US Academy President Caught Embellishing Resume, Will Resign

Patriarchy by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-27 08:29 · Score: 5, Funny

She is clearly a victim of the patriarchy's obsession with facts and evidence.

She FEELS she deserves the post.. so therefore she does.

Re:Patriarchy by Austerity+Empowers · 2013-07-27 08:38 · Score: 1

Well she fooled the intellectual elite for 17 years. Chances are that doctorate was just ornamentation anyway.
Re:Patriarchy by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-27 08:48 · Score: 1

Chances are that doctorate was just ornamentation anyway.
Most of what people look for in life nowadays is just ornamentation. And a significant element of that ornamentation's value is the price you are supposed to have paid for it.
Shortcuts threaten the fabric of society.
Re:Patriarchy by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-27 11:04 · Score: 1

>>> Well she fooled the intellectual elite for 17 years.
All the more reason to stop shaking in the boots and question the general intelligence of its members when you hear silly things such as:
"The nnn-year old ...", "one of the most prestigious honorary societies for the ... intellectual elite" etc.
When I apply for a lowly programming job the effing HR goes all the way to my Elementary school to verify the records and since it was long closed I have to "explain" but a claim of PhD from NYU for a position of President with .5M has no verification? I will try that kind of job next time.
Re:Patriarchy by ohnocitizen · 2013-07-27 11:55 · Score: 1

Shorter Anonymous Coward: "Hahaha, women think with feelings, but men think with hard facts." You are quite the budding comic.
Re:Patriarchy by smittyoneeach · 2013-07-27 13:03 · Score: 1

Threaten the fabric of society; turn into a Senate seat for Elizabeth Warren: what difference, at this point, does it make?

--
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear

Dear God by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-27 08:29 · Score: 5, Interesting

She is so fucked. It doesn't matter so much that she lied for the Academy. But she lied on grant proposals. This could lead to a MASSIVE criminal penalty.

Ref:
18 USC Section 1001
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001
18 USC Section 1031
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1031

She is so fucked it isn't even funny. She might want to head to Russia and ask for asylum.

Re:Dear God by djmurdoch · 2013-07-27 08:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

Didn't you read the summary? Her salary was $598,000 last year. Nobody with a salary that large gets any criminal penalty. (Actually, Jeffrey Skilling is a counterexample, but there are very few others.)
Re:Dear God by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-27 09:07 · Score: 3, Informative

That's not so bad. Lie on a home loan or a credit application and you can get 30 years (which I'm betting that she probably also did if she was willing to lie on grants). This is the charge that federal prosecutors go after if they can, since the 30 year penalty ensures a plea agreement (this was famously used to oust Baltimore police chief Ed Norris when he took a loan from his father and listed that money as an asset for a home loan). And since Carmen Ortiz will be in charge of this case, you can almost guarantee this will be employed. And if there is one thing we've learned about Carmen Ortiz (other than the Aaron Swartz case) it is that she does not tolerate anyone defrauding banks--except other banks or bankers.
Re:Dear God by dk20 · 2013-07-27 09:56 · Score: 1

Man, you beat me to it (was just going to post something similar). A lot of people might disagree, but there seems to be a lot of truth to this recently.
Re:Dear God by ATMAvatar · 2013-07-27 09:59 · Score: 2

Innocent until proven broke.

--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Re:Dear God by rhizome · 2013-07-27 11:14 · Score: 1

Black people in the US can never transcend abuse, due to what Paul Mooney termed "the nigger wake up call," which is the observation that no matter what an African American achieves in America, they can still be treated "like a nigger," if the system wants to do so.
Martha Stewart was convicted of bullshit charges and Bernie Madoff only got busted because he ripped off people richer than him.

--
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Re:Dear God by couchslug · 2013-07-27 13:48 · Score: 1

No one is going to press charges on a female for lying on a grant proposal.
She'll leave, that will end it.

