Sunday, April 29, 2007

MIT Dean of Admissions Resigns After the Discovery of her 28 Year Lie

Wow!? I think this story is interesting in all sorts of areas. Marilee Jones was well known for urging stressed out students competing for elite colleges to calm down. I guess she knew what she was talking about. No need to stress it's not nearly as hard as it seems to get into MIT. She did it with basically no credentials at all. Apparently, she fabricated her resume to get her job at MIT back in the 70's and then never corrected it when applying to other positions within the institution. Because they had all known her for so long and had known that she was capable of upstanding work they didn't check into her resume. Had it not been for the fact that she had written a book which included sections about integrity she'd likely still have a job. The whole situation kinda sucks because apparently she was doing a good job. It really sucks that an institution that works its best to keep up the whole lie that you need a degree in order to do good work and qualify for a job ended up proving the opposite. I'm assuming they gave her a choice between quitting and getting fired. Either way it sucks for all involved. This is what happens when you lie but it just goes to show you that you don't have to have letters behind your name to take care of business. It's just too bad that the rest of the world doesn't realize that fact.


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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

We're an academic family, and let me say this. Academics do really ugly things, all of the time. They plagarize. Have affairs. Torpedo the careers of each other’s Ph.D students. And yes, quite often, they lie. MIT probably can't re-absorb Marilee Jones, but “integrity” has very little to do with it. Jones is both an embarrassment and an iconoclast. She’s gotta go. In a fair world, though? Half the rest of ‘em would go with her.

Our son is still going to college soon, though, just as we did. And we're still buying Jones' book. And I wish I could get her to sign it for us...

12:46 PM  

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