MIT Dean of Admissions Resigns in Lying Scandal 351
Billosaur writes "CNN has a report that the Dean of Admissions at MIT has resigned her post after admitting to lying about her academic record. 'Marilee Jones, who joined the staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1979 to lead the recruitment of women at the university, stepped down from her post after admitting that she had misrepresented her academic degrees to the institute, according to a statement posted on MIT's Web site.' The school had recently received information about her credentials and the subsequent investigation uncovered the misrepresentations. Question is, why did it take 28 years?"
This means one of two things... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or: University degrees aren't worth very much.
Misrespresent? (Score:5, Insightful)
...why did it take 28 years? (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, even more than most of society, academia is focused on credentials instead of knowledge and ability. It makes some sense, from a self-serving perspective.
not just that (Score:3, Insightful)
Boston.com has a much more informative article [boston.com] the summary does not tell you the scope of this.
Re:Let me get this straight (Score:5, Insightful)
It is sad and perhaps a little telling about how much weight we give to pieces of paper, but people in positions of such responsibility can't lie about their credentials and then have the moral authority to demand that no one else does the same.
Special situation because it's at a university (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This means one of two things... (Score:1, Insightful)
Wholesale lying on one's resume is usually considered a serious offense, and more so in academia because the degrees and credentials are a large part of what they're selling people. Another thing to consider is that she probably lied routinely when people asked her about her college days; it is a basic violation of trust. What if your mentor turned out to have completely falsified their background?
But many top jobs rely much more on the people skills than on technical knowledge, and this is one of them. So yeah, it is interesting that a dropout from a no-name college could become so successful in this role, in the estimation of her peers.
Your're right on both counts (Score:5, Insightful)
As an academic, I'd be the first to tell you: (high-quality) academic degrees are worth a lot if you are going to do research in that field. They are of little value for "general education" and life experience. Attending a top college is good for your networking and your resume, but otherwise I'd say only go to college if you want the education.
In this case, she was clearly doing the job well. Since we are no longer trying to predict how good she'll be at the job, her lying is irrelevant on that count, and if she had a research position, the story should have ended there (there are many professors with no undergrad or even grad degrees). However, she was Dean of Admissions. As such, she was in charge of using people's resumes for application purposes, and MIT would be sending an odd statement to future applicants by letting her keep her job had she not resigned.
Because "Higher Education" is more about Politics (Score:2, Insightful)
It's more about fundraising and research than teaching.
It's more about the staff than the students.
And finally, it's far more about a University's reputation than their actual quality.
Re:No, the real question is. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's investigate everyone, for the good of all. (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact, since every employer should want continual investigations of its employees, we should just let the government investigate all of us all the time. If new allegations arise, they can be added to a centralized file. It'd be very efficient, saving costs and benefiting from economies of scale. Also, a matrix of relationships can be built. Are you a graduate of MIT? Then you could be a questionable employee, since you may have been given a degree due to this deceptive LIAR admitting you into an MIT program. Did you, like many inside MIT and across the country, believe that she was one of the finest admissions deans in the country? Then you are a FOOL, because she LIED to get a job, didn't have a degree, let alone a Ph.D. And so you should be fired, or at least laughed at.
Oh, I know some will complain... "oh, but don't investigate me - I haven't done ANYthing wrong!" Well, if you think continual employee investigations are a bad idea, then you must have something to hide. And you must be kidding yourself if you don't think they're already here, even within all sorts of otherwise pedestrian organizations.
Re:...why did it take 28 years? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:3, Insightful)
And others would argue that having kids represents abject failure (of everything from contraception to one's ability to pursue a lifestyle that isn't subjugated to raising additional people the world doesn't appear to need.)
So obviously, there are people on both ends of the issue, and some in the middle. He was just expressing his opinion that one might want to get the lifestyle stuff done before the subjugation begins; so where is your comment coming from?
Oh, wait - you thought your opinion was worth more than his. I get it now.
Re:No, the real question is. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because SOME of us actually place value on ethics. What message does it send to people by overlooking this type of behavior? Dishonesty will become the norm.
She screwed up... twenty... eight... years ago.
So, all is forgiven if enough time passes. Nice philosophy.
Where are MIT's values? (Score:4, Insightful)
Given that preface, I'm puzzled at MIT's response. Obviously this lady lied -- so fine her. Make her make a public apology. It seems, however, that her lie cuts to the core of the value of certificates of education: do they really reflect practical, real-world values to the organization and society? Or are they laudable records of achievement which do not directly correlate with future value to society? If MIT allowed her to keep her job, they would be admitting that there are very important jobs at the university that really don't require a college degree. This is obviously too much for them, so they'll trot out the honesty thing. As if lying on a resume 30 years ago is the same as knocking over a liquor store. It is painfully clear that a) a degree was not required to perform a high-level administrative role at the college, and b) the lady, by any measurements, was doing a great job.
