He googled for U of M letterhead. The fake offer had to look real.
September 5, 2018 7:22 AM Subscribe
The professors with real influence — those who could push through a new program or direct the department to hire in particular areas — were those with stock high enough to be poached by another university. In effect, they were worth more. McNaughton believed he was such a professor. He had been courted, albeit informally, by other institutions. What was the real difference between these flirtations, he pondered, and a genuine offer from another university? Not much, he decided. So he made one up.
Oh my god, that's appalling! At the same time, there are absolutely researchers who convince themselves that they should have a lot more than they do, that the chair is against them, etc etc. Frankly, if he was getting bridge funding before all this happened, he was doing a lot better than many people.
Although I do wonder why his chair believed that a pre-tenure faculty member with a good but not brilliant funding history would get offered 1.7 million in start-up funds at Minnesota. That's an enormous amount to offer, even for a relatively well-funded unit. I mean, it's great that he had what I assume was an R01 to support his research - that's promising for an early career researcher. But TBH, I know of people who had, like, an R01 and an R21 and substantial internal funding at that point in their careers and did not get outside offers with that kind of start-up package. It's weird that the chair didn't question the letter.
In a larger context, of course, this is about the class position of research faculty - the way that they're expected to be (or seem) basically upper middle class while being hugely dependent on how the funding dice roll. If I were in charge, I would not run non-profit research in this manner. It simultaneously manages to exclude working class people from STEM and create precarity among the well-off.
posted by Frowner at 8:00 AM on September 5, 2018 [30 favorites]
Although I do wonder why his chair believed that a pre-tenure faculty member with a good but not brilliant funding history would get offered 1.7 million in start-up funds at Minnesota. That's an enormous amount to offer, even for a relatively well-funded unit. I mean, it's great that he had what I assume was an R01 to support his research - that's promising for an early career researcher. But TBH, I know of people who had, like, an R01 and an R21 and substantial internal funding at that point in their careers and did not get outside offers with that kind of start-up package. It's weird that the chair didn't question the letter.
In a larger context, of course, this is about the class position of research faculty - the way that they're expected to be (or seem) basically upper middle class while being hugely dependent on how the funding dice roll. If I were in charge, I would not run non-profit research in this manner. It simultaneously manages to exclude working class people from STEM and create precarity among the well-off.
posted by Frowner at 8:00 AM on September 5, 2018 [30 favorites]
Wasn't “Brian McNaughton” also the name of the Hollywood blockbuster director who went to jail for a decade or so (either for fraud of some sort or something do do with drugs)?
posted by acb at 8:01 AM on September 5, 2018
posted by acb at 8:01 AM on September 5, 2018
This asshole sounds abusive. Not like I think he hit anyone - white-collar guys typically see that as too risky. Abusive like he chooses to do any unkind thing to anyone he thinks he can get away with, like he believes any slight against him or inconvenience to him justifies anything he did, like his wants are the only ones he gives a damn about.
I am glad he was dumb enough to try to fuck up a public university, because it exposed his scumminess and derailed his life. I hope his ex-wife and kids and grad students find joy and success, far away from him.
posted by bagel at 8:02 AM on September 5, 2018 [14 favorites]
I am glad he was dumb enough to try to fuck up a public university, because it exposed his scumminess and derailed his life. I hope his ex-wife and kids and grad students find joy and success, far away from him.
posted by bagel at 8:02 AM on September 5, 2018 [14 favorites]
If his wife was constantly nagging him, he should have just divorced her instead of being so ego-driven that he had to take career-ending risks.
posted by prepmonkey at 8:04 AM on September 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by prepmonkey at 8:04 AM on September 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
Abusive like he chooses to do any unkind thing to anyone he thinks he can get away with, like he believes any slight against him or inconvenience to him justifies anything he did, like his wants are the only ones he gives a damn about.
Funding structures absolutely reward this kind of personality, too - the person who isn't content being successful and well-off, the person who isn't content with having a good publication history, the kind of person who isn't content with a well-staffed, well-run lab...the kind of person who is always working the fucking angles. Public research institutions could get a lot more done if there was less necessity to ride herd on this kind of person.
posted by Frowner at 8:10 AM on September 5, 2018 [26 favorites]
Funding structures absolutely reward this kind of personality, too - the person who isn't content being successful and well-off, the person who isn't content with having a good publication history, the kind of person who isn't content with a well-staffed, well-run lab...the kind of person who is always working the fucking angles. Public research institutions could get a lot more done if there was less necessity to ride herd on this kind of person.
posted by Frowner at 8:10 AM on September 5, 2018 [26 favorites]
This prof deserves every drop of ignominy he got, but that PI seems like a complete scumbag, who claims to be reeeeal concerned as a Moral Citizen about people who do forgery and impersonation and also really into doing forgery and impersonation to hound someone. But the PI is likely still out on the job, harassing other people for hire. Not psyched about him either.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 8:14 AM on September 5, 2018 [44 favorites]
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 8:14 AM on September 5, 2018 [44 favorites]
Frankly, if he was getting bridge funding before all this happened, he was doing a lot better than many people.
This was an important detail for me. If he was completely zeroed out — no resources and no hope for resources — then it was time for him to be moving on, but I could forgive a panic induced stunt like this. However, he was moving forward. He had a sponsor on the faculty. This all just smacks of impatience.
On the other hand, two kids and a dissolving marriage will also cause some stress. People have been investigating this guy pretty thoroughly and if there are any other examples of unethical behavior they’re not mentioned in the article. As it was a one time thing I’m inclined to say the university did the right thing — reparations and you’re fired. Turning a faked offer letter into a felony conviction seems a little much.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:17 AM on September 5, 2018 [8 favorites]
This was an important detail for me. If he was completely zeroed out — no resources and no hope for resources — then it was time for him to be moving on, but I could forgive a panic induced stunt like this. However, he was moving forward. He had a sponsor on the faculty. This all just smacks of impatience.
On the other hand, two kids and a dissolving marriage will also cause some stress. People have been investigating this guy pretty thoroughly and if there are any other examples of unethical behavior they’re not mentioned in the article. As it was a one time thing I’m inclined to say the university did the right thing — reparations and you’re fired. Turning a faked offer letter into a felony conviction seems a little much.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:17 AM on September 5, 2018 [8 favorites]
As it was a one time thing I’m inclined to say the university did the right thing — reparations and you’re fired.
But we'll keep it secret so you can get a tenured position elsewhere? Nope.
I don't like this scientist, I don't like the PI, and I don't like the university.
posted by jeather at 8:25 AM on September 5, 2018 [18 favorites]
But we'll keep it secret so you can get a tenured position elsewhere? Nope.
I don't like this scientist, I don't like the PI, and I don't like the university.
posted by jeather at 8:25 AM on September 5, 2018 [18 favorites]
That said, I feel really sorry for the innocent grad students who were going to follow him to Delaware and then got suddenly fucked over.
posted by jeather at 8:30 AM on September 5, 2018 [84 favorites]
posted by jeather at 8:30 AM on September 5, 2018 [84 favorites]
I really wonder if a single employer anywhere has ever faced felony prosecution for inventing a competing job candidate or candidates to convince somebody to accept a lower salary than they would like.
OK, I don't really wonder. I am dead certain that has never happened and never will.
posted by enn at 8:37 AM on September 5, 2018 [93 favorites]
OK, I don't really wonder. I am dead certain that has never happened and never will.
posted by enn at 8:37 AM on September 5, 2018 [93 favorites]
The story sounded kind of...sad and typical of people who think they're worth a ton and will do whatever to get it, but not BIG TIME SCANDAL, and then the private investigator came in and decided to...turn it into a big scandal, I guess? I mean, yes, it was taxpayer money, but it reads like the professor got a light punishment and reimbursed the university (and thus the state) for the money, so ... I don't get what this was, other than someone trying to scam the system for a raise.
posted by xingcat at 8:51 AM on September 5, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by xingcat at 8:51 AM on September 5, 2018 [7 favorites]
I really wonder if a single employer anywhere has ever faced felony prosecution for inventing a competing job candidate or candidates to convince somebody to accept a lower salary than they would like.
Why would an employer ever make up a fake candidate instead of just saying "this is the most we can offer - do you want it or not?"
posted by aubilenon at 8:55 AM on September 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
Why would an employer ever make up a fake candidate instead of just saying "this is the most we can offer - do you want it or not?"
posted by aubilenon at 8:55 AM on September 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
Why would an employer ever make up a fake candidate instead of just saying "this is the most we can offer - do you want it or not?"