--
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Re:Dear God by phantomfive · 2013-07-27 18:14 · Score: 2

Your post is a fascinating example of cognitive bias. You have your pre-conceived idea, and when presented with evidence that contradicts it, you come up with an excuse that somehow 'it doesn't count'. You don't like rich people, and there's nothing things like 'evidence' can do to change that.

--
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:Dear God by ShanghaiBill · 2013-07-27 19:23 · Score: 1

(Actually, Jeffrey Skilling is a counterexample)
Skilling was a fool. Against his lawyer's advice, he went in front of a congressional panel, the representatives of the people, and answered their questions in plain English. He paid a heavy price for that, which will serve as a valuable lesson for anyone else that thinks that honesty is rewarded in our society.
Re:Dear God by ObsessiveMathsFreak · 2013-07-27 22:39 · Score: 1

Skilling's Enron sentence was cut from 23 to 14 years recently. It'll probably be reduced further before he serves his remaing 8 years. I estimate he'll be out on parole in 10 years.
When you think of the sheer amounts of money he could have been skimming off during Enron's "golden years", I'd consider 10 years a pretty good deal.

--
May the Maths Be with you!
Re:Dear God by frodo+from+middle+ea · 2013-07-28 05:04 · Score: 2

I don't know whether to laugh or to weep. We really do need a 'Funny but Insightful and tragic' Mod.

--
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
Re: Dear God by TruPundit · 2013-07-29 08:40 · Score: 1

As long as she paid her tribute to the Cult of Obama, she's untouchable. See John Corzine, et al

Irony: by Hartree · 2013-07-27 08:33 · Score: 5, Funny

One of her publications is titled: Restoring Trust in American Business

We're not off to a good start on that.

What's the hubbub? by Opportunist · 2013-07-27 08:34 · Score: 2

As long as companies lie in the job description and promises of packages and benefits, I'll lie in my CV and my skills.

Turnabout is only fair!

--
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

Re:What's the hubbub? by Dcnjoe60 · 2013-07-27 08:39 · Score: 1

As long as companies lie in the job description and promises of packages and benefits, I'll lie in my CV and my skills.
Turnabout is only fair!
The difference is if they lie, there's not much you as an employee can do about it. However, if you lie, they can fire you.
Re:What's the hubbub? by sribe · 2013-07-27 08:44 · Score: 2

The difference is if they lie, there's not much you as an employee can do about it. However, if you lie, they can fire you.
Uhm, you can "fire" them any day you decide to do so.
Re:What's the hubbub? by Dcnjoe60 · 2013-07-27 08:55 · Score: 1

The difference is if they lie, there's not much you as an employee can do about it. However, if you lie, they can fire you.
Uhm, you can "fire" them any day you decide to do so.
I assume you mean quit instead of fire. They are not the same. Quit means you left voluntarily. It may not be wise to quit, but usually somebody else will pick you up. OTOH, if you are fired, your future prospects in your field diminish dramatically.
Re:What's the hubbub? by HornWumpus · 2013-07-27 09:16 · Score: 1

Quitting is 'firing your boss'. Duh.
The reputation hit isn't so bad for employers. Nobody looks up people who quit, but still; there are employers that I would recommend a friend flee from.
Employers do take a hit. Turnover is a popular metric when evaluating a business. Which says nothing of the knowledge that walks out and what that costs.

--
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Re:What's the hubbub? by HornWumpus · 2013-07-27 10:05 · Score: 1

Damn, you are a doormat. Jump up and down until your balls drop.
Your employer is not a surrogate parent, much as they would like to act like they are. People like you are part of the problem. If you act like an infant you will be treated like one.
If the employer didn't find value in having you there they would have fired you. Quitting does hurt them, often more then it hurts you. If often gets you a big fat raise. Devil is in the details. I didn't say: 'fire your boss and worry about finding work later.'

--
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Re:What's the hubbub? by Opportunist · 2013-07-27 17:11 · Score: 1

Depends on why you get "fired". Actually, I was once fired for a reason that actually improved my chances with my next employer. Basically I was fired for daring to tell my boss that his idea is maybe not the smartest one possible, something that my next employer was actually looking for (in his words, he had enough yes-men and didn't want to suffer from having one in security).
But I admit, such occasions are rare.

