Slashdot Mirror
US Academy President Caught Embellishing Resume, Will Resign
An anonymous reader writes "The 233-year old American Academy of Arts and Sciences has announced that its longtime President and Chief Executive, Leslie Cohen Berlowitz, has agreed to resign effective at the end of this month following an investigation of charges of resume embellishment and other misconduct. Berlowitz falsely claimed to have received a doctorate from New York University, and has also been criticized for her behavior towards scholars and subordinates, and for her compensation package ($598,000 for 2012) relative to the size of the non-profit organization she led. The Academy, based in Cambridge MA, was founded during the American Revolutionary War and is one of the most prestigious honorary societies for the American intellectual elite, extending across math and science, arts and letters, business, law and public affairs. The active membership rolls contain people you've heard of; the incoming class list provides a more manageable glimpse of the society's breadth."
She is clearly a victim of the patriarchy's obsession with facts and evidence.
She FEELS she deserves the post.. so therefore she does.
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.
One of her publications is titled: Restoring Trust in American Business
We're not off to a good start on that.
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.
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.
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
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
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.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
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?