<p>Scooter and Skilling must be wishing they worked for MIT...where liars get to resign in a cloud of praise.</p>
<p>NSM, most companies, and colleges often operate as such, prefer resignations to firings. It saves them trouble and appears more gracious, less hard feeling all around. Also, pragmatically, you may not be entitled to unemployment if you resign whereas, you nearly always are if terminated. This can affect the premium.</p>
<p>Ding, ding. I agree with HH again. I was shocked by the pass that the Globe gave Jones in that editorial.</p>
<p>Excerpt from Boston Globe editorial</p>
<p>
[quote]
Lower on the career chain, some people argue that applicants have to lie to get first jobs or to go back to work after months or years of being unemployed. They say it's a matter of financial survival. But a better solution would be an aggressive national public policy that creates many more programs for working adults to earn college degrees.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This conclusion seems rather beside the point: due to living in Boston, Ms. Jones had numerous options to earn a college degree while working at MIT, including the relatively bargain priced Harvard Extension School degrees.</p>
<p>MIT employee benefits policy offers what looks like a generous array of tuition assistance options to reimburse tuition for employees who take courses at MIT or elsewhere:</p>
<p>But Ms. Jones had no reason to expose herself by enrolling in a college class...after all, she had a PhD. ;)</p>
<p>Puzzlingly, I think that's the first Boston Globe editorial in many years to speak in a positive manner about anything MIT-related.</p>
<p>
(I'm an alum, graduated in '06, now a PhD student at the school up the street.) I have no problem admitting that I find the whole "women at MIT aren't qualified" offensive on a personal level.</p>
<p>The reason I get involved in debates like this is because, as an MIT student, I saw the quality of the student body first-hand, and I know that success at MIT isn't limited to one race, or one gender. I've seen people with 5x800 SAT scores fail, and I've seen people with 6xx SAT scores succeed wildly. As a whole, I can't pick out one group at MIT that seems to be better or worse than another -- and I wouldn't pick a problem set group based on their gender or race. ;)</p>
<p>I certainly hope I don't come off as overly sensitive. When posts hurt my feelings, I try to calm down before responding.</p>
<p>EDIT: And re: the Men's News Daily article -- hee, campus feminists? At MIT?</p>
<p>Off topic, but I agree 100% with one thing in the Boston Globe article - access to college education for working adults is nothing short of a disappointing nightmare. It's horrible. I've researched and examined and explored programs for months on end, until my head hurts. If you want a master's degree, there are many programs of substance - but - you need an undergraduate degree to qualify for admissions to the master's programs, which is how it should be. But when your starting place is a bachelor's degree, the choices are simply horrible. It is possible to find lots of so-called "online" learning opportunties, but I see little possibility to piece together one useful degree of substance out of any of them. There are some "non-traditional" programs, but, they're usually called something like "bachelor of general studies", and if you drill deeply down into the coursework offerings, it's mostly classes no one else needs, or wants to attend. It's like they're trying to package something up and sell it, and, if you try to telephone or email with questions, you're told to make an appointment and come in and talk to an adviser, and, if you do that, you're subjected to a sales pitch and still no real substance. Or, you can find degrees called "criminal justice" or "applied science" that when you dig into it, it's just a bunch of unpopular classes pieced together and trotted out as a degree. For what I am interested in studying and what will also make sense in terms of subject matter and support for my career, I would have to piece bits of programs together from about 10-15 colleges, and none of them are in any of the cities where I would typically travel. It's ridiculous. I'm almost to the point of just signing up for the cheapest, fastest "bachelor of general studies" degree I can find (something like a "mcdegree"), regardless of content and quality, just to get through the stupid thing, so that I can finally get to the real substance and the real materially that will actually help me - at the master's degree level. </p>
<p>Very, very disappointing, to have the money to pay for it, and be very willing to pay for it, and cannot find anything worth actually paying for, not to mention the investment of time. </p>
<p>Of course, Mariliee Jones probably didn't have that problem to this extent - Cambridge/Boston is a place with a large number of top quality colleges, many with very nice degree options and evening/weekend classes available, although, perhaps class scheduling wasn't that easy 20 or so years ago.</p>
<p>A very pragmatic reason for not lying on college/job applications is exemplified by what happened here. You never know when/who will find out and how. You never know where you may go. When Jones was first hired by MIT, there was probably not such an extensive background search policy as there is today. Also the job she got did not require a degree, and so they did not care what she claimed in that area. As she moved up the hierarchy, she was boxed into her lies. There became to much at stake for her to have come clean. And really, once you are in a company, you can sometimes go along without a background check that you would need if you went elsewhere. But these days with the extensive checks that are being done and with so much computerized, the chances of getting caught are increasing.</p>
<p>There was a coach that was let go a year or so ago because he exaggerated his credenitials. I though that was severe since the misrepresentation seemed to be minor to me--he had dual degree rather than two degrees--a technicality in my mind, but the college where he worked did not look at it that way. Jones was flagrent in her lies.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>Husband outed Marilee?!?!?!?<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>As I suggested all the way back in post #320.</p>
<p>Did Marilee write to Psychology Today??