Because they might not want potential employees thinking they could make more money elsewhere?
posted by IjonTichy at 9:08 AM on September 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
Because they might not want potential employees thinking they could make more money elsewhere?
posted by IjonTichy at 9:08 AM on September 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
Employers do that all the time in competitive professional fields just to get someone they know is desperate for a job to accept a lower salary. I hear stories all the time how after someone get hired they find out much later that they were the only one up for the job but the company is cheap. Then they can't do anything with that information because no manager would ever admit they lied. It's especially rampant for female applicants.
posted by numaner at 9:11 AM on September 5, 2018 [36 favorites]
posted by numaner at 9:11 AM on September 5, 2018 [36 favorites]
PI=Private investigator (gumshoe) in the context of this article. I recommend people NOT to use this acronym and refer to them as Strunk or The Gumshoe because
......Principal Investigator which is the person running a grant funded study, usually a professor. McNaughton was a PI in this sense.....
--
It's well known that the best way to get a non COLA raise in academia is to get an offer from elsewhere.
---
He deserved to be fired for forging the offer letter buuuuuttt.......
It's clear to me that someone with an axe to grind, (probably his wife or her lawyer), hired Strunk, because, a 5k salary bump as "public corruption" and "taxpayer and concerned citizen"? Really?
The other money was to go to science research within the department. Shit, the student union at CSU embezzles more per year on frivolous projects.
The sad thing - apart from the CYA behavior of the university - is is that this was such a pathetic raise, and he threw it all away for bupkes!
Nasty business all round.
posted by lalochezia at 9:13 AM on September 5, 2018 [18 favorites]
......Principal Investigator which is the person running a grant funded study, usually a professor. McNaughton was a PI in this sense.....
--
It's well known that the best way to get a non COLA raise in academia is to get an offer from elsewhere.
---
He deserved to be fired for forging the offer letter buuuuuttt.......
It's clear to me that someone with an axe to grind, (probably his wife or her lawyer), hired Strunk, because, a 5k salary bump as "public corruption" and "taxpayer and concerned citizen"? Really?
The other money was to go to science research within the department. Shit, the student union at CSU embezzles more per year on frivolous projects.
The sad thing - apart from the CYA behavior of the university - is is that this was such a pathetic raise, and he threw it all away for bupkes!
Nasty business all round.
posted by lalochezia at 9:13 AM on September 5, 2018 [18 favorites]
One of those rare stories where all of the primary players appear to be awful.
posted by explosion at 9:17 AM on September 5, 2018 [14 favorites]
posted by explosion at 9:17 AM on September 5, 2018 [14 favorites]
It's clear to me that someone with an axe to grind, (probably his wife or her lawyer), hired Strunk, because, a 5k salary bump as "public corruption" and "taxpayer and concerned citizen"? Really?
I will absolutely believe that Strunk did it as a "taxpayer and concerned citizen", because there are a lot of conservatives who will spend thousands to rail at hundreds of dollars of government waste, and most of those conservatives also hate academia. Strunk must have been positively gleeful that he could make a university look bad.
posted by Etrigan at 9:18 AM on September 5, 2018 [18 favorites]
I will absolutely believe that Strunk did it as a "taxpayer and concerned citizen", because there are a lot of conservatives who will spend thousands to rail at hundreds of dollars of government waste, and most of those conservatives also hate academia. Strunk must have been positively gleeful that he could make a university look bad.
posted by Etrigan at 9:18 AM on September 5, 2018 [18 favorites]
Did you guys read to the end? What the heck is up with this Strunk and the so called "Alberto Ruiz"?
A fake job offer letter seem not even worth writing about (compared to, say, inventing a college degree, which turns up every now and then), and even Colorado State and others seemed willing to forgive him before it became too public. What makes this a story interesting is the determination of people to expose and ruin him.
I'm not saying what he did was right. I'm just saying that's not what I find fascinating about this story.
posted by eye of newt at 9:19 AM on September 5, 2018 [15 favorites]
A fake job offer letter seem not even worth writing about (compared to, say, inventing a college degree, which turns up every now and then), and even Colorado State and others seemed willing to forgive him before it became too public. What makes this a story interesting is the determination of people to expose and ruin him.
I'm not saying what he did was right. I'm just saying that's not what I find fascinating about this story.
posted by eye of newt at 9:19 AM on September 5, 2018 [15 favorites]
It's clear to me that someone with an axe to grind, (probably his wife or her lawyer), hired Strunk
Sorry, what I meant to say was, It's clear to me that someone with an axe to grind, (probably his wife or her lawyer), started the character assassination campaign with the twitter stuff.
Strunk admits being hired by McNaughton's wife.
posted by lalochezia at 9:21 AM on September 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
Sorry, what I meant to say was, It's clear to me that someone with an axe to grind, (probably his wife or her lawyer), started the character assassination campaign with the twitter stuff.
Strunk admits being hired by McNaughton's wife.
posted by lalochezia at 9:21 AM on September 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
It sounds both these ex-spouses were terrible people to varying degrees, and more than anything I just feel bad for their kids.
posted by trackofalljades at 9:23 AM on September 5, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by trackofalljades at 9:23 AM on September 5, 2018 [8 favorites]
But we'll keep it secret so you can get a tenured position elsewhere? Nope.
If it was a pattern I’d agree with you, but I’m not of the opinion that a single ethical lapse should comepletely destroy a person’s lifelong goals. His take on the caper was a $5000 raise and funding for his lab — we’re not talking about molesting parishioners here.
Once again, if it was a pattern that would be something else. But zero tolerance policies do no one any good.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:29 AM on September 5, 2018 [18 favorites]
If it was a pattern I’d agree with you, but I’m not of the opinion that a single ethical lapse should comepletely destroy a person’s lifelong goals. His take on the caper was a $5000 raise and funding for his lab — we’re not talking about molesting parishioners here.
Once again, if it was a pattern that would be something else. But zero tolerance policies do no one any good.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:29 AM on September 5, 2018 [18 favorites]
The detail that jumped out is that he couldn't get funding to buy supplies like pipette tips. That seems bizarre to me. What's the point of employing a chemist if you cannot also afford to equip said chemist?
posted by Merus at 9:33 AM on September 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Merus at 9:33 AM on September 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
Seven graduate students planned to move with him across the country.
Um..it's one thing to let him away quietly get away with a dumb forgery and kind of harmless scam. He was going to spend the money on science not yachts. Don't like it but I get it.
To knowingly allow 7 grad students uproot their lives to follow him is abominable by CSU.
posted by Damienmce at 9:37 AM on September 5, 2018 [13 favorites]
Um..it's one thing to let him away quietly get away with a dumb forgery and kind of harmless scam. He was going to spend the money on science not yachts. Don't like it but I get it.
To knowingly allow 7 grad students uproot their lives to follow him is abominable by CSU.
posted by Damienmce at 9:37 AM on September 5, 2018 [13 favorites]
Christ, what a pair of assholes.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:42 AM on September 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:42 AM on September 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
Wasn't “Brian McNaughton” also the name of the Hollywood blockbuster director who went to jail for a decade or so (either for fraud of some sort or something do do with drugs)?
I think you're thinking of John McTiernan.
posted by doctornecessiter at 9:45 AM on September 5, 2018
I think you're thinking of John McTiernan.
posted by doctornecessiter at 9:45 AM on September 5, 2018
The detail that jumped out is that he couldn't get funding to buy supplies like pipette tips. That seems bizarre to me. What's the point of employing a chemist if you cannot also afford to equip said chemist?
Saying that you can't afford pipette tips is different from not actually being able to afford them, though. Pipette tip purchases were a hot topic in one of my previous jobs.
It sounds as though he got an R01 at the start of his faculty gig and then it didn't get renewed. That isn't surprising - funding for early career investigators at public universities is far harder to get than it was ten years ago, and things seemed especially dire IIRC right around the time this was happening. In this situation, it's common to have to scramble and grovel for bridge funding from the department or the unit. Much of the time, the unit wants to bridge people, especially people who've had an R01, because they don't want to shut down the lab (and the person's career, because it's very very hard to restart a lab after your people are gone). But there's never enough bridge money to go around, because chances are good that if you're struggling, others are too. (In a previous job, we had a terrible two year period where virtually every lab in the unit needed to be bridged, and it was extremely difficult. The majority got renewed funding, but a couple of labs closed for good.)
The last time I was paying attention to this, I read a projection saying that more and more NIH funding was moving from public universities, especially midwestern/mountain ones, to private schools on the coasts like Harvard, and that this trend was expected to continue, with the research profiles of public schools continuing to decline. It was pretty grim, and while it is in part caused by an absolute shortage of funding, it's more than just the quantity of money.
