I don't know how common falsified credentials are in school administration, but I'll mention a parallel experience that was a formative part of my upbringing.
While I was in high school, my father taught at a small private college in Wisconsin, where he was on the hiring committee for the new college president. After being hired, the chosen candidate's behavior was surprisingly erratic, prompting my my father to continue researching his background.
After a bit of digging, he found that the new college president had falsified almost his entire resume. Thinking he had solid proof of this, and not being politically savvy, my father presented his evidence to the other faculty who had been on the hiring committee.
To his surprise, he (rather than the fraudster) was promptly fired from his supposedly tenured position for "gross insubordination". Shortly thereafter, the "fake" college president pocketed the proceeds from remortgaging the college dorms, drove his college provided little-red-sports-car out of town, and was never heard from again.
Embittered by the lack of backing from his purported colleagues, my father never returned to academia, and instead turned to odd jobs and house painting. Not long after, the college lost its accreditation, and went out of business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Senario_College.
It may be that other members of the college were in on the graft as well if it was known that the school was in a bad financial situation.
Falsified credentials are surprisingly common. I encounter them frequently when trying to staff various positions and have even come across them a half dozen times among co-workers during my career. The reasons for the falsification are quite varied as well, but I've typically encountered them among people going for senior positions for some reason.
This is a story about a teacher near where I live who only got outted for a fake degree when he ran for a school board. And from stories I have heard from his students, he got the fake doctorate degree because he wanted to be called doctor. In fact if students in high school called him Mr. Kulas he would correct them (sometimes chew them out) that he is to be referred to as Dr. Kulas.
We had a high school teacher who demanded that we address them as Dr. Whozits on the first day, and would correct us.
They learned that you can demand respect all you want, but if you actually want to get respect, you have to earn it from the people you're expecting it from.
He earned that title, and he was your teacher (a superior), so I don't understand why you were annoyed. Most importantly, it was the first day! Think of an interview for example: would it be polite to address your interviewer using his/her first name? No, unless the interviewer gives you permission to do so.
Edit: It seems like a lot of HN users have a severe aversion to authority, so I guess I've learned something new today :P
I call people with doctoral degrees "Dr." unless I'm invited otherwise or we're in a non-professional setting. Doctoral degrees usually aren't mere pieces of paper; going out of one's way to diminish the work and sacrifice involved is kind of rude.
But I also think it's kind of snooty and ill-mannered to explicitly demand to be called Dr.
Like with table manners. It's rude to not be decent to other people at the table. But equally rude to snap at another guest for eating with his mouth open.
This example is kind of an in-between on the teacher's part, because socialization is part of education. Only parent knows whether the teacher was motivated by socializing skills or ego.
> Edit: It seems like a lot of HN users have a severe aversion to authority, so I guess I've learned something new today
As always, the aversion is slightly more nuanced than just authority. You'll find lots of respect for certain other positions of authority (eg CEO). Also, aversion to the hierarchy of schools is nothing unique to HN.
Oh yes, I agree completely. But OP's scenario involved a school teacher on his/her first day teaching the class, and so I felt that OP was overreacting. Obviously, demanding that random people call you Dr. is absolutely rude.
Well, it's news to me! I never noticed this thinking before, probably because it's not a common topic of discussion on HN.
He earned the title, not respect. Yes, we should be respectful of everyone, but just because you have a title doesn't mean you can go around demanding to be respected [if you're also being a pompous ass].
Edit: Well, you can go around demanding it but you're delusional if you think people actually respect you.
They were presenting themselves as better than ours; not merely our teacher, but our superior, our better. Not as someone who would instruct and help us. And yes, it was the first day, the first attempt to make a first impression, and that impression was: I am more important than you, and I demand that you all to acknowledge it every day.
A teacher is not higher in rank than a student? Why, let's just have students teach each other then :)
I'm obviously not familiar with your situation; I definitely agree with you if the teacher was intentionally being pretentious. But if he/she was just correcting students and asking them to call him/her "doctor" on the first day, I think you are overdoing it.
A teacher has the right to determine who they teach and who they evict from their teachings. But, in a school setting where the student isn't given the same liberty and freedom to choose who teaches them or to not "be under" a certain teacher, the teacher would be wise to operate in a non demanding mode. The teacher in such a situation has more [involuntary] power and control over the student. It would be prudent not to abuse that authority by demanding respect from someone who would rather not be there.
Because I don't care what qualifications you have. If you want me to respect you and call you by some honorific name, you have to make me respect you enough to do so, otherwise I don't care what some piece of paper says you should be called.
I don't call English "knights" Sir either, because fuck that.
Note that none of this means I'd be rude, I just wouldn't afford them any more respect than anybody else.
> They earned it,they were recognized for their achievement.
So what of it? Knighthoods are handed out to political cronies like they're Jaffa Cakes. Besides, I'm not a subject of Her Majesty the Queen, Elizabeth Windsor. Demanding deference to the monarchy is an insult to civil society.
Why should the other person get to decide and be judge on what's rude and disrespectful? If I believe it's rude if you do not kiss the ground I walk on and that's it's disrespectful if you don't obey my commands, tough shit for me and anyone else who thinks that way.
If someone is rude to you in your eyes and based on your standards, how you react is still on you and is your responsibility. You can still be respectful to rude to people.
Respect is a two way street, agreed. The other person decides if it's rude to THEM. You decide for yourself if something is rude. The knight will decide for himself if it is rude to not call him Sir. I think it's wrong for someone to say it's NOT rude to NOT call him Sir. It should be up to THEM.
