More allegations emerge as trustees back SIU president

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Hours after trustees affirmed their "full confidence" in Southern Illinois University's president, who's been accused of plagiarizing parts of his 1984 doctoral dissertation, a published report surfaced that he copied sections of his 1975 master's thesis.

In an article published on its Web site Monday, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that a copy it obtained of Glenn Poshard's 1975 master's thesis on drug abuse and the document contained sentences found nearly verbatim in sources published earlier. The passages in Poshard's thesis are neither in quotation marks nor attributed to other sources, according to The Chronicle.

The first two sentences in his thesis, for instance, read, "Drug abuse is not a new phenomenon in America. Various forms of drug abuse have existed for years in the United States and other countries," according to The Chronicle. It compares that with two sentences from a 1969 U.S. government report that read, "Drug abuse is not a new phenomenon. Varying forms of drug abuse have been present for years in the United States and other countries."

The Chronicle provided several other examples of possible plagiarism in the thesis.

David Gross, a spokesman for Poshard, said in a statement that The Chronicle's account "confirms again that Dr. Poshard's underlying scholarship is not in question -- that these are technical and stylistic differences of opinion that date back decades."

Poshard "has acknowledged these differences and will address them during the review process; however, at the present time, his energy, efforts and focus remains on the day to day operations of this university," Gross said.

The earlier plagiarism claims surfaced last week. The university's student newspaper, the Daily Egyptian, reported that the doctoral dissertation it obtained from an anonymous source found at least 30 sections either not attributed to their original sources or not put in quotation marks to show they weren't Poshard's writing.

Earlier Monday, Southern Illinois University's trustees affirmed their "full confidence" for the system's president as claims that he plagiarized parts of his 1984 doctoral dissertation headed to a faculty review panel.

Chancellor Fernando Trevino will appoint a committee of senior faculty members to resolve claims involving Poshard's dissertation, the Carbondale school announced Monday.

Trevino said in a statement he plans to announce members of the panel by the week's end, then hear back from that group by the end of September.

"I am fully confident that this committee will make any necessary recommendations consistent with the highest academic standards of this institution," Trevino said.

Addressing the allegations that he plagiarized parts of his 1984 dissertation, Poshard has said he might have mistakenly left out some citations in the dissertation -- with the blessings of his doctoral committee -- but he didn't plagiarize.

Poshard, a former congressman and one-time Democratic candidate for Illinois governor, has said he would not resign.