--
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Re:What's the hubbub? by Antique+Geekmeister · 2013-07-27 23:41 · Score: 1

You've brought back memories. I was once selected for cutbacks for what I thought were very good reasons. I was already quite senior and had trained the junior members, and had documented my work, and family medical issues had cut my oncall availability. This was back when telephone modems were how you telecommuted, which were not as effective as modern roving laptops.
2 months later, i found out why I was _really_ let go just then. Another employee and I were closing in on the inventory of unused hardware to return it to service or get it off the books. The other employee was doing maps and lists of the hardware in the racks, very useful for finding and allocating space. I was surveying the monitoring systems and collecting MAC addresses and serial numbers remotely, with an eye towards reporting failures of similar types of hardware and planning scheduled replacements of obsolete hardware.
The manager who took the old VP's role contacted us both and made absolutely sure we were both in good new roles, and they're still a good reference many years later. I've since worked with them on several projects, and feel that company profited not only in getting rid of a dishonest employee but in getting an excellent leader out of it.
Re:What's the hubbub? by tragedy · 2013-07-28 08:19 · Score: 1

I'm a little unclear on why you were really let go. There seems to be a chunk of your story missing. By inference, it sounds like you were let go because a dishonest VP was selling unused hardware off the back of the loading dock and you were close to discovering him. Is that the case?
Re:What's the hubbub? by Antique+Geekmeister · 2013-07-28 11:28 · Score: 1

I was also unclear at the time. The nominal reason was cutbacks: the private talks with my superiors helped expose the "cover" reasons that I mentioned. The real reason was the pressure from the embezzling VP trying to cover their criminal trail. The new manager tried their best to clean up the situation and make it up to people who'd been hurt in that process, and i bear the rest of the company or their newer ill-will.
But it's an excellent example of how the reason you are "fired" or asked to resign may not be for the reasons stated.

Internal politicing by EmperorOfCanada · 2013-07-27 08:36 · Score: 5, Interesting

Many of the people who rise to the tops of large organizations are backstabbing, loudmouthed, blowhards. They scheme and calculate their way to the top. This applies to almost all large organizations. A simple way around this is to add randomization. The idea is that for any promotion you have many many qualified candidates and then pick one at random. I very much doubt that there was only one qualified candidate for her job. Obviously the system they used picked one of the worst.

This random system then prevents people from spending all their time scheming to set up the ideal circumstances where all the other candidates have been pushed under a bus. Also then they don't owe any favors for their job.

Re:Internal politicing by kye4u · 2013-07-27 08:44 · Score: 2

This random system then prevents people from spending all their time scheming to set up the ideal circumstances where all the other candidates have been pushed under a bus. Also then they don't owe any favors for their job.
Even with that method....you would have the same problem. This is because of how a "qualified" candidate will most likely be defined. The "qualified" candidates will be the ones that are the most adept at politicking (i.e. backstabbing) and marketing (i.e. look at all the amazing things I do for company Z) themselves.
So you'd have a random pool of people who were all scheming and calculating there way to the top.
Re:Internal politicing by Em+Adespoton · 2013-07-27 08:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

I very much doubt that there was only one qualified candidate for her job. Obviously the system they used picked one of the worst.

I don't know about that... her position was "President of the US Academy." A presidential position in a large nonprofit is all about image, motivation and being able to bring in the money. My guess is that mo matter what her academic credentials were, she wouldn't have been able to keep that position for 17 years without excelling at the mentioned criteria. Most eggheads in any specialty who were really interested in the pursuit of knowledge would be dismal failures as presidents of such an organization. They require someone who inspires confidence (who we usually call a con artist).
Re:Internal politicing by EmperorOfCanada · 2013-07-27 09:57 · Score: 1

There is never just one cockroach. The key is to thwart people who connive their way into a job. I watched one woman spend years undermining her boss all the while setting herself up to replace him. Just as she was succeeding a friend of the big big boss came in out of nowhere and took over. His first assignment to her was to send her into the bowels of a lost project. In a drunken conversation he implied that prior to starting he had been given a copy of everybody's emails including all her conniving.

