By CAMERON FULLER and STEPHANIE HALFORD
A professor of church history and doctrine at BYU has admitted to plagiarism and apologized for his actions.
Bruce Van Orden has taught in BYU’s religion department since 1986. In 1989, he was asked to teach Rel 344, a course covering the growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints internationally. To enhance the students’ understanding of how the church has grown throughout the world, a class packet was compiled entitled, “The International Church: Supplemental Text.
According to an extensive analysis to be published in the Journal of Mormon History later this year, information originally included in Van Orden’s packet was later incorporated into book form and published by Deseret Book. “Building Zion: The Latter-day Saints in Europe,” was released in 1996.
However, a significant portion of the information in the packet and the book was not properly attributed, Van Orden admitted.
Portions of the text had also been published on a read-only listserver known as LDS-Gems which sends daily e-mails to more than 11,000 readers worldwide. In mid 1997, a subscriber to the service read some of Van Orden’s text and forwarded the material to another listserver, Sister-Share, believing women members in Australia would appreciate the insight the text provided, according to the journal review.
One of the subscribers to Sister-Share is Marjorie Newton, a member of the church in Australia and author of the book “Southern Cross Saints.” She recognized some of the material in the e-mail closely resembled parts of her own book.
Newton contacted Wilfried Decoo, a member of the church in Belgium, with her discovery. Decoo had previously written a review of “Builiding Zion,” for the Journal of Mormon History.
In a phone interview with Decoo, he said the first time he reviewed the book he was uneasy about some of the documentation methods. After Newton had brought the point to light, Decoo notified the owners of LDS-Gems and began further investigation. He discovered a number of other authors had been plagiarized.
The owners of LDS-Gems in turn brought the accusations to Van Orden’s attention. During the next several months, Van Orden acknowledged that he had made mistakes in his work, but that every mistake was inadvertent.
“Something (the international course) was thrown upon me and I had the whole world to teach about and I gathered information as fast and as furiously as I could and put them in the files. I recognized that I needed something for the students to read and just not talk about in class,” Van Orden said.
“In the process of gathering, I was writing paragraphs and chapters and as I went along I made my attributions but apparently along the way, I didn’t use enough care; and I was more sloppy than I should have been, and therefore I didn’t quote everything in quotation marks that I used words of or used ideas from other people that I didn’t always cite.”
Van Orden apologized to members of his department and individually to those who he plagiarized. He said he believes he has been dealt with in an honest and loving fashion.
Many of the people Van Orden plagiarized told The Daily Universe they feel that Van Orden did not plagiarize with malicious intent but that his methods and work were sloppy and unprofessional.
Richard Jensen, associate research professor for the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History, and coincidentally the book review editor for the Journal of Mormon History, was one of the people who was plagiarized. His first reaction was one of mixed feelings.
“People talk about sort of having a feeling of being robbed, that probably wasn’t that much of a factor with me. It’s more sort of a pain at the feeling that this field of inquiry that I’m very fond of, LDS church history throughout the world, was being muddled through uncareful scholarship,” Jensen said.
Another person who was plagiarized, William Hartley, shared similar feelings. Hartley is also an associate research professor for the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History and a member of the executive editorial board for the Journal.
“The part from my material was quite limited. And on the one hand I know that if wasn’t cited properly. On the other hand I also kind of understand how Bruce’s lecture notes and oral presentations can sometimes get fuzzied as you present that to the public,” Hartley said. “So I’m not particularly hurt by it other than the fact that we all, all professors, need to be very careful in citing what we use from somebody else.”
Not everyone has been as ready to settle with simply having the record set straight.
Dave Robertson, editor for the Institute of Polynesian Studies at BYU-Hawaii and publisher of two of the books that were plagiarized from, wanted some other form of restitution. He said as a publisher he is in the business of publishing and selling books as well as protecting the interests of the authors he publishes.
Robertson worked out a deal with Van Orden in which Van Orden will use the plagiarized books as part of his classroom curriculum next fall. Robertson also said he felt the standard of scholarship at BYU seems to be “quite low.”
Jim Gordon, BYU associate academic vice president, would not disclose the particulars of the disciplinary measures used with Van Orden, but he did refer to BYU’s official policy on handling plagiarism by students or professors.
The policy allows BYU to reprimand the offender orally or in writing, require the work affected by the dishonesty to be redone, dismiss the offender from the university, or to put the offender on probation or suspension.
Gordon also clarified between inadvertent and deliberate plagiarism.
“Intentional plagiarism is a violation of the Honor Code. It is intentionally stealing someone else’s thoughts or ideas. Inadvertent plagiarism is not a violation of the Honor Code, but it is plagiarism. It’s a form of intellectual carelessness that is unacceptable in the academic community, and it’s a violation of university policy,” Gordon said.
Gordon said the university is satisfied that Van Orden’s plagiarism was inadvertent.
The events surrounding the plagiarism are discussed in specific detail in the Journal which is scheduled to be released in about four weeks.
