A faculty member that puts his/her name on a paper a grad student wrote
then
submits it for publication under their own name ... is guilty of
plagiarism at our institution.

If faculty members believe they have "in effect" ("for all intents and
purposes," etc.) written the paper, that is, given so much advice,
correction, content, stimulus, and time that the paper would not exist
in any form absent their efforts, they are nevertheless obligated to
publically acknowledge the work of the student. Normally, this would be
discussed with the student before submission for publication, but in the
case of students long since graduated and moved away, our advice to
faculty is to make a due diligence effort to contact the student to
explain that the paper is being presented and that the intent is to list
the student's name as co-author (or whatever lesser contribution seems
reasonable).  If contact cannot be made or agreement reached, we
recommend that the faculty members incorporate references to the
student's paper into a fresh paper of their own.

The question is whether the work done under one's supervision is one's
own for purposes of career advancement, particularly tenuring and rank
advancement.  Is it evidence of one's scholarship or, on the other hand,
of one's ability to manage a class and stimulate students to grow?  The
answer is a resounding "maybe" in academic administration or the outer
world, but it is NEVER the case in the classroom or the laboratory.  The
fundamental premise of those two places is a trust and respect.  That
makes it easy to remember.

In "applied" disciplines where graduate students may be on the cutting
edge during the day and sitting through a curriculum in the evenings,
the balance of expertise can be very much closer to parity than
otherwise.  In an advanced research laboratory or seminar the student
may easily be out in new territory.  It is tempting for the teacher to
learn in situations like this.  This should be seen as the essential
complementarity that got them into this business in the first place, not
as a license to steal.

James R. Brett, Ph.D., Director,
Office of University Research
CSU Long Beach
310-985-5314   310-985-8665 fax
xxxxxx@csulb.edu
http://www.csulb.edu/~wwwing/research.html