Podcast #31 - Academic Fakery and the New Jack Hustle

OK - it's on.

Apparently, some Korean reporters are calling around certain foreign professors now, looking for a story. Even if there is none. Apparently, some official literature listed some foreign professor who had studied at Trinity College and who had also attended the officially academically linked Georgetown as having gotten his Ph.D. from Georgetown instead of the other way around. Not his fault, who cares, right? Not when there's a witch hunt on, and now the media's returning to its old stomping grounds of "look at how bad the foreigners are!"

I myself have been listed as having gone to all kinds of school I haven't, and have been listed as "professor" and "Dr. Michael Hurt" and with a "Ph.D." behind my name, when none of these things are true. One web site for a school I was teaching at had, unbeknownst to me, listed me in the course description (which I don't check) as a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University.

That was news to me.

So I informed them of the error, and even had to remind the department to remind the other department who talks to the guys who update the web site once a week who...

You get the picture.

And on top of that, there was some incentive on the school's part to fudge with profiles, since that leads to more students enrolling in the summer session I was teaching in. But short of that, I think it was actually just a clerical error, and they had gotten me mixed up with someone else. I've also had my undergraduate alma mater listed as my non-existent Ph.D. (I'm a doctoral candidate, but not yet finished with the dissertation), and all kinds of secretaries who don't speak much English have put my name next to the wrong others names countless times.

And that ain't my fault. I correct any error I see, and must be one of the most academically honest fools out there. Yet, it's a shame to see someone like me, who made no mistake of his own and has an Oxford undergraduate degree (meaning, why would this guy feel the need to "pump up" his stats when he already commands respect in his field, not to mention having gone to a power hitter school?), yet the best this idiotic reporter in question can do is come up with some web site that had mislisted his background.

So when Regina called me up, I brought out a friend to do a podcast on the subject and nip this shit in the bud - that reporter works for a major English-language daily here in Korea. I hope he gets to hear this podcast and take a nice big sip of shut-the-fuck-up.

And if anyone wants to question my credentials, feel free to go up my ass with a microscope if you'd like. My shit is clean and fresh as a freshly-talcumed baby's bottom. I've got official transcripts, raised seals, and even pictures of me at graduation in the black gown, bitches.

Look for your story elsewhere.

Listen to the podcast in the menu to the left, or click here.

Running Time: 1:22:25
File Size: 56.6 MB
File Info: 96 kbps (48 kpbs mono) at 44.1 kHz, MPEG-2, layer 3 (MP3)

Show Links:

Where the Hell Am I? (ExpatJane's Blog)
http://expatjane.blogspot.com/