Padding

Marilee Jones was the dean of admissions at MIT until an anonymous tip last week led MIT officials to investigate her credentials. They sadly discovered that she did not earn a Bachelors and a Masters from Rensselaer. In fact, she only attended there for one year, in 1974. In 1979, she added the degrees to her resume when she applied for a junior role in the admissions department at MIT.

I feel badly about her downfall because she did eventually run the admissions department, when she was promoted to dean in 1997. From all reports she helped redefine the admissions process at MIT. She clearly had the talent. She spoke at conferences. She served on boards. But she didn't have the credentials. MIT had no choice but to ask her to resign. Institutions tend to frown on anything that diminishes their integrity.

Bizarrely enough, in my own industry, not one single person has asked for proof about my own credentials. Eventually, I suppose, the history of your work speaks for itself. I think the most anyone would do is shrug their shoulders if I announced that I did not graduate from college. Yet, I've never considered removing my degree from my own resume. I guess it pads it nicely.

VT

Reporter: "Can you describe the scene at Norris Hall?"
Chief Wendell Flinchum: "It's one of the worst things I've ever seen in my entire life."
Reporter: "Can you describe it?"
Chief Flinchum: "Not at this time."

Those Old Houses

Living in New England, I often find myself driving by very old houses. Not fixer-uppers, or "pre-war." I'm talking historic houses. While reading an article by Peter Costa in a newspaper supplement on Patriots' Day, I learned that historic houses, circa 1600-1700s, are often built with wood that is much stronger than today's wood, because the trees that were cut for those old houses have been growing for hundreds of years. "[The wood] was much more stable than the quickly grown forest stock we have today," said Daniel Lacroix, president of the Westford Historical Society. Back then, there was plenty of that wood too. I've never thought about those old trees, and how they're still around in some of these old houses. Fascinating.