MIT needs to get honest with itself.
Re:It took 28 years because she is a woman. (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem is most people that have degrees tend to be degree-racist and look down their nose at non degree holders with no good reason to.
I have met several IT and CS people in my life that were far smarter and better educated than Master degree holding fresh graduates.
Problem is managers hand out promotions like candy to a degree paper and ignore the incredible work and experience of the guys that are actually better at it.
Schools are incredibly degree-racist. They want a PHD holder for the janitor positions! (Ok, that might be a bit of a stretch)
Reality is that many MANY people self educate or get education from the "school of life" that is far more comprehensive and rounded than anything you get in a institution for around $100K or more plus a few years of your life.
I was lucky enough to have rich enough parents that I was able to afford to go to college full time. Most people in the world do not have that kind of luck.
honestly, if MIT does not beg for her to return based on her merit and 28 years of exemplory work, then MIT is pretty scummy.
Re:Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
She obtained a high-visibility job that put her in a the position to affect the lives of thousands of applicants by intentionally and significantly lying to get her job - and now she and others want to call it an itty-bitty mistake - but only after she was caught of course. A lie is something far greater than a mistake. There are military officers who have committed suicide over less - but hey, this is the high-integrety acadmic world - blatant lies here are just - have a nice day - simple little mistakes. Poor little thing - there's got to be a way to blame this on the vast right wing consipiracy.
Re:Your're right on both counts (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it's pretty easy to fix something quickly when you know exactly what the problems are (ie you put them there).
I've done a lot of PC repairs and as you say, none of those things you mention are terribly difficult to solve, but I wouldn't rush to make changes to bios, jumpers, etc until I'd taken some time to study the system, figure out what it's doing and what it's not doing. I've seen enough strange stuff in computers that it would be foolhardy to just start changing HD pins or reversing cables.
You could hold a Ph.D in computer sciences while liberally abusing Goto statements.
There is a huge difference between doing science and being a technician. I worked at an engineering school where they thought they could save money in the IT budget by having the CS professors do the systems administration and maintenance. The plan came to an abrupt halt when one of the CS profs suggested that additional money could be saved by having the EE profs handle wiring issues, ME profs take care of HVAC, and CE's taking care of plumbing.
looking for a part-time job in the thankless world of computer retail. I'd laugh, tell them they wouldn't last a day,
Nice. Most part-time jobs are places where people learn the details of a trade, with a significant amount of OTJ learning. While you may have demonstrated that they lacked the specific skills needed to do your job, what you really demonstrated is that you're not the kind of person anyone would want to work for.
Re:A PhD doesn't make you an expert (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It took 28 years because she is a woman. (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that individual skills get rewarded is what keeps the country running on budget.
Re:Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, she obtained a high-visibility job that put her in the position to affect thousands of lives by being damn good at it. Yes, she fucked up 28 years ago by padding her resume with degrees she didn't earn (to get a job that ironically, did not even require a degree). That deception was wrong, no question. However, she ended up being stellar at her job, and produced superb results for MIT and for the applicants and incoming students (and probably orders of magnitude more with her book [amazon.com] on trying to de-stress college admissions). Pretty much everyone [boston.com] who has dealt with her thought she was the bee's knees. I'm not sure whether i think she should have been fired, lying is bad...but in this circumstance, it seems to me that the lie had approximately zero to do with her ability to do her job extremely well (and benefit loads of kids). Context matters, and in this case it's not totally clear-cut.
There are military officers who have committed suicide over less - but hey, this is the high-integrety acadmic world - blatant lies here are just - have a nice day - simple little mistakes.
Right, that's why MIT sacked her as soon as they found out about the deception...'cuz academics have no integrity. You are an idiot.
-Ted
Re:Where are MIT's values? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just suppose, for a minute, that she lied about something else -- say her age.
Would we still be having this conversation?
How about her religion? Her High School?
Maybe her kids, or her criminal history. Is it still so serious? Would it be okay if, as a kid, she had robbed a store and never reported it?
To make the argument that she is a fraud, you are saying that her fake college history was the single most important thing that defined her, that defined what it takes to run an admissions office. I simply don't believe that. She's not a fraud, she's a person who showed how stupid the college degree requirement was in the first place. If you want to punish her for lying, fine. But don't cover your head and miss the thing that's glaring in your face -- her lying is such an academic crime exactly because it's about something that is not important. Something that has no impact on job performance, but puts the standards and values of the college up for closer inspection than they would like. Talk about the nameless people she cheated out of a job. What about all the other people who could have done just as well in many other college jobs that were discriminated because they lacked degrees? Who is really cheating whom here?
