Remember the Duke cheating scandal from a few years back?
If not, here’s a brief recap: In April 2007, school officials at Fuqua took disciplinary action against 34 of the school’s first-year MBA students—almost 10% of the class—for allegedly cheating on an open-book, take-home final in a core course. In all, 24 of the students were either suspended or expelled by the school. It was the largest episode of cheating in the school’s history.
At the time, it seemed like a devastating blow to a B-school that consistently found itself mentioned amongst the elite MBA programs in the country. But it turns out that the scandal has actually had a positive—and unexpected—result.