~~
Also, bear in mind that this guy, by cheating in the manner, got funding that then was not directed toward truthful researchers and researchers who aren't good at marketing themselves. Many of those researchers are women, in my experience - women researchers get passed over for bridge funding, or underpaid, or shuffled into non-tenure roles even if they are actually very successful.
Sure, he was just using the money for science and not yachts, but that money comes from somewhere - the department doesn't have a magic purse. He felt that he was important enough to take more than his share, and it's unlikely that he would have felt that way if he weren't a white man.
Also, white men with degrees get second acts.
posted by Frowner at 9:47 AM on September 5, 2018 [48 favorites]
This is like a Coen Brothers movie.
posted by lunasol at 9:49 AM on September 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by lunasol at 9:49 AM on September 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
from article: “McNaughton had found an apartment near the university, and one of his graduate students had even purchased a home.
“It was all for naught.”
oh, you just couldn't resist doing that, could you
posted by koeselitz at 9:56 AM on September 5, 2018 [12 favorites]
“It was all for naught.”
oh, you just couldn't resist doing that, could you
posted by koeselitz at 9:56 AM on September 5, 2018 [12 favorites]
> Why would an employer ever make up a fake candidate instead of just saying "this is the most we can offer - do you want it or not?"
1. Because this deflects the candidate's anger away from the employer's low-balling behavior and towards their hypothetical competition.
2. Because if the employer's bluff is called and the employer increases their offer anyway, they don't have to make excuses about where the extra money came from, they just have to say "oh, the other guy dropped out."
posted by at by at 9:57 AM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
1. Because this deflects the candidate's anger away from the employer's low-balling behavior and towards their hypothetical competition.
2. Because if the employer's bluff is called and the employer increases their offer anyway, they don't have to make excuses about where the extra money came from, they just have to say "oh, the other guy dropped out."
posted by at by at 9:57 AM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
(The sarcasm and contempt becomes too much and too vile for me to contain sometimes, so...)
Good to see the article minimizing the domestic abuse from the entitled, manipulative, liar in this article. Wouldn't be complete without her getting the Skyler White treatment. If only she kept quiet and went along with her husband's "actions" (though since the DA charged him, I guess they'd be "alleged crimes") they wouldn't be in this mess. But the police found no evidence of physical abuse (hey, just like Skyler White!)
Weird that she ran out the back and jumped the fence into the neighbors' yard. Most couples having an explosive but not threateningly-violent argument would walk out the front, slam the door, and drive off. Gee, I wonder if that indicated anything.
Gee golly, I guess it's both their faults. Hard to know who to blame, amirite?
posted by AlSweigart at 10:04 AM on September 5, 2018 [28 favorites]
Good to see the article minimizing the domestic abuse from the entitled, manipulative, liar in this article. Wouldn't be complete without her getting the Skyler White treatment. If only she kept quiet and went along with her husband's "actions" (though since the DA charged him, I guess they'd be "alleged crimes") they wouldn't be in this mess. But the police found no evidence of physical abuse (hey, just like Skyler White!)
Weird that she ran out the back and jumped the fence into the neighbors' yard. Most couples having an explosive but not threateningly-violent argument would walk out the front, slam the door, and drive off. Gee, I wonder if that indicated anything.
Gee golly, I guess it's both their faults. Hard to know who to blame, amirite?
posted by AlSweigart at 10:04 AM on September 5, 2018 [28 favorites]
One of those rare stories where all of the primary players appear to be awful.
Not really all that rare if you dig deep enough.
posted by Naberius at 10:07 AM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
Not really all that rare if you dig deep enough.
posted by Naberius at 10:07 AM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
His school magnanimously allowing him time to plan a getaway to another school without disclosing any of his misdeeds is unbelievably gross— “what you did is an egregious breach of ethics, but it isn’t like anyone else needs to know about it”.
And yeah, allowing some of their own graduate students to throw away their careers on this guy is ABHORRENT.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:08 AM on September 5, 2018 [16 favorites]
And yeah, allowing some of their own graduate students to throw away their careers on this guy is ABHORRENT.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 10:08 AM on September 5, 2018 [16 favorites]
Anyone calling themselves a "taxpayer and concerned citizen" is usually a huge blinking red warning light of them being an asshole.
posted by acb at 10:18 AM on September 5, 2018 [50 favorites]
posted by acb at 10:18 AM on September 5, 2018 [50 favorites]
If it's so terrible we're going to fire you immediately, it's terrible enough to let other schools know what's going on. It's either not a big deal or it is one, but the school called it a bit of both. And then they let the graduate students follow him even when it was clear it was going to all come out.
There are lots of people who want tenure track jobs, there are lots of good researchers, we don't have to keep people who fake job offers to get money. Do I think a felony conviction was necessary? No. But losing his career seems completely fair.
posted by jeather at 10:26 AM on September 5, 2018 [7 favorites]
There are lots of people who want tenure track jobs, there are lots of good researchers, we don't have to keep people who fake job offers to get money. Do I think a felony conviction was necessary? No. But losing his career seems completely fair.
posted by jeather at 10:26 AM on September 5, 2018 [7 favorites]
Man, though, the graduate students--I have to wonder how big this lab is, if seven students chose to follow him. In my experience, following students typically are those who are relatively early career, who have longer PhDs ahead of them and can make the trade of potentially redoing coursework at the new program and uprooting their lives in the first program's area for having direct supervision from the advisor. Students who only have a little more time ahead of them tend to stay.
When I have seen labs pick up and move, my experience is that approximately half the lab usually chooses to go and half chooses to stay and be coadvised by a professor remaining in the department and that the cutoff tends to happen around the third or fourth year. So the fact that he had so many students following him raises several questions for me: one, how the hell many students did he have to start with (seven students already being quite a big lab by my standards, as someone not on NIH funding), and two, how many students was the university allowing him to take on even while being censured?
posted by sciatrix at 10:28 AM on September 5, 2018 [6 favorites]
When I have seen labs pick up and move, my experience is that approximately half the lab usually chooses to go and half chooses to stay and be coadvised by a professor remaining in the department and that the cutoff tends to happen around the third or fourth year. So the fact that he had so many students following him raises several questions for me: one, how the hell many students did he have to start with (seven students already being quite a big lab by my standards, as someone not on NIH funding), and two, how many students was the university allowing him to take on even while being censured?
posted by sciatrix at 10:28 AM on September 5, 2018 [6 favorites]
Seven students at all seems like a lot overall unless your lab has tons of money and I have no idea how he negotiated a deal to take seven students with him to a new position!
Admittedly, I skimmed some but why is the wife an asshole? Because she was uncomfortable with him being unethical and fraudulent? Or was it because she was mad about him texting other women? Or because he says she was a nag about money? Or because he says she was critical?
posted by Squeak Attack at 10:41 AM on September 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
Admittedly, I skimmed some but why is the wife an asshole? Because she was uncomfortable with him being unethical and fraudulent? Or was it because she was mad about him texting other women? Or because he says she was a nag about money? Or because he says she was critical?
posted by Squeak Attack at 10:41 AM on September 5, 2018 [10 favorites]
(FTA) Brian McNaughton is still trying to make sense of how things went so wrong.
I mean, really?
The poor grad students. sciatrix, I agree, I had looked up his lab when this story first broke and I was amazed by how many students he had. That many grads doesn't seem like a foundering lab to me. Pipette tips are $12 a bag, man, like it's not ideal to pay for them out of your own pocket but every grad student I know has at some point done that. You can soak them in NaOH and rerack them. You can soak columns in NaOH and autoclave them and reuse them. Other folks in the department are guaranteed to have bottles and bottles of old chemicals they'll let you take. All of the buffers are just salts, you can mix them yourself, borrow some DEPC from someone. I mean, when I *started*, I was in a poor lab with no ongoing grants, and there were only three students, and we limped our projects along on little pilot grants that only students can apply for, until we landed a grant last year. The most expensive thing in your lab is workers' time, so if you have seven students that are somehow being supported (by TAships, probably?) then you can get stuff done.
This isn't usually the tact I take here -- I definitely think people should be paid for work, science should be well funded, having to buy stuff out of pocket is super shitty and shouldn't happen -- but it's just not like there were NO options other than "lie about my career." There were plenty of options that other researchers have taken many times.
I'll say for sure, though, that all the PhDs I know who graduated in the 2008-2010 era got supremely fucked. It was *bad.*
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 10:42 AM on September 5, 2018 [12 favorites]
I mean, really?
