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Ability vs Record
Mike Ahlf
The dean of admissions at MIT is stepping down; apparently, to get the job, she
lied on her resume.
There have been a lot of lying-on-their-resume scandals in academia lately, some politically motivated, some just as a result of people poking into the backgrounds of administrators.
The school's findings:
Patti Richards, spokeswoman for MIT, said the school had received information about Jones' credentials and investigated them. "At various times she claimed to have received degrees from Albany Medical College, Rensellaer Polytechnic Institute, and Union College and we confirmed that she had not graduated from any of these schools."
I don't know what I should consider worse. On the one hand, she apparently served in her various MIT positions with distinction, and received awards for being an exemplary administrator. On the other hand, her lying on her resume has cost someone (possibly multiple people) jobs that they otherwise would have had.
I know I'd be pretty teed off if I found out that someone who'd been offered a job I'd applied for got it on the basis of a false resume.
Observations
It's kind of ironic (or perhaps hypocritical) that she made a name for herself trying to talk parents and young people to relax about credentialism. Then again, I guess it makes sense not worrying about credentials if you're just going to make them up when you get out anyway :).
One of the ugly ironies in tech circles is that the various "certifications" - MSCE, A+, Cisco, etc - usually mean about a few words on a piece of paper. Passing these "courses" doesn't show anything beyond that someone paid the $ necessary to pay to take the test, and they're certainly no level of confidence in the industry.
The problem in the industry is that, despite every single IT professional knowing this, the management/HR idiots are invariably clueless and think that plunking down $2,000 to take a test and get a worthless piece of paper makes you better equipped for what they want done than actually having experience related to doing it.
Of course, more than a few say the exact same thing about college itself.
Still too few, though. There's an interesting concordance between Matt Yglesias and Ross Douthat, both now at Atlantic Monthly, condemning credentialism together; and you already know this is one of my pet peeves.
Sam,
Hate to doubt, but I almost want to switch over to credentialism just because Yglesias's name got mentioned.
I can agree with Yglesias and Douthat in the abstract, depending from situation to situation, but in the particular case of this admissions officer I disagree. This infraction too closely related to her job responsibilities.
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