Jonathan Hart’s done done it but someone done told on him.
Jonathan Hart was appointed professor of English and comparative literature at the University of Alberta in 2004. In 2011, he was also appointed professor of English studies at Durham University. Neither was a part-time position, and it appears that neither institution knew about Professor Hart’s dual roles until the facts came to light at the end of last year.
A spokeswoman for Durham confirmed that it no longer employed Professor Hart but declined to comment further on an “individual staffing matter”.
A spokeswoman for Alberta said the institution had “become aware” of the fact that Professor Hart had also taken a position at Durham and was “looking into” the matter.
How’d he do it?
You know.
Teach one class a week… Semester off here, semester off there… Get a bunch of guest lecturers and TAs to teach your courses… Get a bunch of independent studies and handle them mainly online… Get only tiny grad courses and cancel class sessions left and right…
His next publication:
Jonathan Hart, “Toward a Definition of the Doppelganger.”
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So – a few more words on this. Here’s a hiring notice from Durham (Scroll down to #5.) So he’s been at it since September 2011. Bravo! The only thing vaguely comparable UD can remember is that gorgeous jet-setting pair, Jacko and Sainfort, late of both Georgia Tech and the University of Minnesota. Hart kept the scam going for two years; J&S were discovered more quickly, but then Minnesota in its dithery nice Minnesota way held on to them for another five years.
Here’s a little bad news for Jonathan Hart, above and beyond the notoriety he’s now enjoying: Georgia Tech went after J&S in the courts bigtime. Georgia Tech was not amused. We are talking mucho reimbursement plus a felony charge.
March 28th, 2013 at 12:48PM
Am I a bad person for sort of being impressed by this?
March 28th, 2013 at 1:31PM
Alan: No. I’m sort of impressed too.
March 28th, 2013 at 5:02PM
I know of two graduate students who managed to pick up two degrees simultaneously at different institutions, many miles apart, without the schools’ becoming aware of the students’ heavy schedules. One had his own plane and flew from Chicago to St. Louis; the other lived in a rebuilt mail van and drove from Berkeley to Santa Barbara.
March 28th, 2013 at 5:07PM
Jeremy: LOL. His own plane!
March 29th, 2013 at 8:40AM
I like the quantum mechanical aspect of it. Hart was in a non-local state– so the state of Hart_sub_1 was instantaneously correlated with the state of Hart_sub_2– but external observers had to obey the laws of ordinary local physics, so the inter-Hart correlations couldn’t be observed instantaneously. I should probably write this up and submit it to Physical Review Letters.
March 29th, 2013 at 10:26AM
MattF: Not that I can understand it… but I love it.