The poor grad students. sciatrix, I agree, I had looked up his lab when this story first broke and I was amazed by how many students he had. That many grads doesn't seem like a foundering lab to me. Pipette tips are $12 a bag, man, like it's not ideal to pay for them out of your own pocket but every grad student I know has at some point done that. You can soak them in NaOH and rerack them. You can soak columns in NaOH and autoclave them and reuse them. Other folks in the department are guaranteed to have bottles and bottles of old chemicals they'll let you take. All of the buffers are just salts, you can mix them yourself, borrow some DEPC from someone. I mean, when I *started*, I was in a poor lab with no ongoing grants, and there were only three students, and we limped our projects along on little pilot grants that only students can apply for, until we landed a grant last year. The most expensive thing in your lab is workers' time, so if you have seven students that are somehow being supported (by TAships, probably?) then you can get stuff done.
This isn't usually the tact I take here -- I definitely think people should be paid for work, science should be well funded, having to buy stuff out of pocket is super shitty and shouldn't happen -- but it's just not like there were NO options other than "lie about my career." There were plenty of options that other researchers have taken many times.
I'll say for sure, though, that all the PhDs I know who graduated in the 2008-2010 era got supremely fucked. It was *bad.*
posted by Made of Star Stuff at 10:42 AM on September 5, 2018 [12 favorites]
In a larger context, of course, this is about the class position of research faculty - the way that they're expected to be (or seem) basically upper middle class while being hugely dependent on how the funding dice roll.
This was something that struck me with this story. Not that he "deserves" more money or that what he did wasn't completely shitty, but like, I thought these were the sorts of fields that were supposed to be reasonably well-compensated compared to stuff like liberal arts, and like, all of this he went through just to acquire:
posted by Sequence at 10:44 AM on September 5, 2018 [11 favorites]
This was something that struck me with this story. Not that he "deserves" more money or that what he did wasn't completely shitty, but like, I thought these were the sorts of fields that were supposed to be reasonably well-compensated compared to stuff like liberal arts, and like, all of this he went through just to acquire:
A $5,000 raise brought his salary to just above $83,000. He secured new equipment for his lab, money to hire a postdoc, and a promise to remodel space in the chemistry building as a lounge for his graduate students.That's it. All of this to get... that. I am guessing the "remodel" in this case meant that they'd maybe remove buy a couple sofas and a Keurig and a microwave to shove into an unused space, not a million-dollar renovation, from what I've seen of such lounges, but even if it was better than that, a graduate student lounge is not exactly what I expected him to be holding out for.
posted by Sequence at 10:44 AM on September 5, 2018 [11 favorites]
What a bunch of horrible money-grubbing jerks. He made 83K, wife is a Nurse Anesthetist; they make a lot of money, but they wanted more. Yech.
posted by theora55 at 10:45 AM on September 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by theora55 at 10:45 AM on September 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
Well, if McNaughton had sold himself as a successful scientist who could gain that level of support (up to and including a fraudulent letter backing up that claim), and if the university kept it under wraps that he was being investigated (which, presumably, they did, since they didn't inform his new employer either), then it isn't surprising that those grad students would think of him as a good bet. Nobody told anyone otherwise.
I think there's an element of universal justice in that McNaughton seems to have picked up a stalker with a personality exactly like his own. Acts like they're pursuing the redressing of some sort of injustice instead of just being a demanding, unethical jerk, causes enormous damage to others in pursuit of seemingly minor objective gains, driven by their own ego and sense of personal superiority.
posted by Autumnheart at 10:48 AM on September 5, 2018
I think there's an element of universal justice in that McNaughton seems to have picked up a stalker with a personality exactly like his own. Acts like they're pursuing the redressing of some sort of injustice instead of just being a demanding, unethical jerk, causes enormous damage to others in pursuit of seemingly minor objective gains, driven by their own ego and sense of personal superiority.
posted by Autumnheart at 10:48 AM on September 5, 2018
why is the wife an asshole? Because she was uncomfortable with him being unethical and fraudulent?
Because she seems to be conducting an all-out vendetta against this guy for purely personal reasons. I mean, what he did was absolutely unethical and a crime, but not it's not exactly the work of a supervillain, not exactly designed to obscenely enrich him by trampling the less fortunate underfoot, etc.
I would argue that going beyond exposing his crime to the university by hiring private investigators, writing emails under fake personas, and setting up fake twitter profiles to publicize this guy's misdeeds is, on balance, worse than his original fraud. The motives are worse (wanting a raise and funding for your lab is, imo, less bad than wanting revenge against an ex spouse) and the has zero redeeming real life consequences (the funding for his lab likely came from resources reallocated from overblown administrative/fancy atheletic facility frills which is actually a net PLUS, but going beyond making him lose his job to ruining his career for life is a bit much).
The difference between the two isn't a huge one, mind. I'm just saying, personal vendettas are worse than ambitious scientists.
posted by MiraK at 11:05 AM on September 5, 2018 [6 favorites]
Because she seems to be conducting an all-out vendetta against this guy for purely personal reasons. I mean, what he did was absolutely unethical and a crime, but not it's not exactly the work of a supervillain, not exactly designed to obscenely enrich him by trampling the less fortunate underfoot, etc.
I would argue that going beyond exposing his crime to the university by hiring private investigators, writing emails under fake personas, and setting up fake twitter profiles to publicize this guy's misdeeds is, on balance, worse than his original fraud. The motives are worse (wanting a raise and funding for your lab is, imo, less bad than wanting revenge against an ex spouse) and the has zero redeeming real life consequences (the funding for his lab likely came from resources reallocated from overblown administrative/fancy atheletic facility frills which is actually a net PLUS, but going beyond making him lose his job to ruining his career for life is a bit much).
The difference between the two isn't a huge one, mind. I'm just saying, personal vendettas are worse than ambitious scientists.
posted by MiraK at 11:05 AM on September 5, 2018 [6 favorites]
What I'm confused by: why didn't he just apply for other jobs for real, get a real offer and then present that to his current university? That's an above-board tactic that can work. You do have to plan it out over a longer period, of course.
posted by jb at 11:17 AM on September 5, 2018
posted by jb at 11:17 AM on September 5, 2018
What I'm confused by: why didn't he just apply for other jobs for real, get a real offer and then present that to his current university?
posted by Etrigan at 11:21 AM on September 5, 2018 [6 favorites]
The chair of Michigan’s chemistry department declined to discuss the matter in any detail but told The Chronicle in an email that McNaughton had interviewed for a position and “did not receive an offer.”Sounds like he was trying that too, but it wasn't working out for him.
posted by Etrigan at 11:21 AM on September 5, 2018 [6 favorites]
(the funding for his lab likely came from resources reallocated from overblown administrative/fancy atheletic facility frills which is actually a net PLUS, but going beyond making him lose his job to ruining his career for life is a bit much).
This probably isn't the case - I'm actually professionally familiar with bridge funding allocations at a public university, and the money comes from a fixed pool of departmental or unit non-sponsored and non-earmarked money which is allocated to the unit or department by the university itself. It can't just be moved over from the football budget to the chemistry department. To move it from unit or department administrative funds means cutting things that often will be hard to do without - in my experience, there's actually relatively little that isn't already earmarked for real, unavoidable expenses. Some of those may be inflated (gotta pay the assistant vice dean, etc) but a lot of them are "we have X number of faculty and staff whose fringe and salary we have to pay at the civil service, academic or union scale". I've never been in a unit which really had a lot of non-sponsored discretionary funds.
Also, the only people who could conceivably make the "allocate money from football to science" decisions would be at the absolutely highest administrative level of the university, not the department chair. A chair would get laughed out of the room proposing something like that.
In terms of bridging costs: It's expensive. Let's assume that you have no scientific staff and that none of your grad students were supported at all on your grant. You still need to come up with the PI effort that was paid on the grant, and that's going to be a minimum of 5% plus fringe, so at least $6000 right there. Plus lab supplies and and other research costs. Most people will have staff to support, or 10% effort on the grant, or some required contribution to grad student pay, and at that point you're talking tens of thousands of dollars per lab.
posted by Frowner at 11:47 AM on September 5, 2018 [17 favorites]
This probably isn't the case - I'm actually professionally familiar with bridge funding allocations at a public university, and the money comes from a fixed pool of departmental or unit non-sponsored and non-earmarked money which is allocated to the unit or department by the university itself. It can't just be moved over from the football budget to the chemistry department. To move it from unit or department administrative funds means cutting things that often will be hard to do without - in my experience, there's actually relatively little that isn't already earmarked for real, unavoidable expenses. Some of those may be inflated (gotta pay the assistant vice dean, etc) but a lot of them are "we have X number of faculty and staff whose fringe and salary we have to pay at the civil service, academic or union scale". I've never been in a unit which really had a lot of non-sponsored discretionary funds.
Also, the only people who could conceivably make the "allocate money from football to science" decisions would be at the absolutely highest administrative level of the university, not the department chair. A chair would get laughed out of the room proposing something like that.