This might seem like a win but he was a Grade-A D-Bag who zero idea how to run anything. This was a medium sized tech company and he had been running a used-record store.

As I say it would be better to line up a series of the best candidates and then just roll the dice. This way the benefits of conniving lose much of their allure. If you are in an organization where you only have one good candidate there are only three possibilities. One is that your organization is populated with incompetents. Two is that a conniving backstabber has eliminated the competition. Three is that the conniving backstabber has made the other qualified candidates look unqualified.

I don't know how many places I have been where there were 3 or more people vieing for a senior position with the result that either some other completely unqualified candidate came along or the least qualified got the position. Either way random chance(among the possibles) would have worked better.

I am not suggesting that for the next HP CEO they just pick randomly from the entire employee pool but from the at least 10-20 people who might qualify. The only problem is that this is not a short term solution as many people near the top are also conniving backstabbing frauds. So this would take a while of using this quazi random system for promotion.
Re:Internal politicing by phantomfive · 2013-07-27 18:16 · Score: 1

Many of the people who rise to the tops of large organizations are backstabbing, loudmouthed, blowhards.
FWIW several studies have shown that it's exactly the opposite, people rise to the top then become backstabbing, loudmouthed blowhards. People who start out that way don't rise too much because no one likes them.

But power corrupts.

--
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Re:Internal politicing by Coppit · 2013-07-28 00:43 · Score: 1

Interesting idea, but it sounds a lot like affirmative action, with the same problems.

$475k for application fraud? by martok · 2013-07-27 08:41 · Score: 1

She should forfeit her compensation package as a consequence of her falsifying her application.

I wonder... by Dcnjoe60 · 2013-07-27 08:43 · Score: 1

The active membership rolls contain people you've heard of; the incoming class list provides a more manageable glimpse of the society's breadth."

I wonder how many of them have embellished their accomplishments, too? Seems pretty common in academia these days.

Re:I wonder... by starless · 2013-07-27 09:11 · Score: 1

I wonder how many of them have embellished their accomplishments, too? Seems pretty common in academia these days.
Citation needed...
Re:I wonder... by the+gnat · 2013-07-27 11:59 · Score: 1

I wonder how many of them have embellished their accomplishments, too? Seems pretty common in academia these days.
It's actually exceptionally rare. Anil Potti, the Duke cancer researcher who falsely claimed to have been a Rhodes scholar, was an unusually notorious case simply because it was so unusual. (Also because he may have been committing outright fraud in his research.) It's very rare to come across someone in the academic community falsely claiming a degree, simply because it's such a stupid idea: most of us aren't paid enough for it to be worth the risk. More often, the people getting caught are the ones who aren't happy with a merely middle-class lifestyle and want a managerial position that will propel them into at least the upper-middle class. Or they want a more elite teaching post than they might otherwise merit.
I do suspect there are a significant number of people in primary education who have done this. My favorite story was about a public school superintendent: in the course of writing an article about the school district, a local newspaper reporter interviewed one of the superintendent's underlings. At one point during the interview, the reporter referred to the superintendent as "Mr. Smith", and was quickly corrected by the minion: "it's Dr. Smith". If the reporter was like most people, (s)he probably thought, "what a pompous asshat." (Even most people with PhDs think that insistence on titles is the sign of a self-important douche; when I'm asked for a title I just give "Mr.".) In any case, the reporter was motivated to dig a little deeper into the background of the superintendent, which pretty quickly turned up evidence that a) he hadn't actually received a PhD, and b) he'd already lost a previous job because he lied.
Re:I wonder... by the+gnat · 2013-07-27 12:14 · Score: 1

