Advertisement

Advertisement

News, Views and Careers for All of Higher Education

Quick Takes: Cheating by Professionals, Degree of Influence, Kickbacks Admitted, Sallie Mae’s Strategy, Engineering Push in California, Cheating Scandal Shrinks Bowl Roster, Ivies vs. Oxbridge, Testing Chaos in Korea, It’s Not All Work at the MLA

  • Sales of test questions and other cheating on licensing and professional exams are skyrocketing, according to an investigation in The Boston Globe. While most of the article is about professional exams, the Globe also noted a recent effort to block the sale of questions on the GMAT exam used by M.B.A. programs. According to the Globe, GMAT’s sponsors have sued a Web site operator in Ohio alleged to have pieced together a copy of the GMAT, and charging $30 per download. Court records showed he had made at least $317,000 since 2004. The Graduate Management Admission Council confirmed to Inside Higher Ed that it filed a copyright infringement suit in June 2007 in a federal district court against the outfit, which could not be reached for comment. Dave Wilson, president of the council, said in a statement: “GMAC vigorously protects its intellectual property rights in order to protect the integrity of the GMAT exam. When necessary, this includes filing civil lawsuits against those who copy and distribute GMAT materials without GMAC’s permission or who claim to be distributing secure test questions from past exams.”
  • West Virginia University revised academic records that showed a politically connected executive had never earned an M.B.A. to suggest that she had earned the degree, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. The degree in question is for Heather Bresch, the chief operating officer of a drug company and the daughter of West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin. The paper reported that when it originally asked about her degree, the university said she never finished the program, but then changed its tune to say that record-keeping errors were corrected and that she had earned the degree. But both professors and classmates suggested to the Post-Gazette that the university’s story wasn’t plausible and some remember Bresch leaving the program without a degree.
  • A software executive who founded an Alabama company called the Access Group admitted in state court on Wednesday that he gave more than $270,000 to Roy Johnson, the former chancellor of Alabama’s community college system, and to Johnson’s family and friends, in return for help in winning college contracts, The Birmingham News reported. Winston Hayes, the executive, faces potentially long prison terms for the counts of bribery and money laundering to which had admitted guilt. His company won $14 million in contracts under the scheme.
  • Sallie Mae has announced plans for a $2.5 billion stock offering, seeking to regain financial momentum and deal with its obligations in the wake of a collapsed deal by investors to buy the student-loan giant, The Wall Street Journal reported.
  • Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a California Republican, on Wednesday proposed a series of programs designed to produce an additional 20,000-24,000 engineers in the state over the next decade. Among the ideas: expanded engineering preparation in elementary and secondary schools, new apprenticeship programs in community colleges, and special programs at public universities to help veterans with some engineering training in the military earn degrees.
  • Florida State University is expected to field a football team missing 35 players at the Music City Bowl Monday, some number of whom are part of an investigation into possible cheating, the Associated Press reported. Florida State’s president, T.K. Wetherell, issued a statement in which he expressed regret over the situation but also argued that the number of athletes did not reflect a widespread problem. “The violations focused on a poorly structured online course, lack of attention to detail by a faculty member, and insufficient oversight by the athletic department of one rogue tutor — all coming together to result in a ‘contaminated’ class,” he said.
  • Attracted by generous financial aid packages, an increasing number of top British students are applying to Ivy League institutions for their undergraduate education, The Times of London reported.
  • South Korea’s university admissions process is experiencing chaos and criticism, following an announcement that a key standardized test had two correct answers, even though it was intended to have only one correct answer and was originally graded that way, Yonhap News reported. Scoring on the Scholastic Ability Test is done in a way that a single change in the number of questions correctly answered could have a significant impact on whether an applicant is admitted to some universities. The flawed multiple-choice question, in the physics portion of the test, was based on the assumption (unstated) that a given gas was made up of monatomic molecules. However, testing officials admitted that another answer would be correct if a student assumed that the gas was made up of polyatomic molecules and there was nothing in the question to make that assumption incorrect.
  • Hook-ups at the Modern Language Association meeting are legendary — and, many say, frequently belong in the study of fiction. Whether this Craigslist posting is serious or parody, we don’t know (we haven’t heard back, although clearly the person posting wasn’t seeking a journalistic question about his intentions). But the posting, spotted by a source who asked not to be credited for the find, has prompted some hallway jokes at the meeting. If you want to read a pick-up proposal involving tweed, bondage, Alexander Pope and eBay, the link is worth following.

Scott Jaschik

Got something to say?


Want it on paper? Print this page.
Know someone who’d be interested? Forward this story.
Want to stay informed? Sign up for free daily news e-mail.

