West Liberty University President Charged With Plagiarism
“Faculty members soon discovered it was not a one-time offense.”
Is this guy going to keep his job if it turns out to be true? Isn’t plagiarism kind of a high crime in higher education?
Inside Higher Ed reports:
University President Charged With Plagiarism
Faculty members at West Liberty University recently accused W. Franklin Evans, president of the university, of plagiarizing multiple sources in several public speeches and presentations.
Evans, who became president of the West Virginia public university in January, first drew ire from faculty members and students for plagiarism in his fall convocation speech on Sept. 15.
“During the convocation, several faculty members were looking at each other and talking about how some things just didn’t quite sound right,” said a West Liberty faculty member who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. “People started actually googling during the convocation speech — faculty and students, from what I saw — and, long story short, people started just reading along.”
“Here are five other tips I want to share with you,” Evans told students during the speech. He proceeded to elaborate on each one: “always go to class,” “be proactive about your college education,” “focus on networking,” “take care of your mental health” and “be mindful about money.”
Five days later, Evans sent a memo to university employees and students explaining that he failed to properly attribute the advice to Robert Farrington, a personal finance writer and author of the Forbes article “5 Tips for College Freshman [sic] to Help Maximize Year One.”
In a recording of the speech on the university website, the captions contained citations, but Evans did not cite the original author verbally during his speech.
“That is a failure on my part,” Evans wrote. “However, that mistake is in no way indicative of a pattern, or a ‘bigger picture.’ It was merely an oversight, and one for which I am apologetic.”
Faculty members soon discovered it was not a one-time offense. They found that several of Evans’s other speeches and presentations contained language lifted from online articles.
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Comments
Some plagiarists go on to be Senators from Massachusetts.
Or Delaware….
He’s just sucking up to Joe Biden, hoping for a cushy federal job.
He’s working on google his formal apology from the internet as we speak.