Even in college, calling my Professors "Dr. Whatever" was exceptionally rare and I went to an Ivy League school where you'd think they'd insist on their proper titles.
Weird, I always used their titles in class, also at an Ivy, and it wasn't that long ago (less than 15 years). Of course once I started doing research, I figured out after a couple of days that it was okay for a lowly undergrad to address the professor as "Mark". Since I work with mostly PhDs, usually the only time we're addressed as "Dr. So-and-so" is when someone is being sarcastic; I actually get uncomfortable when someone uses the title seriously.
Re:I wonder... by Antique+Geekmeister · 2013-07-27 23:50 · Score: 1

> It's actually exceptionally rare.
Not in my experience. A bit of digging into the background of some computer science and engineering colleagues I've met, applying for work, or reviewing their resumes as port of planning for a shared project, shows a strong degree of fraud.
Re:I wonder... by Myopic · 2013-07-28 15:46 · Score: 1

You might need to be more specific, because if you went to Brown, that doesn't count. Pass/fail classes are for middle schools and community colleges; they have no place in the real Ivy League.
</haterade>

Re:In crowd by girlintraining · 2013-07-27 08:46 · Score: 2, Interesting

I should probably put in a footnote: Elitist colleges like this don't like having the truth rubbed in their faces. That's why she's getting dismissed -- she just proved their demands of needing a college degree are hollow and stupid. It's an embarassment of epic proportions. Not that I should have to say this if you can read between the lines, but increasingly, I have my doubts about the average slashdotter's ability to even read the lines, let alone between them... hence this post.

--
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie

Re:Compare this to Germany by Em+Adespoton · 2013-07-27 08:47 · Score: 2

There a number of politicians have been given the shaft because their Phds were based on theses that were mostly copy&paste from unattributed sources.

Of course, not having received a doctorate in the first place (rather than based on insufficiently independent work) is a bit more audacious.

Doesn't anybody check that? And in this kind of position?

In most areas of life, if you talk the talk and deliver on promises, nobody checks to see if you walked the walk, other than in a most superficial manner.

Some punishment by therealkevinkretz · 2013-07-27 09:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

"She will receive a one-time payment of $475,000 for retirement and other benefits, according to an academy statement, but no severance payment"

*That* should teach her a lesson and send a strong signal.

Re:Some punishment by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-07-27 10:37 · Score: 3, Insightful

It's important that important people be shielded from consequences. Without exception, the Important People, and their talking heads, that I see on TV assure me that this is so.
Re:Some punishment by therealkevinkretz · 2013-07-27 11:06 · Score: 1

It goes a bit downhill too ... I read recently about a local cop who, when accused of theft of evidence (proceeds of burglary not yet returned to victim) he was offered to be allowed to retire with pension rather than face a departmental hearing and embarrass the PD. Turns out that's business as usual in my state.
Re:Some punishment by the+gnat · 2013-07-27 12:07 · Score: 1

*That* should teach her a lesson and send a strong signal.
It's still not as bad as Carly Fiorina driving HP's stock price down 50% and firing 7000 people, and getting let go with a $20M severance package, and still being considered a serious candidate for California senator. That's the biggest difference between the rest of us and the 0.01%: when we fuck up, we get fired with cause and are economic roadkill, and seriously risk being impoverished. When they fuck up, they lose access to the corporate jet and may have to postpone buying the third home in Pebble Beach. I honestly wouldn't have any problem with income inequality if we could occasionally see failed CEOs like Dick Fuld reduced to standing in line at soup kitchens like all of the other "takers".
Re:Some punishment by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-27 12:33 · Score: 1

I honestly wouldn't have any problem with income inequality if we could occasionally see failed CEOs like Dick Fuld reduced to standing in line at soup kitchens like all of the other "takers".
Well, those people get their huge payments because of their large responsibility. When they screw up, they impoverish thousands of people. So it's important to ensure that they are not impoverished along with them. Otherwise they might worry and get headaches.
Re:Some punishment by DaveGod · 2013-07-27 22:13 · Score: 1

That'll be a benefit built up over the course of the employment, something that was always owed, just not yet due. They would not have any right to not pay it, it would be similar to saying they had decided to reduce the basic salary for the duration of the employment, and asking for a cheque.
Re:Some punishment by therealkevinkretz · 2013-07-28 01:31 · Score: 1

