This is an archived page. Images and links on this page may not work. Please visit the main page for the latest updates.

 
 
 
Read my book, TEACHING BEAUTY IN DeLILLO, WOOLF, AND MERRILL (Palgrave Macmillan; forthcoming), co-authored with Jennifer Green-Lewis. VISIT MY BRANCH CAMPUS AT INSIDE HIGHER ED





UD is...
"Salty." (Scott McLemee)
"Unvarnished." (Phi Beta Cons)
"Splendidly splenetic." (Culture Industry)
"Except for University Diaries, most academic blogs are tedious."
(Rate Your Students)
"I think of Soltan as the Maureen Dowd of the blogosphere,
except that Maureen Dowd is kind of a wrecking ball of a writer,
and Soltan isn't. For the life of me, I can't figure out her
politics, but she's pretty fabulous, so who gives a damn?"
(Tenured Radical)

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Diploma Mills, 2006

As we gaze back fondly on last year's diploma mill stories, this one has got to be the winner:


The Southtown [newspaper's] coverage of shenanigans, financial woes and academic shortcomings in Calumet Park School District 132 [in Chicago] helped force a state takeover of the school system in June.

Calumet Park has one of the state's worst elementary school special education programs. Its director, Judith Blakely, purchased her Ph.D. for about $250 from an Internet diploma mill specializing in metaphysical theology. This is one of three fake credentials on her resume.

Doris Hope-Jackson, the superintendent who tried to get rid of Blakely, was relieved of her duties by the school board president.


Blakely had it all: Bogus degrees on every level; cheesiness (most bogus degrees cost at least a thousand dollars); rank indifference to subject matter; and protection from a corrupt school board. No contest.