this spring when officials canceled his 12-year-old summer Central Asian Language Program, including more than half a dozen courses in Turkish history and languages that had the support of outside grant money that the professor has had to return unused.

Said Provost Copenhaver of the program cancellation: “It was in the best interests of the university.”

The student caught cheating who spoke with The Times says he regrets the incident.

“The professor is a nice person,” he said. “I feel bad he had to be faced with this.”

In the winter of his teaching career, Bodrogligeti finds himself an outcast, trying to hold on to the few courses he has left.

“I love teaching and I love students, but these people are trying to break my spirit. But they have not succeeded. Instead, what they have done is broken my heart.”