[quote]
Question: An article I read in a popular magazine compared risk factors for depression to those for other diseases. I understand how smoking causes lung cancer, but not how losing my job means I was at risk for depression before it even happened.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
Answer: A "risk factor" is any element that increases the probability of a disorder occurring. . . . </p>
<p>Gender is also a biological risk factor; being a woman increases the risk for depression through hormonal factors related to the reproductive cycle. . . . .</p>
<p>Socially speaking, depression often surfaces in the context of relationships. Death of loved ones, romantic and marital breakups, betrayals by friends or authority figures can all significantly increase the risk of depression. . . .</p>
<p>A risk factor increases probability; disorder is not a certainty. Identifying the particular vulnerability that made the loss of your job a trigger for your depression would be wise, especially if you wish to reduce the risk of future episodes. Maybe it is a value you hold that says your work is your life, maybe it was losing face or prestige, maybe it was the stress of economic insecurity, or any or all of these in combination with other factors, too. The point is, not everyone loses a job and becomes depressed. What pre-existing thoughts, feelings, values or perceptions paved the way for depression to take hold of you? When you have insight into the answer, you"re well on your way to developing both a plan of therapy and of prevention.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>“>>Husband outed Marilee?!?!?!?<<”</p>
<p>Oh my gosh, these threads are like the game of telephone. I think Cheers suggested it could be the husband based on one posters acknowledgement of a divorce. Then some were having fun with the idea. </p>
<p>I think this is how she initially received her PhD. Someone assumed based on the misleading "scientist by training" and she became Dr. Jones. Of course she never bothered to correct anyone, which was her duty.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>Husband outed Marilee?!?!?!?<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>If he did that, he was not acting in a bright manner since he works for an organization affiliated with MIT, and more than likely his outing his wife would affect his own job since presumably he has known about his wife's lies for a long time.</p>
<p>I also wonder how -- not that Jones has lost her job -- they will pay for their D's education at Pomona?</p>
<p>
[quote]
guest speaker Marilee Jones shared with the seniors her own two rules for finding happiness and success in life. As the dean of admissions at MIT – . . . – Ms. Jones advised the class to “create your own reality”
[/quote]
</p>
<p>How's Creating your own Reality working for you now Marilee? :)</p>
<hr>
<p>That Boston Globe editorial was ridiculous.</p>
<p>Has anyone else wondered if this whole thing is some sort of elaborate prank? Like maybe some sort of social experiment? So much of it just doesn't quite work. For example, the three degrees and no questioning or "outing" for nearly 30 years; the odd resignation, the lack of press coverage...even the Boston Globe article has almost a "contrived" ring to it...so many little details in the mix that just don't quite ring true, that are highly improbable...</p>
<p>The word hack at MIT usually refers to a clever, benign, and "ethical" prank or practical joke, which is both challenging for the perpetrators and amusing to the MIT community (and sometimes even the rest of the world!).</p>
<p>Here's a link to The MIT Gallery of Hacks
<a href="http://hacks.mit.edu/%5B/url%5D">http://hacks.mit.edu/</a></p>
<p>Usually a hack involves putting something on the top of the Dome.
Police car, <a href="http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_year/1994/cp_car/%5B/url%5D">http://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/by_year/1994/cp_car/</a>
Airplane, <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2003/hack.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2003/hack.html</a>
firetruck etc. <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2006/09/mit_hacks_mark_1.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2006/09/mit_hacks_mark_1.html</a></p>
<p>Has any one looked to see if Marilee's up on top of the Dome?? :rolleyes:</p>
<hr>
<p>latetoschool - thanks for bringing up the Hoax concept. What a way to promote her book!!!!!</p>
<p>I wish it were a hoax. Unfortunately, the more quotes you read, the more it wanders from greek tragedy to down the rabbit hole. Painting the roses red, indeed. Rich doesn't provide the additional quote from the graduation article, but its pretty painful in retrospect: “What you put out in that world comes right back to you,” she stated. “So, if you want to be happy and successful, you just put that out into the world. You act as if you are already. And guess what? You will attract to you people who will reinforce that image. You will be happy and successful. It’s so simple.”</p>
<p>The only thing that approaches her bizarre ideation is the Boston Globe editorial.</p>
<p>^^^^^^
The Albany Times can't even confirm if she ever lived there??</p>
<p>
[quote]
The MIT veteran, who reportedly lived in Albany as a child,
[/quote]
</p>