HARVARD PRESIDENT CLAUDINE GAY RESIGNS, SHORTEST TENURE IN UNIVERSITY HISTORY

Harvard President Claudine Gay will resign Tuesday afternoon, bringing an end to the shortest presidency in the University's history, according to a person with knowledge of the decision.

It is not clear who will be appointed to serve as interim president.

University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain declined to comment on Gay's decision to step down.

HARVARD PRESIDENT CLAUDINE GAY RESIGNS, SHORTEST TENURE IN UNIVERSITY HISTORY | News | The Harvard Crimson (thecrimson.com)

 

Alan M. Garber will be the Interim President until a new permanent one is appointed, according to the article.

 

I did not see the full video, only the question that she responded to and her response. I do agree though that the response was completely inappropriate and finding out about the plagiarism issues seem to be the icing on the cake of her needing to go. I have no doubt though that Harvard's governing boards probably pushed her to resign.

 

Wow! She is pretty much-blaming society's racism as she is a victim of it. Well, I think they should revoke her Ph.D.

 

Seeing the news report Tekman posted, you might be right. Seems all that they would keep her on as faculty but either they do really like her or else there's something in the contract she signed.

 

Look deeper. They just fired a long-time faculty member for plagiarism. Strict on those issues with students. The former president was caught! Doesn't speak well to the HR people, and the Harvard Board, but at this point they had no choice. The vetting process is strenuous in hiring someone to lead a university with such stature, but in their insane attempt to be "woke" they hired this lady. It has done more damage than anything I know if in the history of what used to be the finest institution in the world.

 

This was tough. I'm sympathetic towards her on one issue and absolutely not on the other.

As for her comments on free speech, that was a set-up that worked. What possible interest does Congress have in what she has to say about that? But, put on the spot, she said some really dumb things. (Makes you wonder why they hire academics as administrators. Yes, she had administrative experience, but being a dean and being president are two entirely different roles, especially as they function with the public.) Her response should have been, "There are protected forms of speech and unprotected forms of speech. College campuses are no different in that regard." Done.

But I can't get past the plagiarism. Unlike some, I feel there are multiple actions that can be taken for various forms of it. Did you know that if you fail to cite someone else's idea, even if you mention that person while paraphrasing them (in your own words), that's plagiarism? I can say, "According to Sagan, there are billions of possible Earth-like planets in the known universe." But if I don't footnote where I learned that--even though those are my own words and I said where I got the idea--it's plagiarism. But would you fire someone over forgetting to put the footnote in? Obviously, that person didn't misappropriate the idea or claim it for themselves.

But that's not what Gay did. She lifted an entire passage, slightly altering the language, and didn't indicate it was a quote, nor cited its source. That is passing off someone else's thoughts as your own, and I think it is more egregious. (She even did it in the Acknowledgements.)

What she didn't do, however, is steal someone else's research and pass it off as her own.

So, what to do? The university could have required her to:

• Correct the plagiarized passages
• Step down as president
• Resign as a faculty member
• Hand back her degree

They chose the first two. You can argue whether the other two might also be necessary. I personally don't think so.

Given her fumbling of the question in a very public forum--and, perhaps, her unfounded beliefs about speech (hard to really tell)--and her plagiarism--which never would have come to light without this scrutiny--she had to go. The only question was "how far?"

 

I guess that's another way to look at it.

 

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/12/29/wilmerhale-testimony-prep/.

This supports your assertion that not only was it the response they were coached to give it was what they thought was the best response, not a matter of saying something they didn’t mean to in the moment.

 

And the battle continues to the entire Harvard University's board members...

 

Plagiarism is never a good thing. The standards, however, change from time to time--which is one reason style guides have to be revised over time.

For example, I remember back in the 1990s that if you quoted a sentence or two from an article it was sufficient to state where the passage came from and it's author. That's not the case now--you need a full citation--complete with chapter, page, verse... Any you could paraphrase by changing a few significant words in a sentence. Not so now. In fact, as you write your dissertation/thesis with paraphrases that conform with today's standards, then revise the heck out of your work as you edit, as you should, so that some of the original words now appear in your work, you could be plagiarizing without even realizing it.

That's why you need a plagiarism checker (the company that makes TurnitIn also makes a checker that's good for graduate/postgraduate work) to look at your own work before submitting anything to a journal or as a thesis/dissertation.

Anyone who did a thesis or dissertation more than 20 years ago might want to review it now, in light of 2023 standards, and if possible make corrections ASAP, before you get flogged in the public square.

 

Honestly, sometimes, as a reader, I am annoyed by the citation. Every two or three words have a citation. Sometimes, I want to listen to the article while working, and that is annoying.

 

I do a lot of my text-to-audio listening using the Voice Dream Reader app. It has a toggle setting to Skip In-Text Citations.

 

That's one of the standards that changed since the 1990s. Anything that is not common knowledge to the audience you are writing for, or that was found in another book or journal or movie, or TV program, Twitter tweet, Facebook message, etc. has to be cited. If you make reference in your article or book to a boot that was owned by a famous athlete, with meaningful words or letters carved on it, the boot has to be cited. You even have to cite passages from your own previously published work so as not to be accused of "self-plagiarism."

It's gotten very complicated now. In some fields (family history/genealogy...) there are entire courses on how to write citations that will withstand scrutiny.

 

There are probably dark corners where you can learn to write FAKE citations that "will withstand scrutiny." Or have AI do them for you. Real plagiarism, fake citations -- quite a mess. Do professors have to be re-trained for duty as criminal investigators? New career for retired law enforcement / criminal justice people?

 

AI probably writes fake citations to (unknowing) people every day, who then plug them into their legal briefs, articles, theses/dissertations, or books.

I know that there are academic sleuths in the sciences who volunteer to catch research misconduct issues in peer-reviewed articles. I don't know whether there are any academics sleuthing that's specific to citations, however, except when someone wants to make a political case to cancel someone.

Retraction Watch recounts the science sleuths' work almost daily:
RetractionWatch dot com

For the other kind of sleuthing, limited just to citations, I guess we have to wait until the next someone gets cancelled.