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MIT Dean of Admissions Resigns in Lying Scandal
Billosaur writes "CNN has a report that the Dean of Admissions at MIT has resigned her post after admitting to lying about her academic record. 'Marilee Jones, who joined the staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1979 to lead the recruitment of women at the university, stepped down from her post after admitting that she had misrepresented her academic degrees to the institute, according to a statement posted on MIT's Web site.' The school had recently received information about her credentials and the subsequent investigation uncovered the misrepresentations. Question is, why did it take 28 years?"
from The Tech, the student newspaper: http://www-tech.mit.edu/V127/N21/jones.html
The reason that it took so long is that 28 years ago she applied to be an administrative assistant. That position did not require a degree. While her credentials should have been checked then, they weren't. By the time she got around applying for Dean of Admissions, she had already been at MIT for 2 decades, and it wasn't policy to recheck credentials for internal promotions. The lie was finally discovered because of an anonymous tip. Previous to that, there wasn't any reason to check them as she was quite competently performing her duties.
Or: University degrees aren't worth very much. No, that's not the point: her (first) position did not require a degree at all. In this article from the Boston Globe MIT says Because the administrative assistant job for which she was being considered in 1979 did not require a degree, the university did not check Jones's academic credentials, said MIT chancellor Phillip L. Clay. If it were any other position, she should maybe be forgiven because of her strong performance. But since her job is to make sure that you do not lie on your application she was rightfully forced to quit.
You don't have to use the term racist to describe anyone who is prejudiced. There is already a word that encompasses that.
Fact 1: MIT has granted Full Professorships to people without degrees. They care about performance and ability more than about degrees.
Fact 2: They also care about integrity. A place like MIT earns and maintains its reputation based on both the quality and the integrity of the work done there. Integrity is where the dean screwed up, and why she is being canned.
You have mis-represented the role of the admissions office, and a dean of admissions, on most modern college campuses. In her position, she would not at all be involved in raising money, and her ability (or inability) to network would make only a minor difference in her job performance.
Furthermore, the admissions office handles admission of high school students to the undergraduate program. Department chairs (and faculty in general) have almost no role in this process. Admissions folders are read and evaluated by admissions officers within this office (who are not part of the faculty). The primary role of the dean of admissions is to maintain the quality, integrity, and consistency of these evaluations. (This is in contrast to admission to graduate programs, in which individual departments and faculty play a very large part by reading and rating each application.)
Put simply, the job of the admissions office at a school like MIT is to sort through a pool of near-perfect, almost identical-looking applications to select the small percentage who they believe will have the best chance at success at MIT while ensuring diversity among geographic, ethnic, economic and other factors.
Why would you trust this process to an indivudal who had no idea what it was like to even go to college?