Every now and again, Lady Karma smirks. While we already know that the state of Arizona, with its wacko politicians and bizarre customs, is the perennial laughing-stock of the nation and steady supplier of Supreme Court cases, we occasionally forget how ludicrous its “educational” system is. Could the Great Desert University possibly out-do its administration’s pronouncement that the first African-American President of the United States did not have a “body of work” deserving of an honorary degree, unlike, say, Steve Allen (1982), Eddie Basha (1999), and the renowned Delbert Ray Lewis (2001)?
Well.
Yes.
Once again GDU makes its hundreds of laid-off former employees proud to be…former. Emphasis on former.
One of the university’s many teapot tempests, one that’s been brewing for quite a while, recently came to the attention of local news media, whose avatars were amazed to discover not only that a distinguished historian allegedly plagiarized with élan in his spoken as well as his published works, but that the administration overrode his tenure committee’s decision to deny a promotion to full on the basis of their view that his treatment of his unacknowledged sources (among them, we’re told, Wikipedia) amounted to plagiarism.
There’s a backstory that I’m not going to detail here, because I haven’t been directly privy to it and doubt that I could get faculty to confirm it on the record. However, the hilarity has begun. Now, if someone would please let Jon Stewart know about this…?
Image: Wells Fargo Arena. YF12s. Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license.
Heh! This professor might have taken a few pointers from his students. With a little effort, content from Wikipedia can be spun and rebranded with none being the wiser.