In terms of bridging costs: It's expensive. Let's assume that you have no scientific staff and that none of your grad students were supported at all on your grant. You still need to come up with the PI effort that was paid on the grant, and that's going to be a minimum of 5% plus fringe, so at least $6000 right there. Plus lab supplies and and other research costs. Most people will have staff to support, or 10% effort on the grant, or some required contribution to grad student pay, and at that point you're talking tens of thousands of dollars per lab.
posted by Frowner at 11:47 AM on September 5, 2018 [17 favorites]
While we can skip the "he did nothing wrong" phase and go straight to "he did something wrong, but it wasn't that bad" phase, I'd like to note that the DA charged him with fraud. He's derailed the careers of his grad students. He's made any troubles in his marriage worse. It is bad and this is all his fault.
Do you want to know why manipulative, entitled, egotistical liars are able to get into positions of power? Because we give them the benefit of the doubt. Because we talk about how hard their job is, how troubled their marriage is, and we write sympathetic, fall-from-grace think pieces that feature large photos of them giving sad puppy dog looks. Because we don't hold them accountable beyond wrist slaps.
I'm going to tell everyone in this comments section the same thing I tell Trump supporters: "I don't know what to say, it's obvious to me. When someone shows you who they are, you should believe them."
posted by AlSweigart at 11:58 AM on September 5, 2018 [31 favorites]
Do you want to know why manipulative, entitled, egotistical liars are able to get into positions of power? Because we give them the benefit of the doubt. Because we talk about how hard their job is, how troubled their marriage is, and we write sympathetic, fall-from-grace think pieces that feature large photos of them giving sad puppy dog looks. Because we don't hold them accountable beyond wrist slaps.
I'm going to tell everyone in this comments section the same thing I tell Trump supporters: "I don't know what to say, it's obvious to me. When someone shows you who they are, you should believe them."
posted by AlSweigart at 11:58 AM on September 5, 2018 [31 favorites]
When the subject of his fake letter comes up, McNaughton appears exhausted and frustrated. He doesn’t want to talk about why he did what he did. He keeps repeating that there’s no justification for what was clearly a major breach of ethics. ... But over the course of seven hours of conversation, a few glasses of cabernet and a Yuengling, McNaughton unspools a larger story...
"Every journalist who is not too stupid or full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse." - Janet Malcolm
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:07 PM on September 5, 2018 [5 favorites]
"Every journalist who is not too stupid or full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse." - Janet Malcolm
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:07 PM on September 5, 2018 [5 favorites]
I feel bad for his students, because I'd be amazed if they knew about any of this - which is (presumably) why they were willing to follow him to Delaware.
I did a bit of digging, and he was carrying a R01 starting in 2014. RePORTER says it was about $280k/year in direct costs, which is pretty normal for a R01. I can imagine wanting more grant support (I've never met a PI who didn't want more money to throw at research problems), but he wasn't hurting. It's still listed as a live grant, with funding disbursed for 2018-19 back in March.
I don't quite know how NIH will view this kind of fraud between a PI and their university, but there's a very real chance he'll pick up a funding ban for a period of several years. Certainly, if he's convicted, the ban is inevitable (usually 2-5 years; occasionally as long as 10, if memory serves). NIH has a lot of discretion here, and they might take a really dim view of this, particularly given the funding rates for R01s (< 10%).
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 12:23 PM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
I did a bit of digging, and he was carrying a R01 starting in 2014. RePORTER says it was about $280k/year in direct costs, which is pretty normal for a R01. I can imagine wanting more grant support (I've never met a PI who didn't want more money to throw at research problems), but he wasn't hurting. It's still listed as a live grant, with funding disbursed for 2018-19 back in March.
I don't quite know how NIH will view this kind of fraud between a PI and their university, but there's a very real chance he'll pick up a funding ban for a period of several years. Certainly, if he's convicted, the ban is inevitable (usually 2-5 years; occasionally as long as 10, if memory serves). NIH has a lot of discretion here, and they might take a really dim view of this, particularly given the funding rates for R01s (< 10%).
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 12:23 PM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
In fact, it's weirder than I thought... the grant got shifted to a different primary investigator for 2018-19 (so, presumably, after all of this blew up). So, the research is still live, but this person is no longer attached to it.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 12:25 PM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 12:25 PM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
> I thought these were the sorts of fields that were supposed to be reasonably well-compensated compared to stuff like liberal arts
The sad thing is, they are* - at Colorado State, faculty salaries in the natural sciences were about $20,000 greater than salaries for faculty in the liberal arts with the same rank as of 2016 - 2017 (see p. 12).
*for certain values of "reasonably well-compensated," and with the enormous caveat that grants affect funding in the sciences much differently than the liberal arts
posted by Anita Bath at 12:27 PM on September 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
The sad thing is, they are* - at Colorado State, faculty salaries in the natural sciences were about $20,000 greater than salaries for faculty in the liberal arts with the same rank as of 2016 - 2017 (see p. 12).
*for certain values of "reasonably well-compensated," and with the enormous caveat that grants affect funding in the sciences much differently than the liberal arts
posted by Anita Bath at 12:27 PM on September 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
His school magnanimously allowing him time to plan a getaway to another school without disclosing any of his misdeeds is unbelievably gross— “what you did is an egregious breach of ethics, but it isn’t like anyone else needs to know about it”.
Yeah, they didn't want everybody to know they'd been suckered. Nobody wants to look like an easy mark.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:28 PM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
Yeah, they didn't want everybody to know they'd been suckered. Nobody wants to look like an easy mark.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:28 PM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
My lab is totally shut down,” he wrote to the dean. “We are out of pipette tips and cannot sequence DNA we make —
I thought this was from the extended version of 'Prometheus.'
posted by clavdivs at 12:30 PM on September 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
I thought this was from the extended version of 'Prometheus.'
posted by clavdivs at 12:30 PM on September 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
The fake letter is bad, and leading one's graduate students off a cliff is evil, but I have no problem in theory with a worker manipulating their employer into offering them better compensation. If they really thought he was asking for more than he was worth, they'd have let the other university have him. The idea that he's cheating other employees, taking too big a slice, is very troubling to me. He's not the source of the scarcity, which simply shouldn't exist in a place like the US. I refuse to oppose that aspect of what he did.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 12:48 PM on September 5, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 12:48 PM on September 5, 2018 [9 favorites]
He's not the source of the scarcity, but the scarcity none the less exists. He's a white straight man so he's already advantaged. I just don't feel that you're really sticking it to capitalism when you have a big slice of the pie and then lie to get even more, de facto at the expense of other marginalized people, and de facto without the scrutiny to which they'd be subjected. For one thing, it's not solidarity - if he wants a bigger pie, he can work on organizing the faculty.
posted by Frowner at 1:32 PM on September 5, 2018 [16 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 1:32 PM on September 5, 2018 [16 favorites]
(I can't see any other reason she'd care so much about him making more than her unless she's just sexist)
But McNaughton was the one who told people that she fought with him because she didn't want to work right? Why would we trust him on this point, when she's likely a victim of domestic violence?
posted by vespertinism at 1:41 PM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
But McNaughton was the one who told people that she fought with him because she didn't want to work right? Why would we trust him on this point, when she's likely a victim of domestic violence?
posted by vespertinism at 1:41 PM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
You don't lie. You never lie. A colleague told me don't lie even so much as claiming on your CV membership in a society when your dues aren't paid up, because it will bite you in the ass. This is a big lie, and I am not shocked it bit this dude hard.
UMN is the prime academic affiliate of my employer. I receive letters on letterhead from UMN folks all the time. I really, truly WISH that they would google "UMN letterhead" first because the crap I get sent is atrocious and obviously mostly invented by the person sending it. This guy's faked letterhead actually looks spot on.
On the other hand, I know who they are and know they have real faculty appointments at UMN. (Heck, I even have a faculty appointment there, albeit unpaid). So crap letterhead or not I trust them.
posted by caution live frogs at 1:53 PM on September 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
UMN is the prime academic affiliate of my employer. I receive letters on letterhead from UMN folks all the time. I really, truly WISH that they would google "UMN letterhead" first because the crap I get sent is atrocious and obviously mostly invented by the person sending it. This guy's faked letterhead actually looks spot on.
On the other hand, I know who they are and know they have real faculty appointments at UMN. (Heck, I even have a faculty appointment there, albeit unpaid). So crap letterhead or not I trust them.
posted by caution live frogs at 1:53 PM on September 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
"he did something wrong, but it wasn't that bad"
If you steal $5 worth of candy from a corner store you go to jail.
If you get $5000 from a university by identity theft you lose your job.
If you commit $5000000 worth of tax fraud you might get to give a TED talk.
