And another time bomb: political candidate in Alabama

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by John Bear, May 24, 2002.

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  1. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    Well at least it's scheduled to go off, if the Tuscaloosa News goes ahead with its story in Friday's paper (www.tuscaloosanews.com) on a candidate with a LaSalle Ph.D.
     
  2. Well, I went to the Tuscaloosa News web site, and instead of a news story I found a large campaign ad for Jerry Tingle (whose slogan, "Save Our Sundays," refers to his primary campaign theme, which is to ban Sunday liquor sales). Clicking on the ad takes you to Tingle's web site which proudly provides his CV: Jerry Tingle Curriculum Vitae. He has a LaSalle PhD ("Magna Cum Laude") in Biomedical Engineering.
     
  3. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    The merits of "outing" people for their fake degrees has been debated to great lengths on this forum. This person is running for public office in part on his record. His record includes this fake Ph.D. from LaSalle. No better target, IMHO.
     
  4. Tingle really is pushing the limits of my tolerance for people's past foibles when his campaign site lists him as "Jerry Michael Tingle, Ph.D." I notice that he gives dates for most of his qualifications, but not for the LaSalle doctorate. Was the Ph.D. from the pre-1997 unambiguous "diploma mill" or the post-1997 unaccredited (but putatively legitimate) institution? In any case, since it's actually posted on his web site as part of his campaign I think it's fair to question this.
     
  5. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    Winning a race: a gamble or a strategy?

    I’m amazed that someone who is running for political office would gamble by placing a fake Ph.D on his resume.

    That is mud “ready to be slung” by the opponents, if they find out about it, which they surely will.

    It’s asinine to gamble like that, unless he really doesn’t want the job [sic].
     
  6. Blam! Time bomb exploded this morning.

    Candidate claims doctorate from unaccredited college.

    Snippets:
    • ... "It did not come from a diploma mill,’’ he said. "I visited the campus. I graduated from there with 450 other people. My whole family and everybody went.’’
      ...
      Tingle said he also wrote a doctoral dissertation. He provided a copy of the 187-page document, "BMET-4 Diagnostic X-Ray Equipment Training Manual for Biomedical Technicians and Engineers,’’ to The Tuscaloosa News.
      ...
      A history of receipts provided to Tingle by LaSalle showed he paid a total of $5,307.
      ...
      John Bear, author of "Bear’s Guide to Earning Degrees Nontraditionally" and a consultant to the FBI in the case, said that any degree awarded from the school before July 1997 is worthless. "It was clear that all you had to do was write a check," he said. He said that there were only five faculty members to handle the 15,000 students, and that only one had a bachelor’s degree. He said the faculty didn’t even grade the students’ work.
     
  7. Dennis Ruhl

    Dennis Ruhl member

    I don't know anything about this particular case but in all liklihood many of the people taking degrees from unaccredited universities of various qualities down to diploma mills may in fact believe they have legitimate degrees.

    Lasalle told everybody they were accredited and had very good literature. Ten years ago, I made an enquiry and was accepted into a program, even though I had not specifically applied. I did not accept the offer.

    The good book, Bear's Guide listed it as unaccredited but not as a diploma mill.

    Producing a 180 page training manual is obviously not considered a sufficient doctoral project but who necessarily knows.

    Some of the greatest victims are those who attended Columbia Pacific University and did doctoral quality dissertations or at least ones of doctoral length and legitimately researched. Whether these dissertations would have been accepted at an accredited school is always subject to debate, but certainly a number of them would have. Columbia Pacific had a certain respect and the debate still rages in some circles as to whether they should have been closed. I have never had any coonection to this school although I also received there literature and it looked good too.

    Some of the biggest victims of diploma mills are often the students themselves. They are through ignorance or denial unaware of the quality of the schools they attended.

    Many would not have known that had they handed in 10 pages or no pages they would have passed. Outing degree mill graduates should be done but any outing should be tempered with understanding or an explanation of the various qualities of schools.
     
  8. (Snipped)
    "Tingle said he disagreed with Thorne’s description of the school. He he took a year off from his job as owner of Tingle X-Ray Products to complete the doctoral program, which included 48 hours of course work he completed at home. "

    I wouldn't find a claim of "ignorance" or "denial" particularly believable in this case. A year off his job? Four or five hundred other people on campus?

    To quote from those scholars of human nature, SNL:

    Yeah... that's it. That's the ticket.
     
  9. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    Dennis Ruhl: "The good book, Bear's Guide listed it as unaccredited but not as a diploma mill."

    But I couldn't have been too positive -- I mean, they sued me for three million bucks because they didn't like what I wrote about them.

    It is clear that there are always three categories of "victims" --

    *Those that were totally and genuinely fooled
    *Those that had concerns, but didn't look too closely because they really wanted it
    *Those who knew just what they were doing, with intent to fool others.

    I would dearly love to know the percentages of each, but this is probably unknowable, more's the pity.
     

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