Many jobs include forfeiting benefits, even pension, if terminated for certain causes. Lying about qualifications for employment seems like it would be near the top of the list. It's true that we don't know the details of her employment contract - but hat they convinced her to resign and that the article includes a quote from the chairman indicating that the deal "is in the Academy's best interest" suggests to me that they pursued the legal path of least resistance rather than fought to keep more from her.
Re:Some punishment by dj245 · 2013-07-28 06:56 · Score: 1

It's important that important people be shielded from consequences. Without exception, the Important People, and their talking heads, that I see on TV assure me that this is so.
The concept of this is well-intentioned. Golden parachutes are supposed to encourage risk-taking and pursuing new products or strategies which may or may not pay off. The idea is that managers won't be so worried about keeping their job (salary) that they just clam up and don't do anything which might rock the boat. Management paralysis is not a good thing.

The good intentions of the golden parachute are counteracted and overpowered by massive bonuses creating very short term incentives, stock options which create another short-term incentive, and the practice of hiring executives based on "he had a big salary at X company, he must be good" philosophy.

--
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.

AAAS not AAAS by methano · 2013-07-27 09:14 · Score: 3, Informative

It's easy to get these guys, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, mixed up with with these guys, The American Association for the Advancement of Science. They're not the same. The latter are the ones that publish Science, the prestigious scientific journal. The former, I'm not sure who those guys are. Seems like I've heard controversy about this woman before.

Re:AAAS not AAAS by starless · 2013-07-27 09:20 · Score: 2

It's easy to get these guys, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, mixed up with with these guys, The American Association for the Advancement of Science. They're not the same. The latter are the ones that publish Science, the prestigious scientific journal. The former, I'm not sure who those guys are.

Aren't they the people who award the Oscars or something...?
Re:AAAS not AAAS by Black+Parrot · 2013-07-27 10:53 · Score: 2

Also not the same as the prestigious and perhaps more familiar National Academies, which consists of The National Academy of Science, The National Academy of Engineering, The Institute of Medicine, and The National Research Council.

--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Re:AAAS not AAAS by jcarr · 2013-07-29 20:20 · Score: 1

Wow -- good call. That might also be why the complaint in the article "She was not allowing staff to examine historical documents" is due to the whole organisation being a massive lie or con job from the beginning.

Just on the applications? by quantaman · 2013-07-27 09:39 · Score: 1

Berlowitz falsely claimed to have received a doctorate from New York University

I'm assuming she only lied on the grant applications since she was also the Vice President for Institutional Advancement at New York University. Presumably they would have noticed if she falsely claimed to have a doctorate from them.

--
I stole this Sig

Re:Just on the applications? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-27 10:07 · Score: 1

Having been a grad student is not the same as being a Ph.D and yes, there is a big difference.
Re:Just on the applications? by quantaman · 2013-07-27 11:07 · Score: 1

Having been a grad student is not the same as being a Ph.D and yes, there is a big difference.
No doubt. I'm just trying to figure out the scope of her lying. She had a high profile academic career so her credentials should have been quite widely known. Lying on the grant application is still illegal, but I don't think it would have been feasible for her to claim a PhD on a regular basis.

--
I stole this Sig

college education need change in IT as well by Joe_Dragon · 2013-07-27 10:02 · Score: 1

First off CS Is not IT

There is to much theory and skill gaps in college education for tech / IT

The college system is some what stuck in the past as well.

also have the AA vs AS / BA vs BS by Joe_Dragon · 2013-07-27 10:05 · Score: 1

Where you may have to say you have an AS / BS when you have an AA / BA to get past HR or just drop the Arts or Science part.

Re:In crowd by jma05 · 2013-07-27 10:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

I don’t get your rant on student loans. She lied about having a doctoral degree. No one should be doing a doctoral degree on a student loan. Bachelors and Masters – sure. But, not for a doctoral degree. Not having money is not a reason for not having a doctorate.