Class matters.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 1:53 PM on September 5, 2018 [8 favorites]
If you steal $5 worth of candy from a corner store you go to jail.
If you get $5000 from a university by identity theft you lose your job.
If you commit $5000000 worth of tax fraud you might get to give a TED talk.
Class matters.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 1:53 PM on September 5, 2018 [8 favorites]
"(I can't see any other reason she'd care so much about him making more than her unless she's just sexist)
But McNaughton was the one who told people that she fought with him because she didn't want to work right? Why would we trust him on this point, when she's likely a victim of domestic violence?"
I mean, neither of them are especially trustworthy individuals, but I don't recall her being abused in this story, if she was, the writer did poorly in failing to convey that information. She seemed to feel safe enough to openly threaten him with the job thing in a way that didn't seem like she feared violent retribution.
"You don't lie. You never lie. A colleague told me don't lie even so much as claiming on your CV membership in a society when your dues aren't paid up, because it will bite you in the ass. This is a big lie, and I am not shocked it bit this dude hard."
I think this is heavily dependent on where you're going for a job. Most places I've ever worked don't check up on anything really, and putting a friend down as your job reference or whatever is common. I wish I hadn't bothered getting a degree and just said I had one the few times it ever came up. Dates for jobs, various clubs you're the president of and all that though are fair game to fudge. Plus resumes and CVs and job applications practically beg you to get creative with your lies and self description.
posted by GoblinHoney at 2:26 PM on September 5, 2018
But McNaughton was the one who told people that she fought with him because she didn't want to work right? Why would we trust him on this point, when she's likely a victim of domestic violence?"
I mean, neither of them are especially trustworthy individuals, but I don't recall her being abused in this story, if she was, the writer did poorly in failing to convey that information. She seemed to feel safe enough to openly threaten him with the job thing in a way that didn't seem like she feared violent retribution.
"You don't lie. You never lie. A colleague told me don't lie even so much as claiming on your CV membership in a society when your dues aren't paid up, because it will bite you in the ass. This is a big lie, and I am not shocked it bit this dude hard."
I think this is heavily dependent on where you're going for a job. Most places I've ever worked don't check up on anything really, and putting a friend down as your job reference or whatever is common. I wish I hadn't bothered getting a degree and just said I had one the few times it ever came up. Dates for jobs, various clubs you're the president of and all that though are fair game to fudge. Plus resumes and CVs and job applications practically beg you to get creative with your lies and self description.
posted by GoblinHoney at 2:26 PM on September 5, 2018
She fled screaming through the back door in the night- police were regularly called to their house... I mean the article says “no evidence of abuse” but I mean, how often are men investigated by police, come up clean, and it all comes out three years later when he finally kills her. This reads as textbook abuse to me.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 2:33 PM on September 5, 2018 [14 favorites]
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 2:33 PM on September 5, 2018 [14 favorites]
To me the wife read very clearly as being abused and cheated on by this manipulative, lying, selfish asshole, and hired the gumshoe because she thought that would help her out in the divorce proceedings. Maybe she did it to prove he was cheating and misbehaving at work and thus wring more money out of him - or maybe she wanted to prove he was dishonest so he wouldn't get custody or unsupervised visitation.
I have a lot of sympathy for people trying to protect their kids from assholes.
posted by bagel at 3:01 PM on September 5, 2018 [6 favorites]
I have a lot of sympathy for people trying to protect their kids from assholes.
posted by bagel at 3:01 PM on September 5, 2018 [6 favorites]
I would argue that going beyond exposing his crime to the university by hiring private investigators, writing emails under fake personas, and setting up fake twitter profiles to publicize this guy's misdeeds is, on balance, worse than his original fraud. The motives are worse (wanting a raise and funding for your lab is, imo, less bad than wanting revenge against an ex spouse) and the has zero redeeming real life consequences (the funding for his lab likely came from resources reallocated from overblown administrative/fancy atheletic facility frills which is actually a net PLUS, but going beyond making him lose his job to ruining his career for life is a bit much).
Really? I mean, really? I'm gobsmacked by people defending McNaughton here. What he did was fraud! Who gives a fuck about his wife's intentions and whether of not she wanted revenge? Poor McNaughton, he had his life ruined! And his wife is such a vengeful harpy, it sure doesn't matter that her life was ruined by this abusive dickwad! And then this part:
The real problem is that CSU was perfectly happy to hide this from public view until it became public.
posted by medusa at 3:13 PM on September 5, 2018 [15 favorites]
Really? I mean, really? I'm gobsmacked by people defending McNaughton here. What he did was fraud! Who gives a fuck about his wife's intentions and whether of not she wanted revenge? Poor McNaughton, he had his life ruined! And his wife is such a vengeful harpy, it sure doesn't matter that her life was ruined by this abusive dickwad! And then this part:
He perceived a series of slights and, then, a larger pattern of unfairness. In his third year on the job, McNaughton’s frustration escalated when he was denied teaching relief after the birth of his first child — an accommodation that he said had been extended to a colleague not long before.McNaughton is an abusive misogynist who loses his shit whenever a woman dares to disagree with him. He committed fraud and absolutely deserved to lose his career. Science is built on trust: there is no way anyone should trust any of this work after this. I don't see how the sympathy for him can be explained other than by white male privilege.
McNaughton trained much of his anger on Ellen R. Fisher, who was chair of the chemistry department when he was hired at Colorado State. He told his dean that Fisher was a bully who played favorites among faculty members.
“I have been amazed to see the ease with which Ellen demeans and demoralizes my colleagues,” McNaughton wrote in an email to Janice L. Nerger, dean of the College of Natural Sciences.
The real problem is that CSU was perfectly happy to hide this from public view until it became public.
posted by medusa at 3:13 PM on September 5, 2018 [15 favorites]
I think there's an element of universal justice in that McNaughton seems to have picked up a stalker with a personality exactly like his own.Now you have me thinking he's internet-stalking himself. If the story gets weirder, he'll be able to sell the movie rights for a bundle.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 3:19 PM on September 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's clear to me that someone with an axe to grind, (probably his wife or her lawyer), hired Strunk, because, a 5k salary bump as "public corruption" and "taxpayer and concerned citizen"? Really?
He got more than 5k. He also pushed himself into tenure early based on the offer, and that is a significant pay raise, plus it gives a lot of other benefits. The fact that he was unhappy about not having tenure at year 5 seems a bit odd at least from someone in the humanities. Usually you come up in your 6th year, but can come up a year before or even earlier if you're coming from somewhere else either as an assistant or associate.
Plus, moving up this much in terms of school ranking would have given this a multi-year benefit; I think we have someone who has been using the same job offer from a higher ranked school as a threat for a few years, because it's evidence that they are desirable enough to be poached, and their point is that that hasn't ended.
The most awful part of this to me, the most revolting selfish part, is where he not only dragged himself under, he also managed to drag the 7 graduate students, whose funding was tied to his new job under with him. That is horrific and shocking and I hope this person never has any supervisory responsibilities ever again.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 3:46 PM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
He got more than 5k. He also pushed himself into tenure early based on the offer, and that is a significant pay raise, plus it gives a lot of other benefits. The fact that he was unhappy about not having tenure at year 5 seems a bit odd at least from someone in the humanities. Usually you come up in your 6th year, but can come up a year before or even earlier if you're coming from somewhere else either as an assistant or associate.
Plus, moving up this much in terms of school ranking would have given this a multi-year benefit; I think we have someone who has been using the same job offer from a higher ranked school as a threat for a few years, because it's evidence that they are desirable enough to be poached, and their point is that that hasn't ended.
The most awful part of this to me, the most revolting selfish part, is where he not only dragged himself under, he also managed to drag the 7 graduate students, whose funding was tied to his new job under with him. That is horrific and shocking and I hope this person never has any supervisory responsibilities ever again.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 3:46 PM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
"What he did was fraud! "
I think you laid out some very good reasons to dislike this person, but this isn't one of them. Fraud isn't in and of itself a damnable action in the same way other things are. I can tolerate a friend committing fraud, I cannot do the same with a friend domestically abusing their partner (or worse 2 friends abusing one another).
This article did a real disservice by downplaying abuse, that massively impacts how I view events.
posted by GoblinHoney at 4:00 PM on September 5, 2018
I think you laid out some very good reasons to dislike this person, but this isn't one of them. Fraud isn't in and of itself a damnable action in the same way other things are. I can tolerate a friend committing fraud, I cannot do the same with a friend domestically abusing their partner (or worse 2 friends abusing one another).
