… is that, once you’ve done it, you lose immense amounts of credibility — not merely in terms of what you write, but in terms of what you say.
If you’re a university president who has plagiarized — plagiarized your dissertation — any public announcements you make, especially announcements having to do with academic integrity, become jokes.
So when, under the pressure of his university system’s clout admissions scandal, Southern Illinois president Glenn Poshard assures a reporter that this “unfortunate incident” should in no way undermine the reputation of Illinois higher education…
His exact words were “I don’t think it creates a problem for higher education as a whole.” …
Well, lawdy. Higher education as a whole at SIU involves not merely drastic declines in the number of admitted students who decide to attend, but also a risible board of trustees, supine in regard to Poshard’s plagiarism and installed by just about the most corrupt politicians America has ever produced. It involves among the most moronic and expensive devotions to sports above academics that UD has encountered in her years of blogging on the subject. It involves constantly revolving administrative doors as one dean after another plagiarizes (after all, you’re at a place where the president himself sets the pace) or does other really stupid shit that gets him canned.
With this gorgeous backdrop, President Poshard ascends the podium and assures us that all is well.
July 3rd, 2009 at 6:46PM
You’d think someone like him would keep his mouth shut… good grief. Ole Glenn has got a silver foot in his mouth now (thanks, Ann Richards).
July 5th, 2009 at 11:23AM
One nice thing about teaching at a public university in Illinois that doesn’t aspire to the supposed heights of academia: nobody’s desperate enough to pull this crap in order to get in.