> as HR passes over you repeatedly

This has nothing to do with glass ceiling at HR. In fact, HR does not handle doctorates well. They don't understand them for most part. They almost seem to count it as a liability. The only people who respect it are other people with doctorates since they know what it takes to get one and about how to put such candidates to use. This lady was NOT going through a HR filter. Few who make close to $600K do. She did not betray a faceless HR. She betrayed people who would most likely know her by name, for grants that cost millions of tax payer dollars.

Most of these studies in humanities don't get verifications. You trust the people who have done them because they have been trained for a decade in a culture of academic honesty. Now, all the studies she would have done in the past would need to be called into question since she might have faked data. Your defense of her is quite bizarre. This isn't a put-food-on-table, livelihood position.

> The conservatives have hated public education since it was first introduced

How did you manage to turn this into a partisan issue?

> she just proved their demands of needing a college degree are hollow and stupid.

She has college degrees alright, from good institutions too - a bachelors from NYU and a masters from Columbia. She did not have a doctoral degree from NYU that she claimed she had.

You clearly have not been in academia and you have no idea what you are talking about. Forgetting to cite things in a paper can get you into a world of trouble. Faking a doctorate, in grant applications no less, is pretty much an academic death sentence - in any country, at any level - not just US elite institutions.

> I have my doubts about the average slashdotter's ability to even read the lines, let alone between them... hence this post.

You clearly consider yourself far above this average that you seem to have computed. Why hang around here if we are not your intellectual equals? For the benefit of gracing us with your insights from above, oh elite mind?

The average slashdotter is fine. It is you who is seeing imaginary lines and projecting.

Why the fuck do people even try? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-07-27 10:36 · Score: 1

Back when 'verification' might have required pulling out your good quill and sealing wax, I can see how pulling a blatant con of this flavor might have made some sense, however unethical it is. Now, though, when it is trivial for just about anybody, never mind the people considering you for the job, to take a look at your CV and start asking annoying questions like "How did you get a degree in XYZ in 1994 at a university that didn't offer that degree until 2001?" and "Why does the registrar at Foo University have no idea who you are, when you got a PhD there?".

Honestly, I'm surprised that it still works at all, not that people get caught at it. I'm half surprised that some school (or Google, in collaboration with some school trying to buff it's "We aren't a plodding dinosaur doomed to extinction!" cred) hasn't introduced an API that would allow HR to programmatically parse your resume/CV and verify the truth or falsity of educational claims made concerning that school with a few properly formed HTTP requests... (An alternate implementation, more student-focused, would be having a service provided by the office of the registrar where the student could request a cryptographically signed 'pull' of their record, to present to anybody who they wish to prove it to.)

Re:Why the fuck do people even try? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-07-28 14:07 · Score: 1

It's really the 'trivial honesty check' bit that surprises me. I have no reason to expect that they'd care much, at least a few years out, about the details of her alleged PhD process; but I would have expected exploitation of a nearly automatic honesty test. Even if they are otherwise competent (if anything, especially if they are otherwise competent, since they'll probably be better liars), liars are a rather dangerous breed. I would have (naively) assumed that trivial fact checking, even of facts that aren't themselves of much importance, would be nearly ubiquitous as a truth assay.

Time and money by dutchwhizzman · 2013-07-27 11:21 · Score: 2

People get away with this because verification of all these facts costs time and money. Even companies that are actually hired to do background checks are often slacking and don't actually verify the copies of diplomas you send them.

Also, universities and such have a good reason to not make an API for 3rd parties to query their databases. First, they'd have to settle on an API with all educational facilities, at least nationwide, probably even globally. Second of all, they can charge for a nice sum of money for every request now. Making an API will make it cost more and return less per request, since then things will be standardized and fees will most likely be regulated to be cheap to use.

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I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?

