When I read this story about the ouster/resignation of the president of the University of South Carolina after it came to light that he plagiarized a commencement speech, the memory of Glenn Poshard and the scandal over the unintentional plagiarism of his dissertation came to mind. However, in the case of Poshard, he had a lot more support from the SIUC BOT as well as some faculty and staff than did Lt. General Caslen did at USC and was better able to weather the storm of negative publicity.
CORRECTION URGENTLY NEEDED HERE! First, Poshard did not have a "lot more support..from "most faculty and staff". By contrast, most faculty and staff were shocked and expected him to do the honest thing by resigning immediately. The BOT and one law official (who later resigned due to racist comments made later) supported him. Thanks to a spineless blue label faculty investigating the incident who did not have the courage to remove "Inadvertent" besides plagiarism, he got off easily.
ReplyDeleteEnrollment decline began when Poshard got the job and the plagiarism scandal merely accelerated the process when key faculty left in disgust and parents would not want their children to attend a university whose President was found guilty of plagiarism however "inadvertent"! The University actually changed the original dissertation before it was returned to the library. In legal terms this is "tampering with evidence" and rewriting history as in Orwell's 1984. SIUC is still paying the price for the appointment of a failed politician to a position he had no experience for and the plagiarism scandal
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ReplyDeleteedited to change to "some faculty and staff" instead of most. I rather expected him to resign at the time but the BOT apparently felt his political connections were valuable enough to keep him one.
ReplyDeleteIt would be relevant next time to do some background research. The DE had some great reporting on this scandal, much better than The Southern as usual. They had a great cartoon showing Poshard gloating after the decision. He was appointed because of his political connections that they thought would bring more money in. They did not. Instead Poshard used political favors to save himself from being fired - as he should have been.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Maybe those "some faculty and staff" should have also been fired since according to University regulations they are pledged to stop plagiarism? Again, if you consult the DE you will see plenty of letters urging Poshard's firing from faculty and none in favor of ignoring his breach of conduct. The only comments of support you will find are in The Southern hailing him as a "Christian gentleman." I guess the same thing applied to King Leopold of the Belgium Congo in the (19th)?
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