Analysis Of Ed Dante's 'The Shadow Scholar'

In his essay The Shadow Scholar, Ed Dante peels back a layer of the onion that organized academic fraud has become. His aim, he says, is to “initiate a conversation” (p.474) about why cheating is as prevalent and lucrative as he claims it to be. Citing a New York Times article, he says that up to 61 percent of undergraduate students have admitted to committing some sort of academic fraud (cheating) on required coursework, and if that is the case, it’s a conversation that should be entertained by everyone who has a stake in education, from elementary school students and teachers all the way up to the presidents and deans and provosts of the nation’s colleges and universities.

Dante swaggers himself into his story by telling of his role as a

He clearly spells out his loathing of the academic establishment; he felt shunned and disenfranchised as early as his first year in college, where he speaks of “the tremendous disappointment that awaited me in college.” (p.478) His cynicism is matched only by his confidence in his own talent: “They saw my abilities … They saw a value that the university did not.” (p.478) What Dante commiserated with the other students about was that “the threat of failure was used to encourage learning” (p.478); that educators weren’t taking a more personal interest in their students was frustrating to him, and is a major factor in the systemic failures of educational systems across America in properly preparing students to be adept learners. He makes the observation that in terms of subject matter he’s most often employed to write for, “Education is the worst.” (p.476) But he doesn’t tease out the idea further that there could be a correlation between the lack of ability or perseverance of future educators and the high incidence of cheating. That’s an aspect of the conversation that is worth exploring. Is it apathy on the part of educators? Laziness? It is disconcerting to think that’s the case, but Dante is emphatic that “the frontline intelligence community is infiltrated by double agents.” (p.477) Understanding the “why” could go a long way towards formulating preventive