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Saturday, November 03, 2007
Fake Degrees Are A Funny Thing. Whether because of embarrassment, indifference, ignorance, lawlessness, or amorality, universities and other institutions made aware of diploma mill scammers among them usually respond -- at least at first -- by insisting that 1.) the particular purchased degrees are irrelevant to the scammer's job description; 2.) said scammer received no extra salary because of the degree; and 3.) she's a great gal. So we're not going to do anything about it. This response is particularly surprising at universities, institutions founded on a shared conviction of the supreme value of legitimate education. Yet all three Texas universities alerted by a local news program to diploma mill people in high places responded in this way. On being told (And why can't universities consult the same list the reporters did, and find out who at their schools has a fake degree?) that the Assistant Dean for Faculty Development and College Initiatives has a fake Ph.D., Baylor University said: “Thank you for the opportunity to respond. We are limited by federal privacy laws as to how much we can say about a personnel matter, but what I can tell you is that Anne Grinols is employed as a staff member, not as a faculty member at Baylor.” She's only responsible for the academic review of Baylor University's faculty. Whew. An assistant professor at UT San Antonio who has two fake degrees draws this response from the school: 'Deanna Sutton’s academic accomplishments, promotion and salary increases reflect her expertise in her area of fungus identification and medical mycology--and have not been based on the degrees she earned from the California Coast University. Her masters and her PhD are in the area of management and not in her teaching or research field. However, now that we are aware that her degrees are not recognized by the THECB, she will be asked to remove these degrees from her official university CV.' Same move. The degrees are irrelevant to why we hired her. Of course, this means she's an assistant professor on the basis of a bachelor's degree. Then there's the professor of emergency medicine, also at a University of Texas campus. It always adds an extra frisson when diploma mill grads hold health-related positions... 'A master's degree was not a requirement for her to be hired, nor has she ever received any additional compensation, benefits or promotions in relation to her master's degree. Currently, she holds a non-teaching clinical appointment and does not serve in any kind of managerial capacity.' To the now-familiar defense that the moral scumminess of buying degrees doesn't matter, this response adds the insistence that her advanced degree has had no impact on her compensation. Uh-huh. |