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The Proctor Is In
 Despite
the sound of it, there's no relationship between the words "proctor"
and "proctologist." At least not linguistically. From
what we have been hearing, being an exam proctor — a term
derived from the Middle English word "procutor," meaning
a university officer or manager — can be just as uncomfortable,
uninviting, and potentially dirty work.
As part of his research for this issue's feature on cheating,
writer Michael Penn took a professor up on an offer and proctored
an exam. He didn't catch any cheaters, but he did gain an appreciation
for what professors had been telling us — that students are
more willing to cheat, and more adept at doing it. We wanted to
share with readers a sense of how they do it (or at least how we
hear they're doing it), but that presented a challenge. How do you
take pictures of something that most of the time happens when you
aren't looking?
The answer came with a little creative license. Photographer Jeff
Miller enlisted several student volunteers to take a fake test in
a large classroom in Bascom Hall. We told each of the students to
cheat, using some of the more inventive methods we'd read about
at sites like this
or this.
Jeff then prowled the room, "catching" them in the act.
We think his photos capture the voyeuristic nature of proctoring
perfectly, while also managing to protect the identities of the
students who helped us out. So the cheating you see here isn't real,
but it does represent a real problem.
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Fall 2003 Features
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