Should faculty members who lie about their academic credentials be fired?

The Chronicle of Higher Education has started an online discussion about whether faculty members who lie about their academic credentials should be fired: Chronicle colloquy

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Yes. No debate.

 

When John Davy - a Canadian - applied for the top job in NZ Maori TV, and was successful, he listed in his CV a completely ficticious 'degree' (from cooldegree - DENVER STATE UNIVERSITY).
Apparently he was performing an excellent function in the top job (historically Maori TV has been fraught with disaster - and nothing has changed!), until his ficticious degree was discovered and he was sacked - and prosecuted. He ended up serving a six months prison term.
The consultant company that selected John Davy went out of business shortly after the court case.
With legal precedence now well established any person claiming qualifications they don't have, and/or using bogus qualifications, should face instant dismissal - and possible legal action?

 

Fired and jailed for fraud.


A women of Vietnamese origin (the name didn't set off any alarms) borrowed her ex-husbands engineering degrees and taught for two years at, I believe, the University of Saskatchewan despite student protests that she knew absolutely nothing.

I guess they thought boys were being boys and they certainly didn't want to lose the special government grant for hiring a women.

She was convicted and I don't remember the sentence but in Canada it was probably only an inconvenience.

 

Sure, if the misinformation is both purposeful and material.

 

Mr. Troupe believes it to be a race issue, according to the Chronicle article. He believes it would have been perceived differently if he had been white.

 

Mr. Troupe hasn't been reading degreeinfo with all the cases of white university coaches and assorted jocks who were fired for the same thing.

Fraud is simply fraud and he was lucky not to be charged with a criminal offence or sued to recover fraudulently acquired wages.

 

"A women of Vietnamese origin (the name didn't set off any alarms) borrowed her ex-husbands engineering degrees and taught for two years at, I believe, the University of Saskatchewan despite student protests that she knew absolutely nothing"


Actually the school was the University of Regina - but hey they have pretty low standard for instructors even I taught there. After 100 students walked out on her classes the growing complaints were investigated.

I don't remember what became of Lana Nguyen, she was originally charged with a property crime and spent a few weeks in jail but was released on bail, if memory serves me right.

She didn't just trick the U of Regina, she also managed to get more than $30,000* in research grants from the federal government.


Jeff

*Canadian dollars, so it is about $17.88 US

 

I don't know about firing him, BUT, I think they should kick his ass just for attempting to use racism as a cause for his termination.

BR,
Bill

 

Figures that the guy would cry racism--141K a year sure sounds like discrimination to me. He could easily have picked up a real BA at, oh, TESC, COSC, Excelsior, UNISA, Fort Hays, etc., etc. This wouldn't have changed the specific lie about the Grambling degree, but it would have provided him with a fallback position of sorts when his imposture was discovered.

But hey--the nice thing about identity politics, regardless of the race, gender, orientation, eye color, or shoe size of the practitioner, is that if you're really good at being a representative of the favored demography, you don't actually need to know anything.
Or tell the truth. All you have to do is be.

 

Just a few months ago, the College of Physicians and Surgeons (Ontario) prosecuted a gentleman (the name I cannot remember) for having practiced medicine without a medical degree. According to the story, this fake physician spent only 3 years in medical school and ended up dropping out because of poor grades. Apparently, he purchased a fake diploma and started his own practice (without registering with the College of Physicians and Surgeons). He was caught a few years later and arrested for fraud.
The odd side to this was that he had more than 250 patients. They were shocked to hear that he was a fake. The majority of his patients thought he was an excellent doctor. A couple of physicians who had offices in the same building thought he was one of the most thorough and competent doctors they had ever met.
From what I recall of the newspaper article about this fake doctor, he actually cured many of the disorders that his patients had.

 

One of the best things about the laws against discrimination based on race, religion, country of origin, sexual preferences, etc. is that they do allow discrimination based on factors that are truly important, such as being ugly or stupid.

 

Oh, great. Now I'm really screwed!

 

Actually the ugly one could get you in trouble because it could be reasonably argued that it was just thinly disguised age discrimination. Now I'm not saying that old equates to ugly but, the flight attendents won a similar suit against the airlines who set a fixed maximum weight. The airlines were forced to provide a sliding scale so that older attendents were able to weigh a little bit more.

 

Most of the jobs I've had in my life, and all of the professional jobs I've had, required me to complete and sign an employment application. Once, I asked a secretary who had just taken my resume, "Why do I need to fill out this application when all the information is already on my resume?" She said that I could just write, "See attached resume," on the application but I still had to sign the application because, just above my signature was written something to the effect of "I swear that everything I've written is true...forfeit my job...broken sword...gloves across the face...public humiliation...etc. So, if you lie you can lose your job. Where's the confusion?
Jack

 

I agree. If you lie about your qualifications you should lose your job. However, having worked as an independent consultant for a large governmental organization, I have witnessed many hiring irregularities and have also made several observations with respect to the process of screening job applications.
(1) The larger the department or corporation, the easier it is to hide a false qualification (red tape and bureaucracy).
(2) Human Resources staffs do not have the time or the proper training to evaluate, research or investigate credentials and qualifications (they assume the applicant is being honest).
(3) Employees who have served their company/corporation for many years are never questioned. If they bring a copy of their diploma to the H.R. representative, the legitimacy of the document is accepted at "face value".
(4) Transcripts are never required as a condition of employment. If they are requested, they are never verified by H.R. staff.
(5) H.R. departments will check employment references only. They rarely ask for a reference letter or verification certificate from colleges/universities one has attended.
(6) A competition or job posting can bring in as many as 1,000 resumes. The screening process can take up to three weeks. Those who are placed on the "short list" are invited to a formal interview. There is never a requirement to verify credentials, degrees or official titles.
I would be willing to bet that 5-10% of all employees working for federal government agencies hold fake degrees. A complete and thorough audit of all federal employee records would produce some interesting results.

 

Wouldn't those faculty phonies require of their students legitimate work?

Wouldn't keeping those phonies tell the students that cheating is ok?

Fire them.