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STUDENTS
LOCAL
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Graduation Special
| Summer 2006
The Grade That Stalled Graduation The embarrassment of a plagiarism accusation caused her to leave UTA 40 years
ago, but Joyce Battee-Harris leaves with a diploma this time
The Shorthorn staff
Photo Illustration: Mark Roberts
In 1965, Joyce Battee-Harris left UTA after false accusations of plagiarism.
This weekend, Battee-Harris will finally cross the stage with as much
respect and distinction as any of her fellow graduates.
A mere six credit hours away from graduating with a bachelor’s
degree in history, Battee-Harris was accused of plagiarizing a paper.
Her professor not only failed the paper but also her for the class.
“I can’t say it was a personal attack, but he never showed
me where I plagiarized,” she said.
She said she tried to reason with her professor, but partly due to the
lack of an office that handles minority affairs, she lost her fight.
Regretfully, she decided to leave the university.
“I couldn’t come back. I was tired of fighting,” she
said. “My parents were so upset because I was one of the first
here, and for me to give up was devastating.”
Battee-Harris was one of the first black students to attend UTA after
the university was peacefully integrated.
“The professors weren’t hostile, and the students were accommodating,”
she said. “Sometimes it was uncomfortable.”
After she left UTA, Battee-Harris went on to start a family. She had
two children: Khira Harris-Curry, 34, and Vincent Harris, 31. Both are
graduates of UTA.
“I made up my mind that when my children graduated, I’d
come back,” she said.
Battee-Harris returned to UTA in 1997 to finish her remaining six-credit
hours: a social science course and an art history course.
She noticed that demographic and atmospheric changes had taken place
on campus since she had left in ’65.
“Everything was so much more relaxed,” she said. “The
professors were in jeans and tennis shoes.”
Before she could finish school, Battee-Harris was faced with more obstacles.
“Vincent wanted to go to law school, and I couldn’t afford
to come back,” she said.
She re-enrolled in 1998 but had to put her dream on hold again when
her mother got cancer.
“My mother has always taken care of other people, and she put
her life on hold to take care of my grandmother,” Khira Harris-Curry
said.
Battee-Harris enrolled for the fourth time in January 2004 and will
graduate this weekend.
“I’m very happy and relieved,” she said. “It’s
a mission accomplished.”
She said she is happy that her father is still alive and will be able
to see her graduate from college.
Battee-Harris said she has had the support of her children throughout
her journey.
“I can’t express how proud of her I am,” Vincent Harris
said. “I’m glad she’s doing something for herself
because this is what she’s wanted.”
Khira Harris-Curry said that Battee-Harris is a wonderful mother and
always encouraged her children to excel in school.
“Staying at home after high school was only allowable if we went
to college,” she said. “She always said she didn’t
raise any bums or slackers.”
Her children said they remember spending countless Saturdays in the
library with their mother.
“She read to me before I could even talk,” Khira Harris-Curry
said. “She was instilling knowledge from a young age.”
She said her mother’s graduation is more of a personal goal than
career advancement.
“She’s constantly amazing in her tenacity and perseverance,”
she said. “She’s proof that you’re never too old to
go to school and that you can always succeed in what you do.”
Battee-Harris said that she has no regrets or bitter feelings toward
her experience at UTA.
“Bitterness is not part of my personality,” she said. “I
wish it hadn’t happened, but it did. One way or another, I have
no regrets.”
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