The Devil in Ms. Jones
Posted on April 27th, 2007 in Uncategorized | 10 Comments »
The big story in higher ed today is, of course, the resignation of MIT dean of admissions Marilee Jones, who apparently did not go to the colleges that, for 28 years, she said she did.
(A shout-out to the Crimson: You guys had a piece about the resignation posted hours before the MIT Tech.)
Jones’ lies have obviously given her some psychological issues, and it’s interesting to consider how her own lack of degrees have caused her to argue that we need to ease the vicious competition in college admissions.
As Zach Seward writes in the Crimson, in her book “Less Stress, More Success,” Jones…
….warned students against âmaking up information to present yourself as something you are not.â She wrote, âYou must always be completely honest about who you are.â
I know I should be outraged at Ms. Jones’ deceitâand MIT certainly had no choice but to fire herâbut I find myself feeling bad for her.
For one thing, her apology is pretty straight-up.
âI misrepresented my academic degrees when I first applied to M.I.T. 28 years ago and did not have the courage to correct my résumé when I applied for my current job or at any time since…. I am deeply sorry for this and for disappointing so many in the M.I.T. community and beyond who supported me, believed in me, and who have given me extraordinary opportunities.â
I can think of various Harvard evildoersâplagiarists, Russian rip-off-ers, manure-stealers, and so onâwhose mea culpas were considerably less forthright than that.
Second, Ms. Jones was right about the insanity of college admissions, and this is not, frankly, the note one hears from Harvard, which uses students’ mad desire to get into Harvard as a way to promote the brand.
Releasing the number of people who apply every year, for example, seems designed to show the world what a desirable place Harvard is….and attract ever greater numbers of moths to the flame.
Third, Ms. Jones did help increase the number of women at MIT from 17% of the student body to about half. That’s a substantial achievement.
Fourth, Ms. Jones showed that, in fact, you don’t always need a college degree to be a skilled, gifted, and hard-working person. As a result, she showed our society’s obsession with the appearance of qualifications, rather than the reality of them.
Of course, you can’t have a dean of admissions faking her resume. But doesn’t the fact that she faked her curriculars and was still successful suggest the inherent absurdity of the whole college admissions game?
10 Responses
4/27/2007 9:21 am
“Releasing the number of people who apply every year, for example, seems designed to show the world what a desirable place Harvard is….and attract ever greater numbers of moths to the flame.”
Rich, I thought you were in favor of transparency. Do you think Harvard should refuse to release those numbers?
4/27/2007 9:28 am
Richard, the prestige of your blog rests, of course, on your own academic credentials. Can you give us proof that you actually earned degrees from Yale and Harvard, and furthermore graduated from Groton?
4/27/2007 9:57 am
This blog has prestige?
And about the admissions numbers…honestly, I’d have to give it more thought. In general, yes, I do believe that the more publicly disclosed information, the better. But I do worry that there’s a kind of frenzy around these numbers that is unhealthy.
4/27/2007 10:10 am
Richard, don’t you think MIT deserves a lot of credit for asking Ms. Jones to resign?
What do you think this will teach students and graduates of the place?
Do you think other Universities would do the same?
4/27/2007 10:15 am
I don’t think MIT had much choice, and I imagine that pretty much every institution would have done the same.
4/27/2007 11:50 am
I think other universities would have checked her credentials. Only an arrogant school would just assume that the resume’s of all applicants were true and accurate-in other words “who would dare apply under false pretenses”. Of course, one does not need any college degree to be smart and a productive member of society-even surpassing those with multiple degrees. Just for the record I hold a PhD. I would be happy to provide proof.
4/27/2007 12:31 pm
How can you provide proof, 11.50, when you’re anonymous?
4/27/2007 3:53 pm
Great title for this item, by the way.
4/27/2007 7:38 pm
Her apology may be straight-up, but it would be far more impressive if she’d stepped forward-i.e. before an investigation was launched and a dean called her in-and said she’d lied. Perhaps on one of her book tours. Would’ve been a great theatrical moment.
4/28/2007 10:58 am
She had nice work while it lasted. No wonder she didn’t think you have to get stressed out about which college you attend, or even which degree you earn. Will this revelation about her c.v. discredit the otherwise sensible message she was sending?