Not knowing you don’t have a PhD is the academic equivalent of not being able to find your ass with both hands, thinks ol’ UD.
It’s not as if you can overlook having to write a long manuscript over a number of years and then go to a room full of people and defend its arguments over a number of hours. It tends to concentrate the mind.
Yet the University of Pennsylvania has (had) a dean, a vice-dean of education, who (see this post’s title) has made just this claim. He’s been calling himself doctor for years based on his incorrect assumption that he has a PhD.
It’s like all those German politicians (and one Hungarian) (and millions of Korean) assuring us that they didn’t know they plagiarized their dissertations. It’s just really odd.
Anyway, Penn has put this guy on leave while they untangle the web he weaves.
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UD thanks Ian.
April 26th, 2012 at 7:44AM
Education vice-dean “Dr.” Lynch
thought Columbia degrees were a cinch
so he gave himself two
one was faux; one came true
Imaginary will do in a pinch
April 26th, 2012 at 7:45AM
theotherprof: Excellent! You have inspired me to try my hand at one.
April 26th, 2012 at 8:37AM
I wonder how many other administrators at Penn mistakenly believe they have a PhD. The article seems to indicate Lynch defended and was asked to make substantial revisions. There should be a post-hiring degree verification system in place (i.e. if you want us to consider you to have degree X we need a transcript or copy of the diploma).
April 26th, 2012 at 9:22AM
Is a non-degree in education different from a degree in education?
April 26th, 2012 at 9:48AM
francofou: LOL.
April 26th, 2012 at 10:15AM
Maybe he got a certificate in Latin that said “Are you f**king kidding me?”
April 26th, 2012 at 1:37PM
If you think you have a degree but you’re not getting the alumni magazine or fund-raising pitches, then you should worry there might be a problem.
April 26th, 2012 at 2:32PM
And he’s gone:
http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20120426_Penns_vice-dean_resigns.html?cmpid=124488459
April 26th, 2012 at 3:45PM
I’ve had that nightmare. Actually, the nightmare I started having not long after I defended was that I’d somehow neglected to finish high school, and needed to go back (which was even weirder because one of my high school classmates did not, in fact, finish, and graduated from our mutual undergrad institution anyway).
But I wake up. And if I’m having trouble shaking the nightmare, I can always check my transcript, the bound volume of the diss, the little blue UMI reprint, DAI, my diploma, and/or the photos of myself in what is clearly a Ph.D. gown and hood to make sure I really did finish. Also, my employer was pretty insistent on verifying my actual possession of the degree.
April 26th, 2012 at 4:08PM
ContingentCassandra: Funny!
April 26th, 2012 at 8:46PM
We have a new paragraph in appointment letters that makes all hiring of faculty contingent upon receipt of official transcripts proving receipt of a terminal degree. And there’s a reason for that – – 2 years ago an assistant professor disappeared in mid-semester and was promptly scrubbed from the website. Turns out he had never finished. His erstwhile dissertation advisor noticed (1) he was employed and (2) was claiming a ph.d. and informed us this was not true.
I myself have had an occasional (not regular, praise Jesus) dream in which I am called into the Provost’s office, where my own dissertation advisor and at least one other member of the committee are waiting for in full academicals to rescind my ph.d. Yikes.
April 29th, 2012 at 12:22PM
Not only have we demanded both undergraduate and graduate transcripts for a long time here, but the academic affairs office has at various times wanted a photocopy of the actual graduate diploma.