This article did a real disservice by downplaying abuse, that massively impacts how I view events.
posted by GoblinHoney at 4:00 PM on September 5, 2018
If the university only had money to tenure one professor that year and maybe they only have that money every so many years- his fraud was a fairly damnable action in that it took opportunity away from someone who objectively needed it more.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 4:23 PM on September 5, 2018
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 4:23 PM on September 5, 2018
I think that the general public doesn't fully understand how academic salaries work. Here's my summary...
In a given set of years, most of the top departments, more or less, offer similar base salaries and varying extras to new assistant professors (those coming out of PhD programs and postdocs specifically). In the 8 years since I've been out, that negotiated salary has increased in my field from the high 60s to the mid 70s.
Salary is important because all sorts of other stuff is tied to it - retirement benefits, calculation of fellowship pay, summer salary, and it will be the basis for your salary for the rest of your career. So it is worth negotiating for. General advice for people is to ask for 10k more than they were offered.
But salary is also visible if you're at a public university. And compression is a huge issue. A new assistant professor makes more than some tenured folks and this can be uncomfortable. Also sometimes tax payers complain about faculty salaries.
So chairs sweeten deals with additional benefits. These are good but don't calculate into base salary. Typical benefits are travel and research funds. These can be tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. These sometimes don't have a lot of oversight. So it isn't unusual for 2 iPads to be purchased for a lab but one of those iPads is in the hands of the faculty member's toddler. Another common benefit are teaching reductions and summer funds. So even though these aren't as useful as salary, they do allow everyone to get more money without the visibility of salary.
So, over the years, there are occasional cost of living and merit raises of 1-4% a year. In less than a decade, these added up for me to nearly 10%.
Then, for most people, tenure comes with a 7-13% raise.
But, the basis of this story, is the retention offer. These are incredibly common. Some departments, more or less, force people to try to get a competing offer, as this is one of few ways to get a major raise. How this works is that a faculty member, often 2 years before they are up for tenure, goes on the academic job market. They're still eligible for the assistant professor jobs (although this happens at higher levels too) and are attractive candidates. If a department has money, they can offer someone like this about 5-10k/year more than what they'd offer someone straight out of a PhD but this person is more of a sure thing. They have 5 years of experience teaching, they have more publications, the certainty of them getting tenure is easier to predict, etc. But they're taking a gamble because it is so common that people only do this for the retention offer and don't really want to move.
So that person gets a job offer from another place that is certainly a higher salary than what they are currently getting. They then go back to their department and tell the chair that they have an offer and "I'd love to stay here cuz I loooove you all but Other U is giving me something I can't refuse" and chair goes to Dean, and Dean says, KEEP HER! And they typically offer to match the salary from other U and throw in some additional incentives.
Sometimes people tell their chair before they fly out to an interview and the chair/dean will try to prevent the interview by offering something. But in general, there is no power like having an offer in hand.
Again, this is incredibly common and important to do in order to increase one's salary. And there are far more assistant professor listings than anything else, so it is most often done at that stage.
However, at the more tenured levels, there is also a lot of poaching and retention offers because departments may try to hire more senior folks to raise their profile or to fill an administrative role.
I know this is weird. It is also a lot of work. And there are a lot of ethical issues within it - like I am uncomfortable with people going on the job market and interviewing at places they'd never move to.
posted by k8t at 4:33 PM on September 5, 2018 [14 favorites]
In a given set of years, most of the top departments, more or less, offer similar base salaries and varying extras to new assistant professors (those coming out of PhD programs and postdocs specifically). In the 8 years since I've been out, that negotiated salary has increased in my field from the high 60s to the mid 70s.
Salary is important because all sorts of other stuff is tied to it - retirement benefits, calculation of fellowship pay, summer salary, and it will be the basis for your salary for the rest of your career. So it is worth negotiating for. General advice for people is to ask for 10k more than they were offered.
But salary is also visible if you're at a public university. And compression is a huge issue. A new assistant professor makes more than some tenured folks and this can be uncomfortable. Also sometimes tax payers complain about faculty salaries.
So chairs sweeten deals with additional benefits. These are good but don't calculate into base salary. Typical benefits are travel and research funds. These can be tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. These sometimes don't have a lot of oversight. So it isn't unusual for 2 iPads to be purchased for a lab but one of those iPads is in the hands of the faculty member's toddler. Another common benefit are teaching reductions and summer funds. So even though these aren't as useful as salary, they do allow everyone to get more money without the visibility of salary.
So, over the years, there are occasional cost of living and merit raises of 1-4% a year. In less than a decade, these added up for me to nearly 10%.
Then, for most people, tenure comes with a 7-13% raise.
But, the basis of this story, is the retention offer. These are incredibly common. Some departments, more or less, force people to try to get a competing offer, as this is one of few ways to get a major raise. How this works is that a faculty member, often 2 years before they are up for tenure, goes on the academic job market. They're still eligible for the assistant professor jobs (although this happens at higher levels too) and are attractive candidates. If a department has money, they can offer someone like this about 5-10k/year more than what they'd offer someone straight out of a PhD but this person is more of a sure thing. They have 5 years of experience teaching, they have more publications, the certainty of them getting tenure is easier to predict, etc. But they're taking a gamble because it is so common that people only do this for the retention offer and don't really want to move.
So that person gets a job offer from another place that is certainly a higher salary than what they are currently getting. They then go back to their department and tell the chair that they have an offer and "I'd love to stay here cuz I loooove you all but Other U is giving me something I can't refuse" and chair goes to Dean, and Dean says, KEEP HER! And they typically offer to match the salary from other U and throw in some additional incentives.
Sometimes people tell their chair before they fly out to an interview and the chair/dean will try to prevent the interview by offering something. But in general, there is no power like having an offer in hand.
Again, this is incredibly common and important to do in order to increase one's salary. And there are far more assistant professor listings than anything else, so it is most often done at that stage.
However, at the more tenured levels, there is also a lot of poaching and retention offers because departments may try to hire more senior folks to raise their profile or to fill an administrative role.
I know this is weird. It is also a lot of work. And there are a lot of ethical issues within it - like I am uncomfortable with people going on the job market and interviewing at places they'd never move to.
posted by k8t at 4:33 PM on September 5, 2018 [14 favorites]
That's not how tenure and salary bumps work at universities (replying to previous-1 comment)
posted by lalochezia at 4:34 PM on September 5, 2018
posted by lalochezia at 4:34 PM on September 5, 2018
@Homo neanderthalensis that's not how it works.
posted by k8t at 4:36 PM on September 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by k8t at 4:36 PM on September 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
if They gave him x amount of monies he didn’t really earn that is x amount of monies they are not going to give to another professor that year. Total mea culpa about tenure lol.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 4:42 PM on September 5, 2018
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 4:42 PM on September 5, 2018
they gave him x amount of monies he didn’t really earn that is x amount of monies they are not going to give to another professor that year.
nope. retention funds can come from a different account than standard/performance based raises.
posted by lalochezia at 4:50 PM on September 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
nope. retention funds can come from a different account than standard/performance based raises.
posted by lalochezia at 4:50 PM on September 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
You know that meme with the woman looking really confused while math floats around her head? Yeah.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 4:57 PM on September 5, 2018
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 4:57 PM on September 5, 2018
So chairs sweeten deals with additional benefits. These are good but don't calculate into base salary. Typical benefits are travel and research funds. These can be tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. These sometimes don't have a lot of oversight. So it isn't unusual for 2 iPads to be purchased for a lab but one of those iPads is in the hands of the faculty member's toddler. Another common benefit are teaching reductions and summer funds. So even though these aren't as useful as salary, they do allow everyone to get more money without the visibility of salary.