Advertisement

Comments

Hookups

Is there a battery kiosk on the sales floor?

tim, at 7:10 am EST on December 28, 2007

It is ironic that Schwarzenegger touts his program for increasing the number of engineers while simultaneously refusing to provide support to the CSU system, whose two outstanding polytechnics (Cal Poly SLO and Pomona) produce most of the engineering graduates in the state. Programs with nationally recognized excellence are being starved by ridiculous budgets. Faculty must strike to obtain even modest raises. Student fees go up every year. A few token programs in support of engineering won’t fix the endemic problems in the CSU. I hate to see sites like InsideHigherEd.com publicizing these insignificant publicity-generating programs while ignoring our Republican Governor’s ongoing failure to support California’s educational system.

Perry, Engineers in CA, at 11:50 am EST on December 28, 2007

Heather Bresch’s transcript

Heather Bresch told the Pittsburgh paper that her word and the university’s word, the latter offered by people who owe their jobs to her father and their budget to her corporation’s donations, are better than a transcript (which she declines to provide) as proof that she earned her MBA.

What a perfectly absurd notion. No college in the country would accept such an outlandish claim, nor would any employer interested in credentials, except for the employer of which she is the CEO.

Bravo to the Pittsburgh reporters for their excellent story.

Alan Contreras, Eugene, Oregon, at 12:45 pm EST on December 28, 2007

Credentials

Given my abiding respect for Mr. Contreras, it is with a degree of regret that I would qualify his suggestion that “. . .No college in the country would accept such an outlandish claim, nor would any employer interested in credentials, except for the employer of which she is the CEO.” My sense is that there are some colleges, and far too many potential employers who would willingly disregard specious credentials if the person holding them was in a position of political influence, athletic prowess, or (s)he possessed some other attribute that outweighed the risks of having the dirty little secret exposed. Our culture’s adulation of credentials has had the ironic effect of limiting opportunities for talented but uncredentialed individuals, while opening doors for those whose credentials are the product of weak programs, academic dishonesty, or storefront “universities;” and, as is the case in question, those who are inclined to simply fake it.

Russell Kitchner, at 9:50 pm EST on December 28, 2007

Too bad that by the time I got to the link, it had already been taken down. Bollocks!

Anonymous, at 2:25 pm EST on December 29, 2007

Arnie Isn’t The Problem

In response to Perry’s comment: California’s schools, once the envy of the nation, were in deep trouble long before Schwarzenegger ever took office.

I have relatives who have taught in the California public school system. Even the content of low-level grade school courses is adversely affected by the demands of high levels of immigration, multiculturalism, and political correctness run amok. You cannot effectively teach when there is no common language — it’s exacerbated when you have to cater to as many as a dozen different language communities (and sometimes more) in the same classroom. Where this occurs, costs increase and educational content is sacrificed for developing competence in mere communication and inculcating appropriate behaviors. More often than not this is replicated through high school.

The “yes-man” conformance mandates of the educational bureaucracy — present for decades — certainly don’t help. Neither does yanking away on-the-job health insurance for teachers in dangerous inner-city schools.

Scrawed, at 7:10 pm EST on December 29, 2007

Bummer

Yeah, the craigslist posting is gone, how about enlightening those of us who missed it? Batteries? I always suspected I was wasting my winter break by not spending it at the MLA.

Don Heller, Professor at Pennsylvania State University, at 7:10 pm EST on December 29, 2007

Advertisement

 Jobs Related to Quick Takes: Cheating by Professionals, Degree of Influence, Kickbacks Admitted, Sallie Mae's Strategy, Engineering Push in California, Cheating Scandal Shrinks Bowl Roster, Ivies vs. Oxbridge, Testing Chaos in Korea, It's Not All Work at the MLA

or search for jobs directly.

Staff Secretary/Qatar
Weill Medical College of Cornell University

Founded in 1898, and affiliated with what is now New York-Presbyterian Hospital since 1927, Weill Cornell Medical College ... see job

Adjunct Instructor, Computer Information — Web Development
Lone Star College System

Located just north of Houston, Texas, our five campuses serve 1,400 square miles. Our student enrollment is nearly 50,000 in ... see job

Assistant/Associate Professor of Management
University of Texas, Brownsville

Position Number: FY 09-32 Reports to: Chairperson of Business Administration Department Scope: Assistant/Associate Professor ... see job

Adjunct Faculty Credit — Health Education (PE)
Harper College

Job Description: Teach Health classes

Duties of Position:

see job

Adjunct Faculty
Western Carolina University

Applications are continually invited for part-time instructors to teach in one of the four programs within the Department of ... see job

South Asia Studies Lecturer in Hindi
University of Pennsylvania

The nation’s first university, Penn is a world-renowned leader in education, research, and innovation. Situated on a ... see job

Assistant or Associate Professor of Mathematics, Depending on Experience
Southern Oregon University

Faculty and staff make an educated choice to work at Southern Oregon University. They contribute to the education of students ... see job

Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Kenyon College

Kenyon College seeks an Assistant Professor of Philosophy. see job

Nsf Project Assistant
Bennett College

Bennett College is a small, private, historically Black liberal arts college for women. As a United Methodist Church-related ... see job

Post-Doctoral Associate
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

The University of Minnesota is a premier employer and a talent magnet attracting leading faculty and staff from around the ... see job