Several media stories came out yesterday about Christine O’Donnell’s academic fudging. On her LinkedIn profile she lists three universities:
- Fairleigh Dickinson University
- Claremont Graduate University
- Oxford University
As far as Fairleigh Dickinson goes, she’s pretended for years that she had graduated. When it was discovered that she hadn’t actually graduated her story was that she completed the coursework but was presented a Bursar’s bill at the graduation ceremony and that it took her a long time to pay off her student loans. It’s true that it took her a long time to pay off her loans (2003) but she wasn’t awarded her degree in 2003 either. She got her degree just this summer (quietly) because she only finished her coursework this year.
Scott Giglio, assistant director of public relations at the Madison, N.J., university, told POLITICO the Tea Party Express-backed Senate hopeful was officially awarded her bachelor of arts degree in English literature on Wednesday.
Citing privacy reasons, Giglio could not explain the reasoning behind the timing, but O’Donnell’s campaign manager said Friday the candidate met a final course requirement this summer.
“She’s gone through the process to receive her degree, that’s not the story. She fulfilled the last course requirement this summer. It was just a general elective course,” said O’Donnell campaign manager Matt Moran.
I’m sure Fairleigh Dickinson is proud to have such a famous alumnae.
Yesterday Claremont Graduate University said they had no record of her attendance either.
Turns out O’Donnell (R-DE) did receive a fellowship from a conservative think tank named the Claremont Institute, also in Claremont, Ca. but not affiliated with Claremont Graduate University. The think tank is listed properly on her campaign site, sort of.
O’Donnell’s bio reads:
Christine was awarded a 2002 Abraham Lincoln Graduate Fellowship in Constitutional Government from the Claremont Institute in Claremont, CA
But the phrase ‘graduate fellowship’ — which suggests graduate coursework — seems to be O’Donnell’s own creation. The Claremont Institute refers to the program as the “Lincoln Fellowship” here.
So, it sounds like the Claremont Graduate University listing could have been a simple mistake but the Lincoln Fellowship isn’t any kind of study, it’s another wingnut welfare program. Her bio at the Claremont Institute site also falsely lists her as a graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson.
The biggest résumé puffing comes in her listing of Oxford University as a school she attended.
In another move that will raise further questions about Christine O’Donnell’s embellishment of her education record, she claims she studied at the University of Oxford — but a look at her actual record shows this is at best an exaggeration and at worst an outright falsehood.
O’Donnell’s LinkedIn bio page lists “University of Oxford” as one of the schools she attended, claiming she studied “Post Modernism in the New Millennium.” But it turns out that was just a course conducted by an institution known as the Phoenix Institute, which merely rented space at Oxford.
What’s more, the woman who oversaw Phoenix Institute’s summer program at Oxford tells me O’Donnell’s claim about studying at Oxford is “misleading.”
Also, in her lawsuit against the Intercollegiate Studies Institute she listed that her mental anguish prevented her from attending graduate classes at Princeton University. I guess that’s true because she didn’t attend Princeton either.
I guess O’Donnell’s many college experiences allows her to share this bit of wisdom:
Check out this passage from a 2003 Washington Times article on the scourge of coedization in colleges. At the time O’Donnell worked for the conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute (which she later sued for discrimination).
Dorm life has evolved into a blending of the sexes, from coed buildings to coed floors, coed bathrooms and now even coed rooms.
“What’s next? Orgy rooms? Menage a trois rooms?” asked Christine O’Donnell, spokeswoman for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in Wilmington, Del., which publishes a college guide.
All this coedness is outside normal life, said Miss O’Donnell. “Most average American adults don’t use coed bathrooms – if they had the option of a coed bathroom at a public restaurant, they wouldn’t choose it.” Coedness “is like a radical agenda forced on college students,” she said.
I lived in a coed dorm when I was a college student, but no one ever gave me a key to the orgy room. I’ve also used coed bathrooms many times without issue. (But guys put the toilet seat down when you’re done, please.)