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Mary Swenson struggled to finish her doctorate at Capella University. So when she found Sharon Bender, it seemed a saving grace.

A Capella business professor, Bender took an interest in Swenson’s management research, even suggesting they team up on a book, Swenson said.

Instead, she charges, her mentor began lifting her work. Swenson said she discovered “thinly veiled” versions of her own writing on Bender’s Web site and said that, when confronted, her mentor claimed she deserved some credit herself.

Bender said Swenson’s claims are not true – and said it was Swenson who co-opted her ideas.

Passing off someone’s work as your own is a cardinal sin in college research. Students can be expelled. Professional reputations can be wrecked. While student plagiarism grabs headlines, allegations against teachers happen more than people realize, experts say. Because students rarely fight back, most accusations fade in the grumbling over beers after class.

This time, though, the student is suing.

Scheduled for trial this summer in Anoka County, Swenson’s lawsuit against Bender may offer an unvarnished look at who controls ideas in the give-and-take of college research. It also may open a window on the complex ties between teachers and students who need a mentor’s help and influence – and who understand they are unlikely to get the benefit of the doubt.

“I’ve rarely seen stories of this type,” said Tim Dodd, director of the Center for Academic Integrity at Duke University, an organization of college students, faculty and administrators across the country that tracks plagiarism issues.

Dodd said he regularly fields calls from students who believe their research has been taken by a professor. There’s no good data but “pretty regular anecdotal evidence” of these conflicts, said Dodd, who recalled his own work being taken as a graduate student.

“I just put my tail between my legs,” he said. “I never confronted the professor.”

Swenson, 46, didn’t expect confrontation in 2000 when she signed up at Capella, a for-profit, online university based in Minneapolis. Already a consultant based in Ham Lake, she liked the flexible scheduling she could have online.

Capella offered a doctoral program in organizational psychology; the school said it was seeking accreditation from the American Psychological Association. It all seemed to fit nicely. (Capella has not received the accreditation.)

Swenson earned top grades in her courses while working on her dissertation, the book-length manuscript of original research required of doctoral candidates at any university.

Her research focused largely on women who transform into leaders during a crisis. By examining their traits and personalities, Swenson hoped to create a way for businesses to train employees to solve problems, make decisions and resolve conflicts in an organization before they spin into crises.

It was potentially a “multi-million-dollar” management idea, she felt.

Inside Capella, however, she was stuck in her own organizational battles. She clashed with faculty on her thesis, fighting over editing and research methods.

When Bender agreed to be her mentor, it seemed a good match. She’d never taught Swenson but had done research on female entrepreneurs. And she also had received her doctorate from Capella.

They never met face to face. Bender lived in New Jersey and communicated with Swenson online and by phone.

Swenson said the model she built drew on the personal, professional and community experiences of women who had grown to be leaders. She found they were excellent communicators and motivators and managed situations well – they were people who connected with their “minds, hearts and souls.”

She even gave the model a hip name – Power Chip.

“There is a lot going for this model and its application to provide life solutions. Cool!” Bender wrote in an e-mail provided by Swenson.

With the right publisher and marketing, the model might catch fire. It had the potential, Bender told Swenson in the e-mail, to be bigger than management guru Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.”

By late 2004, however, the relationship had disintegrated.

Reading Bender’s business Web site, Swenson said she saw her mentor using the model. Initial versions had Bender and Swenson sharing credit. Swenson said it still bothered her because her unpublished work was being made available free online. Then, claims Swenson, her name was dropped.

Swenson said when she called Bender on it, Bender said she deserved some credit because of her efforts guiding Swenson through the process and for contributions she provided on some of the procedural work.

Bender said none of the allegations is true. “I stuck my neck out at the university … to absolutely help her” finish her doctorate, Bender said.

“She’s using the slides that I created,” Bender added. “All she did was move words around. She plagiarized the template that I produced.”

The terminology that Swenson claims Bender took from her is found regularly in the “performance-improvement field,” Bender added. “I kept on saying to her: ‘This stuff is not new; it’s how we do it. We have to be on the same page.’ She went off and did her own thing on it.”

Capella’s written guidelines to students on academic honesty warn that “not giving proper credit to your sources is considered plagiarism, which can have serious consequences, including suspension or even expulsion from the university,” while plagiarism can be avoided by “properly acknowledging your sources.”

Swenson said she can prove the ideas were hers first. She applied for a patent on The Power Chip model while writing her thesis, and a basic patent was granted in July.

Bender said she is challenging the patent.

Dodd said the case is particularly unusual because Capella is an online university, with a New Jersey professor working with a Minnesota student. Typically in disagreements at traditional universities, students and professors can meet face to face and talk through the dispute, he said.

If the disagreement continues, a department chair or dean might intervene or an office of research misconduct might investigate, Dodd added.

Capella is not a party in the suit and declined substantial comment, citing student privacy. The university said that it is aware of the case and provided information when requested, but that resolution “is in the province of the court.”

But in an April 2006 letter, provided by Swenson, a Capella attorney told her she was the problem, noting she was the only psychology student ever to fail her dissertation at Capella and pointing out she failed twice.

The letter also warned that Swenson’s “continual actions in placing blame on others, including claims that everyone from her editor to her mentor to members of the (doctoral) committee changed her work, raise serious issues of academic integrity.”

Bender received her doctorate from Capella in 2000, a few months after Swenson enrolled and four years after finishing her associate’s degree at Thomas Edison State College in New Jersey. She’s no longer with Capella and now serves as a part-time administrator at Aspen University, an online school.

Bender’s business Web site includes a variation of the “heart, mind, soul” model Swenson said is hers. It’s on a Web page titled “inventions,” although in a disclaimer, Bender cautions, “Content at this site is not warranted as being fit for a particular use. Your use is at your own discretion, risk and responsibility … consider this site as you would Wikipedia or other evolving site of content.”

Swenson estimates she’s spent about $60,000 at Capella for a doctorate she still doesn’t have.

“My degree,” she said, “has now become a bargaining chip.”

Paul Tosto covers higher education and can be reached at ptosto@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-2119.