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US Academy President Caught Embellishing Resume, Will Resign

Posted by timothy on from the motivational-psychology dept.

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."

6 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Patriarchy by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

  2. Dear God by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

    1. Re:Dear God by djmurdoch · · 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.)

  3. Irony: by Hartree · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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

  4. Internal politicing by EmperorOfCanada · · 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.

  5. Some punishment by therealkevinkretz · · 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.