By Professor Doom
Me, at
graduation: “Hey, did you pass that graduating student?”
Faculty:
“Nope.”
Me: “Weird.
I know she failed my class. You and I are the only ones teaching the course she
needs to pass. How did she do it?”
Faculty: “I
don’t ask questions.”
---I was at
a small school, which meant I knew most of the students, and all of the
faculty. Time and again I’d watch students graduate that I knew could not
possibly be graduating. I wasn’t the only faculty to notice what was going on,
even if I was the only to ask questions…
It’s amazing how
little respect administration has for education. To them, education is all
about butts in seats, and faculty, not students, are responsible for every
failure, for every butt that decides to get out of the seat and go do something
else besides pay tuition.
Administrators
are mostly mercenaries hired from outside academia, but some faculty achieve
apotheosis into the administrative caste. There, the seduction of godlike
powers and heavenly pay all too often cause them to forget collegiality, and
they work to undermine education just like those who sell their souls to are
born into administration.
While there are
many administrative crimes against higher education, the ones I find most foul
are the ones were administers simply overrule faculty, awarding grades and even
doctoral degrees without any faculty saying “yes, this person really does know
something.” Instead, admin takes the check, and makes the award; these events
are probably far more common than what I’ve documented in this blog, but one
more hints at how serious the problem is:
It really is
amazing, when faculty commit gross violations, they’re fired, if admin doesn’t
like them. Heck, they can be removed for even minor violations if admin so
desires, even if the faculty member does
nothing more than tell the truth, generally with no recourse.
On the other hand,
an administrator who sets up a secret system for changing grades in blatant
violation of anything resembling integrity? No, he’s not fired, and only if the
violations can’t be covered up reasonably well will anything negative result to
the administrator.
Let’s go over how
this scandal unfolded:
“…a
professor of mathematics and statistics at Texas Tech University, got quite a
surprise when he learned three of his former students graduated from the
business school's graduate program this year. He was
surprised because he had given the students grades so low he
thought they wouldn't be able to graduate…”
Gosh, I sure know
the feeling of seeing students graduate that, well, there’s just no way they
could honestly graduate. Texas Tech University is an older institution, nearly
a century old, which means its procedures, unlike many newer schools, were set
up in a time of integrity, and the school clearly hasn’t been completely
undermined by the corruption that basically defines newer schools.
The dean
got another professor (who didn't know why he was asked to do so) to create an
alternative exam for Conover's course. Then the dean let five students take the
alternative exam, and on that basis, raised the grades of four of the students,
including the three whose appearance at graduation surprised their
professor, and one who received his degree in August. This process violated
multiple rules at Texas Tech,…
The gentle reader
needs to understand that Texas Tech has actual legitimate procedures because
it’s an old school, before the corruption of the student loan scam distorted
the meaning of higher education, before accreditation became a farce that cares
nothing for legitimacy. Many newer schools have no such protections, neither
for faculty who dare complain about such shenanigans, nor for alumni and
legitimate students who see their own degrees devalued by this behavior.
Usually, these
sorts of scandals go on for years before something is finally done, and Texas
Tech is to be commended and commended highly for getting to the bottom of this
issue in less than a year. By comparison, the diploma
mill scandal at Dickenson State took nearly a decade, and the paper
courses scandal at UNC took almost 20 years, before finally something
was done. Well, assuming we know the whole story, which we don’t, and won’t,
ever:
“…Because
small portions of the report Texas Tech released are redacted, it's not
possible to have a full picture of what the faculty panel found…”
Hmm, let’s connect
some dots here, because obviously something is being covered up. The
perpetrator isn’t fired, and is allowed to return to his tenured position,
despite this egregiously inappropriate behavior. I’ve seen tenure removed for
far, far, less crimes than this. Is it such a stretch to consider that were far
more fake grades/diplomas assigned than found by the exactly one professor that
asked questions, and that the “former” administrator didn’t get fired in
exchange for helping to cover up as-yet-unknown frauds? Why else is he getting
such remarkably kind, gentle, treatment? I put “former” in quotes because quite
often when administrators lose their positions after being caught red-handed,
they end up back in administrative positions before the ink is dry on their
resignations.
"Testimony
suggests intimidation with regard to the desire on the part of Dean Nail to ex post facto claim that conversations with colleagues constituted a
sufficient grade appeals board and that they should agree with this claim.
Additional testimony by witnesses indicated that there may have been other
intimidation tactics as well,"
Yeah, no
kidding. I’ve seen faculty threatened and intimidated into submission many a time,
which is why I find it impossible to refer to the campus
court system without also including the word “kangaroo.”
The students,
incidentally, will probably get away free, debasing the degrees of graduates
who legitimately earned their degrees.
Part of the
problem here is the students involved likely cheated their way through the entire
program. The previous dozen or so professors didn’t care, but they ran into one
of the few remaining faculty with integrity, and he refused to pass students
that, quite literally, knew nothing.
It’s dangerous to have integrity in higher education today, although
clearly there a few schools where it’s still somewhat safe. I’ll let the
professor with integrity give his take on the whole situation:
"I am
glad the dean is resigning. I am sorry that it has taken so long. I expected it
last June when it became apparent that he was responsible for the grade
changes. I am sorry that the dean still has not been relieved of his
duties, and won’t be until Dec. 31. Also I am sorry the report did not
address the remedial action necessary to redact the four bogus M.B.A. degrees
awarded this summer, three in May and one in August, long after this grade
changing incident was publicized…”
One comment
touches on the unasked questions here:
Why are
people complaining about this? Raising graduation rates is the paramount duty
of everyone in higher education. The Dean just did his utterly predictable
part.
The gentle reader needs to
understand completely why this guy wasn’t fired by admin for blatant fraud.
Because he was, indeed, doing his job, with the full support of administration,
which supports blatant fraud. The whole administration knew about the fraud, as anyone familiar with grade-change procedures would know:
In legitimate
institutions, a lone administrator, even a Dean, cannot just willy-nilly change
grades and award degrees. To do so requires three, four, quite possibly five
different signatures (faculty, department head, and a dean, to start, and quite
possibly a registrar and provost), all asserting that a grade was granted in
error—the system is this involved because we all know anything less than that
would be prone to forgery.
Even then, the
signatures have to be hand submitted, and then the grades changed. And we’re
supposed to believe none of the people involved suspected something was fishy
here? This scandal emerged not from an administrator wondering at the strange
new way of changing grades and awarding degrees, but because a faculty member
at graduation saw students that he knew couldn’t
possibly be legitimate graduates. If that faculty didn’t speak (as many, many,
don’t) those bogus degrees would have gone unchallenged. All across the
country, faculty are too intimidated to speak up.
It’s good to know
that I’m not the only faculty at a graduation wondering “how on Earth did that
guy graduate?” but I really think accreditation should mandate all schools
allow faculty to ask when they see something fishy at graduation…because I’m
telling the gentle reader, this isn’t nearly so rare an event.
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