Re:A PhD doesn't make you an expert (Score:0, Insightful)
Repeat after me, folks, Computer Science is math. Replacing a bad hard drive or setting up a network is not Computer Science. (I'll leave the categorization of perl programming up to the individual.
Re:Or... (Score:3, Insightful)
What she did is called fraud.
Re:No statute of limitations? (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, the statue of limitations is a red herring. Perhaps she can't be sent to jail. That's irrelevant. Nobody is calling for her to be prosecuted.
Re:It took 28 years because she is a woman. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I know what CS (Score:5, Insightful)
this Computer Scientist had never taken a CS class! He was just good at algorithms.
Algorithms are a fundamental part of computer science. They're so fundamental that computer science was a discipline before there actually were computers. I'll bet you Ada herself would be an awful programmer today (until she got the hang of it), but don't you dare say she didn't know computer science. Computer science is 50% automata theory, 20% algorithms, and 30% softer sciences, like HCI and cognitive science. What you're thinking of is software engineering, which is often what computer scientists end up doing, and because of that they usually offer many, many classes on it, but don't you dare say that you're not good at computer science just because you're not a software engineer.
That's as stupid as saying that Turing was a hack because he wasn't MSDN certified (and dude didn't even know C++!)
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:3, Insightful)
Lying is WRONG, I don't think anyone can make a serious case against my next statememt. If you can please by all means try:
Society as a whole should discorage or at least avoid rewarding liers.
Serious this kind of gross misrepresentation is dangerous. Its this total lack of integrity that is destroying this nation. Just look at our politicans and leaders for cry out loud. With each passing year we get progressively worse cheats and crooks. Unless you want a whole generation of young people growing up honesty is not important we damn well better toss this woman out on her ass and as publicly as possible. She should not have been allow to resign she SHOULD HAVE BEEN FIRED imediately.
This is crazy would you want someone doing surgery on you because hell they read some medical text books and figured they could do the job, so what the heck. That is exactly the kind of example you set by letting this person stay where she is.
Thre are a couple things we should all take away from this.
1. Its time to serious start looking at morality, honesty, and integrity because if we let them slip away we will no longer be a great people, just a bunch of criminals who had rich parents. That sentiment exists around the world about Americans already, lets not let it be true.
2. Policies where a person is not let in the door just because they don't have a degree certification etc, is in most situations extreemly short sited. If your somebody responsible for hireing maybe you should get off your lazy ass and come up with a way to evaluate applications beyond how long the list of initials and acronyms tacked on to there name is. Academic Degrees might be a good inidicatior of ability but just because somebody does not have one, is not a reason to just dismiss them.
Re:Or... (Score:4, Insightful)
Does that make the fact she lied on her initial job application right?
No.
Should her years of devoted and innovative service be counted against that wrong?
I think so.
People lie all the time. It is certainly not a good thing, but not all lies are treated with equal severity. What makes this a terrible crime is not that it is a lie, but that it strikes at one of the foundations by which academia sustains itself. One such foundation is academic honesty: not claiming credit for the work of others. But this strikes at a much more questionable foundation: the importance of a degree as a entrance qualification for work.
Had she exaggerated her participation on a research project on her CV (which is not unheard of), the moral magnitude of her crime would have been greater, but outrage less so. Her crime was two fold: first against the person who would have obtained the job instead of her; second against the pretense that a degree is necessary and sufficient qualification for doing even relatively menial work. It is the latter and lesser crime for which she is being held up for shame.
The irrational excesss in the reaction to her crime is no better shown by your oblique suggestion that this is something for which she sould consider committing suicide. That is the kind of action that is spurred, not by a healthy sense of pride that cherishes accomplishment, but by malignant and false pride.
Justice without mercy is not justice. Justice does not consist of treating every crime equally according to its nature. That approach is a sham by which petty crimes are elevated while greater crimes are left unpunished. Justice is best served when humanity itself is served, and this requires a certain tolerance for universal human frailty so that the human good may thrive. The best people are not those with the fewest faults.
-- Shakespeare
Re:Or... (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, and in short, she obtained the job by lying and she was good at it, but it's impossible to know whether somebody else would have been better at the same job, simply because there is nobody else to have had the exact same job.
And the fact that she was good at it seems quite understandable. From the very little amount of facts we are presented with, it seems that she was willing to do even ethically questionable things to achieve her goals.