President of Toccoa Falls College Resigns Amid Controversy Over His Résumé

According to today's Chronicle of Higher Education website, "The president of Toccoa Falls College resigned on Saturday, just a day after learning that a plurality of the faculty at the Georgia religious college had voted no confidence in his leadership."

George Young listed a master's degree from "Fuller School of World Missons" when he applied for the presidency in 2000. In fact, he'd taken graduate classes at Fuller Theological Seminary, but had never completed a master's. He blamed the error on an adminstratrative assistant's mistake, and said he'd tried several times to clear it up since. The faculty didn't agree, or didn't feel he did enough to clear it up.

The link is for subscribers to the Chronicle is here: CLICK HERE.

 

Also see: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/0503/09toccoa.html

 

Incidentally, you can find a lot more about this story in Google if you search for "Donald Young" rather than "George Young."

 

And the lesson learned is, “never have an assistant apply for a job for you”?.

 

Maybe now I understand why some places want a photocopy of the actual certificate. No certificate - no degree. Fake certificate - clearly fraud. Eliminates all of these "misunderstandings."

 

Except that getting a fake--but real-looking--diploma and/or transcript is no big deal. There are "diploma-replacement" outfits that will do this nicely. John Bear occasionally refers to his own spurious Harvard Law degree obtained to illustrate this point.

 

I guess this could possibly be true!

Russell A. Morris
Who took one course (Sociology) at Haywood Community College in 1988, but would like to make it quite clear that he DID NOT EARN A DEGREE there.

 

Perhaps we could refer to this as the Miles Standish Syndrome
(not a perfect analogy, I know, but the first that came to mind)
Jack

 

I might be able to accept that someone would dictate their CV to an admin over the phone. But it's more difficult to believe that someone would apply for a job without even proofreading said CV.

 

Re: Re: President of Toccoa Falls College Resigns Amid Controversy Over His Résumé

Yep. It is funny how many folkswe have had in public life who forget they did not graduate.

Personally, I am going to see if there is some dl calls I can take at Oxford or Harvard so I can put on my resume that I did additional studies at Harvard/Oxford. Heck, when I go on vacation I will simply go to the library that should count as 'additional studies at Harvard'. Hmmmmm....every place I go I could do the same thing and really build a resume. Russell.......I am off to Erskine.


North
North

 

Re: Re: Re: President of Toccoa Falls College Resigns Amid Controversy Over His Résumé

Admitted 93-Graduated May 96.............er, I think.

 

Re: Re: Re: President of Toccoa Falls College Resigns Amid Controversy Over His Résumé

I drove by the UNC-Chapel Hill library today, while visiting a parishioner at the UNC-CH hospital. That should count for something, shouldn't it?

 

Harvard library

> Heck, when I go on vacation I will simply go to the library[:]
> that should count as 'additional studies at Harvard'.

The Harvard University libraries are not open to the public. Tourists are not even allowed to tour the libraries. If you take a Harvard extension course (some of which are DL), and pay another $100, you will be eligible for a library card for that term only. The MIT libraries are much more accessible: you just have to sign in.

Thanks for suggesting the "additional studies at" wording; I think I'll use that.

Mark Israel
Bachelor of Science, University of Alberta, 1985
Master of Computer Science, University of Ottawa, 1997
Additional studies at: Harvard University, Cornell University, Boston University, Northeastern University, UMass Lowell, Westminster Choir College.

 

Sadly, I recently experienced a case of resume fraud for the first time.

