The program, which I somehow missed, is "The Real Gilligan's Island" in which two contestants represent each of the seven original Gilligan's cast (the Skipper, MaryAnn, etc.), and one of each pair eliminates the other through competitions. Be still my beating heart. The Chronicle reports that one of the two "Professors", Tiy-e Muhammad, listed a doctorate in psychology from Southern Illinois University, and a job as professor at Clark Atlanta University. Turns out Clark dismissed him when they learned his doctorate was not from Southern Illinois, but from "an unaccredited online university" (not identified).
This from the Atlanta Journal Constitution, 6/22/05: "Muhammad, 35, says he's a doctor, but he didn't earn a Ph.D. in psychology at the school from which he has said he graduated, school records show. In fact, he attended Southern Illinois University for just one semester as an unspecified graduate student, said SIU spokesman Tom Woolf. Muhammad said he left Clark Atlanta, where he was an associate professor in the psychology department for four years, because he wasn't paid enough and he "no longer felt that spark" from teaching. School officials said he left after they discovered his credentials were bogus." According to the article, he also claimed to be a psychologist in Illinois, then Georgia. Neither licensing bureau found evidence that he had been licensed. In Georgia, at least, this is a misdemeanor. Why would you put yourself through this by going on national television? On top of which, acting as obnoxiously as he apparently did on the show means that he would have few sympathizers when all of this did become public. And how did he become an Associate Professor at Clark Atlanta? Did it take them that long to find out? It's baffling . . . marilynd
If the reality show is going to host Gilligan's Island on Norfolk Island, well, perhaps the good professor can obtain another position...................
If you act like you know what you're doing, very few people will question you. Of course, all it takes in these cases in one person asking.
Actually, what I meant was that this guy presumably had to be an Assistant Professor before being promoted to Associate Professor. Very few individuals are hired as Associate Professors. Usually, such hires are either academics that have a track record of teaching and research, in which case they might be hired provisionally as Associates pending a tenure committee review, or they are sufficiently prestigious in the field in question that an Associate of Full Professor level is the only thing that will get them to come on board. Neither of these seems to apply in this guy's case. His books are self-published, and he is so young, it's hard to believe he would be hired as an Associate. Hence my question: how did he become an Associate Professor? My fear is that he went through six years of teaching at Clark Atlanta as an Assistant, tenure evaluation and promotion in the seventh, only to be found out after he had already passed these tests. Even if Clark Atlanta does not have a tenure scheme, he still would have had to submit to an evaluation for promotion. What the hell is going on here? marilynd
Going with the information we have, I think there are only three possibilities; 1) Clark Atlanta took his claims at face value, and never checked his background (this is most likely, IMO). 2) Someone at Clark Atlanta fudged the information for him (scary). 3) Clark Atlanta knew, but didn't care about his bogus credentials (scarier).
A school that takes all academic claims at face value. Sign me up. I can tell some real whoppers! And I can be especially convincing with a few Gin-and-Tonics in me. marilynd
Sounds like the guy on this old thread: http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19994
This isn't the first time, by a long shot. A woman who was a Professor of Education at Mercer University lost her job after Mercer was made aware her "doctorate" was from an unaccredited, highly suspect school in the Caribbean.
