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Sunday, October 23, 2005
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I know I saw it around here somewhere. By now, the story is so old, the plot so plotted, that we can simply pick up the latest tale and watch it unfold, true to form. This time it takes place in Ireland rather than the US, but the bogus school from which the Irish person in question graduated lies somewhere in Hawaii. Which is to say nowhere. People have tried to find its campus and found nothing. An empty office. The Irish government’s chief science adviser has been asked to provide Micheal Martin, the enterprise minister, with details of his doctoral thesis following allegations that he was awarded it by a bogus university [Pacific Western University to be precise]. Chief science adviser! But not to worry -- if the Irish government wants details, they need only go to PWU… “We may or may not have a copy. We should have one, somewhere,” [PWU’s president] said. Yet less promising in terms of McSweeney’s provision of information to the government is the fact that PWU’s president doesn’t feel comfortable even giving out the thesis title. For that, he’d need “permission.” The initial response of the government has been to defend the guy by saying that he would’ve been hired with no degree of that kind at all. “Last week the minister said McSweeney’s appointment was not made on the basis of his doctorate but on his experience.” This is a popular move in the game, but I’ve never known it to work, since, even if that’s true, it still turns out that the Irish government hired a cynical liar to be its chief science adviser. John Bear, an FBI consultant and an author of a guide to distance-learning colleges, described a qualification from PWU as a “ticking time bomb on a person’s CV. …It will be interesting to see if [McSweeney] presents his PhD and makes it public,” said Bear. “It is embarrassing to have a qualification from this university and to use it to call yourself a doctor.” |