A couple of weeks ago, our church hosted its final candidate for interim pastor. I was very excited to have him here. His resume reflected that he had been a professor at a well-respected Christian liberal arts college for 9 years. According to his resume, in addition to a respected undergrad degree, two master's and a DMin from reputable American institutions, he had gone to the University of Oxford to earn the MLitt after retirement. I found this to be very admirable, and looked forward to meeting this gentleman. During his first couple of days here, he wore a blue blazer bearing an Oxford logo that readL: Oxford/ACRSS. I was a bit intrigued by this, and assumed the letters represented the college of Oxford with which he was affiliated. Yet, I couldn't match it up with any of the colleges with which I was familiar. At a couple of points, I sought to engage him in conversation about his Oxford experience: at which college he had studied, who supervised his research, etc. The answers I received were very short and vague. This was particularly strange since this guy was an amazing talker. He said that he had done some research in the Boedelain (sp?) Library, but didn't have much to say about his actual Oxford affiliation beyond this. He said that his research was supervised by the "American president of Oxford" and that he studied with a priest from Michigan. All of this seemed particularly bizarre to me, but I simply couldn't put my finger on it. Then, in the middle of the night it hit me: he had completed the MLitt program of Oxford Graduate School in Tennessee, which operates in Oxford as the American Center for Religion/Society Studies (ACRSS). This school, while wholly unaffiliated with the University, has been granted permission for its students to study in the library I mentioned above. Needless to say, I was disturbed and upset at the thought that this gentleman was so grossly misrepresenting his credential. I explained this whole situation to a key leader involved in the hiring process, and tried to relate how serious a matter this is. This individual confronted the candidate who admitted that he didn't really have his degree from "University of Oxford, UK" as his resume suggested. However, he seemed to maintain that he was more the victim than the crook in this situation. He insisted that it was constantly reinforced to him that he would be graduating from "Oxford." Well, the church's leaders voted to hire him as interim. Needless to say, while I intend to work in cooperation with this gentleman, this will continue to be a bit of a touchy point for me. I'm not sure whether to believe him about this matter or not. A couple of other academic types in our church feel the same way. We've agreed that he will not be welcome to misrepresent his "Oxford" credential in our congregation.

All very interesting.

 

This was one of the things that bothered me about OGS. Their DPhil program seemed fairly solid and they had applied to TRACS. On this site (or aed) it was assumed they were a sure thing (never materialized and they were set for another review and no more was heard). But I digress. The thing that bothered me about OGS was the attempt to connect everything to Oxford (from faux English architecture to degree titles and scholarly societies). It seemed cheesy and somewhat misleading. That alone (even with TRACS recognition) would have kept me from going. Who wants to go through life explaining "no.....not that Oxford". I think Russell at the time (I was enrolled at UNIZUL) said at least no one will have to say "no...not that UNIZUL"

North

 

This is also what has bothered me. I almost feel as though TRACS or any prospective accreditor should give them an ultimatum that they must change their name. Don't know if that's reasonable; the whole "Oxford" thing seems far too shady to be acceptable for an accredited institution.

 

Glenn Wagner, senior pastor of Calvary Church (Charlotte, NC) earned his Ph.D. from OGS. He has also served on the staff of Promise Keepers.

 

"Oxford"

Cory,

I had a somewhat similar situation during my undergraduate years. I had a class with Professor R. Joseph Hoffman, who purported to be a PhD from Oxford University. We were all duly impressed, and he was actually a good instructor and very charismatic fellow. Not in the theological sense, of course, as he was famously anti-Christian.

As it turned out, after he suddenly departed from my alma mater, I discovered that he was a PhD from "Westminster College, Oxford", which had no affiliation with Oxford University, and is now defunct. I believe their campus was bought up by "Oxford Brookes University", which also has no affiliation with Oxford University. Some of the other faculty at my school were rather put out at his claims to have been from the "real" Oxford.

 

Re: "Oxford"

Very interesting story! The PhD from Westminster (which was a very credible institution in its own right) used to be validated by Open University; not quite the same as Oxford! Westminster did offer an MA in Applied Theology that was validated by Oxford. I believe at least one of their bachelor's programs was Oxford-validated as well. But not the PhD. And while Westminster did have this validating relationship with Oxford Univ., they were by no means considered one of the "colleges of Oxford." You are right that Westminster has been absorbed into Oxford Brookes, which is considered to be one of the finer "new" UK universities.

 

Russell,

I am familiar with Glenn, and a number of other upstanding (and outstanding) OGS alumni. In all fairness, I by no means wish to imply that they have done anything underhanded or lacking integrity by enrolling in this school and completing its degree program. My beef lies exclusively with the school itself, which, as North has mentioned above, is something of a credibility "parasite".