Re:In crowd by the+gnat · 2013-07-27 11:47 · Score: 1

people in the job market today face some unpalatable options: You can either forego the degree and slam into the glass ceiling in a mid-level position as HR passes over you repeatedly, or get it and wind up a bit farther ahead in your career but be financially worse off than your subordinates who aren't paying back hundreds to thousands of dollars a month to some corporation who will just keep jacking the rates up year after year so you're paying off mostly just the interest and doing very little to hit the principal of your student loan

As someone pointed out below, PhD programs don't usually require student loans. (Most actually pay you - not a ton, but if you're in your 20s and don't have children or family members to support, it is enough to lead a reasonably comfortable lifestyle and still have a little bit left at the end of the month, even in high-cost areas. Subsidized housing is often available too.) And every time I've read about someone lying on their resume about academic credentials, it's a false claim to have earned a PhD. People who reach the level where that matters usually don't have any problem getting jobs anyway, and they're rarely in debt.

233 Year Old by ohnocitizen · 2013-07-27 11:52 · Score: 1

For a split second I thought the Academy President was quite old indeed.

Asked to resign???? by blanchae · 2013-07-27 14:21 · Score: 1

WTF is with that? If you lie on your resume, you are terminated immediately and walked out the door. What a bunch of two faced hypocrites. When's the last time that any of you were asked to resign because you screwed up? There are rules for the 99% and then the 1% get politely wrist slapped - don't do that again and here's your pension package. This is what's wrong with business today. The top 1% can do anything they want without repercussions while the 99% pay.

Re:In crowd by khallow · 2013-07-27 14:37 · Score: 1

Let's be honest... if you've been doing the job for many years, it's clear a college education isn't necessary to keep doing your job.

If we're going to be "honest", then I need to point out that she was fired because she lied about something material to her employment at AAAS.

This is the reality of the wealth inequity in America. The conservatives have hated public education since it was first introduced in the 1800s... and they've finally managed to find a way to destroy the American dream: Without higher education, there's no upward mobility. Without that, there's no middle class. It's game over.

So conservatives are responsible for federal subsidized student loans - which are the driver for higher education inflation in the US of the past few decades? Do tell.

Re:In crowd by khallow · 2013-07-27 14:52 · Score: 1

I read below that there's a name collision with the acronym "AAAS".

Re:Compare this to Germany by gweihir · 2013-07-27 18:41 · Score: 1

We regularly try to locate Ph.D.s from customers to get an idea about their expertise. So far, zero (!) luck in about 5 cases. For all of these we did not even find a single published paper or a single mentioning of their Ph.D. in any academic content. I am beginning to think that there are many people with fake or really, really bad Ph.D.s out there. As a counterexample, my own Ph.D. thesis, the one of my boss and one of a fiend are easy to find.

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Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.

Why then end of the month? by houghi · 2013-07-27 19:51 · Score: 2

Why not immediately? And resign?

I live in Socialist Europe where people are protected by all kinds of laws. If you would be caught that you lied about a doctorate, that would mean immediate termination of your job. No compensation and no right on unemployment benefits.

I am very much interested as to why she lied about that doctorate. For many jobs on that level they would ask 'doctorate or similar through experience'. As it is very unlikely that they hire a person at the age that has no experience, there would be no reason to lie about it.

If a job actually requires a doctorate, it will be checked before you begin. Not 100% foolproof, but if you then get caught, immediate termination and possible lawsuits (depending on the case) will follow. Or: Go directly to jail; do not pass go, do not collect $200.

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Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.

Re:Compare this to Germany by SJester · 2013-07-28 04:24 · Score: 2

As a counterexample, my own Ph.D. thesis, the one of my boss and one of a fiend are easy to find.

You search for demonic doctorates? I have enough trouble finding the research I need for my job. Are you using Google Scholar?

Re:A JEW! by Meski · 2013-07-28 11:57 · Score: 1

Which John Romero game had trolls in it? :) Apropos the story itself, I don't see much wrong with a Academy of Arts CEO lying, if you do, your suspension of disbelief hasn't kicked in.

probably embellishing for decades by peter303 · 2013-07-29 02:53 · Score: 1

I dont doubel check the crednetials of people I've known for decades, even though the Internet makes that easier. She probably got established before the Internet.

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US Academy President Caught Embellishing Resume, Will Resign

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