Reducing the work and/or contributions required to get a PhD/MD (or other honorific) to a "piece of paper" is very naive in my opinion. But whatever floats your boat, mate.
The thing is, I can't tell by a prefix, title, or piece of paper whether you actually put in an effort to obtain any of those things. I should show respect regardless of whether you have them or not. But if someone with any of those demands I treat them in a superior way because they [claim to] have one or more of those they're likely to lose my respect. If you have one of those you still need to put forth the effort to show that they actually mean something.
I have heard that titles are a big deal in Germany but it seems uncommon in the US to use "Doctor" as a title for anyone other than a medical doctor. Many of the people I know at work have PhD's but I've never heard it used.
I'd imagine it isn't used in companies where rank isn't based on education level, but it's very common in academia. For example, it's rude for me as a grad student to just use a professor's first name without using a title.
I don't see it that way. The request was within the boundaries of the classroom. It would definitely be different if the teacher also expected his/her peers to do the same.
They earned the title so you should show respect by properly addressing them. Go ahead and call a judge "Mr(s)" or an officer "dude" and see how far it gets you. Whether you like them or not, it's up to you do decide for sure, but have some manners, it will help you out in life.
> Thinking he had solid proof of this, and not being politically savvy, my father presented his evidence to the other faculty who had been on the hiring committee.
A few years ago, I could have used some advice from someone who is more politically savvy.
I received a tip a while ago that a then-sitting member of the United States Congress did not possess a degree listed on his website on congress.gov (and repeated elsewhere). I looked into it, and sure enough, I do not believe he received the degree in question. The congressman was not incredibly famous, but would make the news now and then. He is no longer in office.
What was the correct course of action, if I wish(ed) to stay anonymous? Tip off a reporter? Post on reddit?
Suggested courses of action to protect anonymity...
1 - Tip off reporters nationally and most importantly, locally in the Congress person's home district.
2 - Level 23 move, tip off his/her opposition in the campaign both in the primary / general. Also tip off the Congressperson's opposing party heads. Example, if the CP was a Republican tip off the local DNC and if Democrat, tip off the RNC. This is one way the Clinton's got their opposition research.
To this day, it's nearly impossible to find any account of these events. It's really hard to imagine that someone could commit such outright blatant theft and get away without so much as a hit on Google.
It's really hard to imagine that someone could commit such outright blatant theft and get away without so much as a hit on Google.
The events happened in the early 1990's, just prior to the advent of the internet. The false resume and the firing are the parts of the story that I have personal knowledge of. The financial allegations are third hand, but I believe them to be true. It's possible that recent events have better coverage, but I'd guess that even now there is a lot of crime and fraud that is never reported.
Was the con artist ever tracked down?
Not to my knowledge, although I'm no longer close to the community. I've occasionally wondered whether this might be because someone took matters into their own hands, and he's dead and buried in the woods somewhere. Googling now, I was surprised to learn that a janitor at the college was recently convicted of a 30-year-old murder of the mother of one of my classmates: http://chippewa.com/news/guilty-verdict-in-old-ladysmith-kil.... But I suspect that instead he's likely on to a new scheme somewhere else.
> The events happened in the early 1990's, just prior to the advent of the internet
Ah, makes a lot more sense. I was assuming some time in the early naughts given the school's timeline, and was disappointed I couldn't find a detailed account.
> The false resume and the firing are the parts of the story that I have personal knowledge of. The financial allegations are third hand, but I believe them to be true.
To clarify, I don't doubt this happened :)
> I've occasionally wondered whether this might be because someone took matters into their own hands, and he's dead and buried in the woods somewhere.
What a wild world we live in. Who needs television when you can read about the intrigues of failed liberal arts colleges.
I'm guessing that by "fascinating" you are implying that it's implausible to abscond with the money from a remortgage of a building one does not own? And by "Etc" that all the rest is wrong too?
I don't think anyone believed that he had any sort of legal title, rather that through some combination of forgery and fraud he managed to convince someone that he had the right to make the transaction. If you haven't experienced one personally, you may be underestimating the persuasive power of a talented psychopath.
Here's an odd part: it was a small enough college community that a "get to know you" type party was held at the president's private residence soon after his arrival. Being an asocial high-schooler dragged along, I noticed a bound copy of his PhD thesis was one of the few books on the shelf. I skimmed through it (something very verbose and academic about the theory of business administration) and found it incomprehensible.
So his "research" existed, at least in some form. In retrospect, I'm wondering if it was "real", but from a diploma mill. Or purchased? Or someone else's rebound? Or as real as a thesis on business administration can be, from an earlier time in his life. In retrospect I wish I'd read it a little closer so I had a better clue as to what he actually did.
While I was in high school, my father taught at a small private college in Wisconsin, where he was on the hiring committee for the new college president. After being hired, the chosen candidate's behavior was surprisingly erratic, prompting my my father to continue researching his background.
After a bit of digging, he found that the new college president had falsified almost his entire resume. Thinking he had solid proof of this, and not being politically savvy, my father presented his evidence to the other faculty who had been on the hiring committee.
To his surprise, he (rather than the fraudster) was promptly fired from his supposedly tenured position for "gross insubordination". Shortly thereafter, the "fake" college president pocketed the proceeds from remortgaging the college dorms, drove his college provided little-red-sports-car out of town, and was never heard from again.
Embittered by the lack of backing from his purported colleagues, my father never returned to academia, and instead turned to odd jobs and house painting. Not long after, the college lost its accreditation, and went out of business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Senario_College.