Korean Art Professor Fakes Yale Degree

Colleges & Universities Yale University
1

<p>I recently traveled to Korea to the city where Dongguk University is located–a lot of students were talking about this bit of news.</p>

<p>A celebrated U.S.-educated figure in Korea’s art world has been revealed as a fraud who faked her undergraduate, post-graduate and doctoral degrees. What’s even more surprising is the fact that the woman not only taught as a professor at a university in Korea but was appointed as the director of the Gwangju Biennale. Her employer, Dongguk University, on Wednesday said Asst. Prof. Shin Jeong-ah’s doctoral degree from Yale was fake and there was no record of her being a student at the ivy league college.</p>

<p><a href=“http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200707/200707130027.html[/url]”>http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200707/200707130027.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Killer title for an article…:rolleyes:</p>

2

<p>haha. yea a bit late…this came on the news at least a week ago…but yea pretty hilarious if you ask me. i guess it shows you how much appeal is drawn to the name of yale…</p>

3

<p>What’s more ridiculous is, she still denies faking it, even with the dean’s official statement that her stuff’s all forgery. There’s lots of talk about rich and powerful people backing her up, but that doesn’t change the truth. It’s kinda sad that people would resort to this sort of thing.</p>

4

<p>honestly i really don’t think this scandal will drag on for much longer. obviously she has a problem and is probably trying to just generate attention towards her as long as possible. whatever, the truth will come out and everything will blow over in time</p>

5

<p>Incidents like this are pretty common and just remind you that you should never take anything for granted, but also that degrees in and of themselves are not really as much of a status symbol as some people think. Perception is the only reality. What people do, who they know and how they present themselves is ultimately more important than any prior credentials.</p>

6

<p>The Stanford faker was also Korean.</p>

<p>I think the obsession with collegiate prestige is a cultural thing…certainly not unique to Korea (or even widespread throughout all of it) but it is definitely there.</p>

<p>Anyway, Korea rocks, I’m going to Seoul this weekend <3</p>

<p>PosterX makes a good point in that “What people do, who they know and how they present themselves is ultimately more important than any prior credentials.” The recent MIT admissions official who was exposed as a fraud despite being very successful for a rather long time is proof of this.</p>

7

<p>It’s a basic thing you learn after being out in the “real world”.</p>

8

<p>ah johnny! lucky duck! have fun in seoul! ^_^</p>

9

<p>Believe it or not, I’ve actually met professor Shin. Very well regarded–she didn’t seem like the type of person who’d do something like this…</p>

10

<p>I went to a funeral last year. The dead person had written a bio that she wanted read at her funeral. In it, she claimed to have graduated with a bachelor’s in math (her degree was psychology). At least she had stated the correct college. However, for her Master’s, she had graduated from a State school. In her bio, she had claimed a more prestigious degree from USC. Most everyone in the audience had visited her at her home after she had lapsed into a long coma. We had all seen the PermaPlaques up in her home office. We all knew her real credentials. Because of her age and disease, we all gave her the benefit of a doubt. However, I think it is interesting that some people will try to fake degrees to impress others even after death. </p>

<p>Maybe this speaks to the need to live your life carefully so that you have nothing to hide and to not be ashamed for what you do achieve.</p>