For the record, this varies enormously by unit and institution. For instance, I handled the purchase of computers on discretionary funds for several programs and let me tell you, those purchases were sharply restricted and heavily scrutinized, and IT would come around every couple of years to audit the devices - no one was buying iPads for their children on university money. And over the course of multiple research-adjacent jobs, I've never known anyone to get more than a few thousand dollars in recurring travel funds. (You need to budget about $1000/meeting per person minimum, because that has to include registration, per diem, flight and hotel, and while there are certainly dubious meetings that are all "let's go to Vegas for a poster session!!!", you need to attend at least some of the significant meetings in your field.
posted by Frowner at 5:04 PM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
For the record, this varies enormously by unit and institution. For instance, I handled the purchase of computers on discretionary funds for several programs and let me tell you, those purchases were sharply restricted and heavily scrutinized, and IT would come around every couple of years to audit the devices - no one was buying iPads for their children on university money. And over the course of multiple research-adjacent jobs, I've never known anyone to get more than a few thousand dollars in recurring travel funds. (You need to budget about $1000/meeting per person minimum, because that has to include registration, per diem, flight and hotel, and while there are certainly dubious meetings that are all "let's go to Vegas for a poster session!!!", you need to attend at least some of the significant meetings in your field.
posted by Frowner at 5:04 PM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
They gave him x amount of monies he didn’t really earn
I'm sorry but the idea that having another job offer is earning career progress and pretending to have another job offer is cheating your colleagues and society is the trail I just can't follow. Apart from the act of forgery, it's not comparable to faking credentials, which is pretending to have accomplished specific things. It's not pretending to be more than you are, it's pretending to be seen to be more than you are seen to be (as well as to have been luckier than you are). It's exploiting the employer's inability to rely on its own judgment when parcelling out its artificially scarce resources, and that deserves to be exploited.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 5:09 PM on September 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
I'm sorry but the idea that having another job offer is earning career progress and pretending to have another job offer is cheating your colleagues and society is the trail I just can't follow. Apart from the act of forgery, it's not comparable to faking credentials, which is pretending to have accomplished specific things. It's not pretending to be more than you are, it's pretending to be seen to be more than you are seen to be (as well as to have been luckier than you are). It's exploiting the employer's inability to rely on its own judgment when parcelling out its artificially scarce resources, and that deserves to be exploited.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 5:09 PM on September 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
Look, I do not care if resources are "artificially" scarce. Here is a situation that actually happened, with some details changed: We had a grad student from [a country which fell abruptly into civil war]. This student had been on a grant from their home government, which had ceased to exist. No grant, no tuition; no tuition, no enrollment; no enrollment, no visa; no visa and it's back home with you and the child who came with you. "Oh, just give them a scholarship" right?
Well, there's not a lot of emergency mid-year graduate fellowship funding around, actually. You know what pot of money we had to pay for this scholarship? The exact same pot we had to bridge faculty and staff when grants ran dry - the pot that everyone was fighting over because times had abruptly gotten much harder. We could not ask the football team for money. We could not decide that the Dean was going to get paid $25,000 less that semester. We had one pot of discretionary funds, and if that was gone we were done.
The university may create artificial scarcity, but the department still has scarce resources. If some trash person who was already making plenty of money had hoovered up all the discretionary funding for a retention offer obtained on phony premises, the student would have been unable to finish their program and would have returned, with their child, to a country in the throes of civil war. The university does not answer to the department. If the university says, "here, you get X in discretionary funding this fiscal year", that's what the unit has.
Let's say that the boss has provided dinner because we all have to work late. There are a bunch of us, and only a couple of pizzas. Should I grab half a pizza for myself and tell everyone else, "well, too bad, the boss is the one creating the artificial scarcity", or is that an asshole move? Or hey, what if my friend asks me for fifty bucks to make rent? I have a good job because I have a college degree and my friend has precarious employment because they do not. Should I say, "no, too bad, capitalism creates artificial scarcity, it's the boss's fault that you can't make rent, not mine" while I order sushi?
posted by Frowner at 5:21 PM on September 5, 2018 [21 favorites]
Well, there's not a lot of emergency mid-year graduate fellowship funding around, actually. You know what pot of money we had to pay for this scholarship? The exact same pot we had to bridge faculty and staff when grants ran dry - the pot that everyone was fighting over because times had abruptly gotten much harder. We could not ask the football team for money. We could not decide that the Dean was going to get paid $25,000 less that semester. We had one pot of discretionary funds, and if that was gone we were done.
The university may create artificial scarcity, but the department still has scarce resources. If some trash person who was already making plenty of money had hoovered up all the discretionary funding for a retention offer obtained on phony premises, the student would have been unable to finish their program and would have returned, with their child, to a country in the throes of civil war. The university does not answer to the department. If the university says, "here, you get X in discretionary funding this fiscal year", that's what the unit has.
Let's say that the boss has provided dinner because we all have to work late. There are a bunch of us, and only a couple of pizzas. Should I grab half a pizza for myself and tell everyone else, "well, too bad, the boss is the one creating the artificial scarcity", or is that an asshole move? Or hey, what if my friend asks me for fifty bucks to make rent? I have a good job because I have a college degree and my friend has precarious employment because they do not. Should I say, "no, too bad, capitalism creates artificial scarcity, it's the boss's fault that you can't make rent, not mine" while I order sushi?
posted by Frowner at 5:21 PM on September 5, 2018 [21 favorites]
For those of you inclined to be sympathetic to McNaughton let me point to two things that suggest he's an unreliable narrator (two that I haven't already seen mentioned in this thread, that is):
"McNaughton would admit no wrongdoing but would pay back to the university all of his ill-gotten gains, to the tune of $16,000. "
In order to build up sympathy for McNaughton the article repeatedly makes a big deal of how difficult his financial situation is supposed to have been. And yet, even after the divorce he had the money to pay back 16k? (I am absolutely certain that if it were a series of payments it would have been mentioned as yet another millstone around his neck).
"The terms allowed McNaughton, who is 40, to line up a job at the University of Delaware, where he would be an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry with the expectation of an expedited tenure vote."
He seems to have lined up a new job (with perks like bringing seven grads and expedited tenure) with a fair amount of alacrity. So, why exactly did he need to forge that letter? Did the Delaware job materialize at just the right moment? Or, as I suspect is more likely, had he previously turned his nose up at places like Delaware because of his belief that he was too good for the likes of them? His fraud when it was completely unnecessary is an indictment of his character all by itself. (Not that there aren't plenty of other indictments as many here have pointed out.)
posted by oddman at 5:40 PM on September 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
"McNaughton would admit no wrongdoing but would pay back to the university all of his ill-gotten gains, to the tune of $16,000. "
In order to build up sympathy for McNaughton the article repeatedly makes a big deal of how difficult his financial situation is supposed to have been. And yet, even after the divorce he had the money to pay back 16k? (I am absolutely certain that if it were a series of payments it would have been mentioned as yet another millstone around his neck).
"The terms allowed McNaughton, who is 40, to line up a job at the University of Delaware, where he would be an associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry with the expectation of an expedited tenure vote."
He seems to have lined up a new job (with perks like bringing seven grads and expedited tenure) with a fair amount of alacrity. So, why exactly did he need to forge that letter? Did the Delaware job materialize at just the right moment? Or, as I suspect is more likely, had he previously turned his nose up at places like Delaware because of his belief that he was too good for the likes of them? His fraud when it was completely unnecessary is an indictment of his character all by itself. (Not that there aren't plenty of other indictments as many here have pointed out.)
posted by oddman at 5:40 PM on September 5, 2018 [4 favorites]
To Frowner: Well, I think it would be less like you grabbing more pizza and more like your boss handing you more pizza because you made them think you had the option of working for a boss who would give you more pizza. Anyway, sure, there's a right thing for you to do in the moment. But whatever you do about the dinner or the rent, when I discuss it on metafilter I'm still probably going to focus on your boss (and their boss and so on) and/or on the economic system. Because resource allocation shouldn't depend on whether you are a nice person, and so you just really wouldn't be the real reason your colleagues/roommates didn't have everything they should.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 5:46 PM on September 5, 2018
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 5:46 PM on September 5, 2018
Well, I think it would be less like you grabbing more pizza and more like your boss handing you more pizza because you made them think you had the option of working for a boss who would give you more pizza.
Replace "boss" with "boss's boss's boss" at least here. You're often looking at a department chair who is being told by the college dean that they can't make any counteroffers above X amount this year who's getting pressure from the university president to trim the budget, who's getting pressure from the trustees who just saw their funding from the state get cut 10%...
posted by damayanti at 5:57 PM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
Replace "boss" with "boss's boss's boss" at least here. You're often looking at a department chair who is being told by the college dean that they can't make any counteroffers above X amount this year who's getting pressure from the university president to trim the budget, who's getting pressure from the trustees who just saw their funding from the state get cut 10%...
posted by damayanti at 5:57 PM on September 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
This dude was doing quite well for himself and committed fraud that he could be pretty sure would screw over his peers / their students. I have no "but he stuck it to the Man" empathy for him. Playing hardball is fine, there are ways to do that without committing fraud.
Frowner, thanks for your comments, they are spot on.
posted by momus_window at 6:02 PM on September 5, 2018 [7 favorites]
Frowner, thanks for your comments, they are spot on.
posted by momus_window at 6:02 PM on September 5, 2018 [7 favorites]
The dude doesn't matter, the level of boss doesn't matter. Universities string job candidates along for months, withdraw offers at the last minute, give late notice for everything, make people uproot themselves for nothing, and treat and pay most of their employees like shit. Nobody can stop them. They hold every card and they still don't even know who to promote unless another university gives them a hint? So much power, so much abuse, and they can't simply look at an employee they know everything about and make a decision they can stand by? The man is not a good man, he did not do the right thing, but he didn't steal the promotion and the funding, they offered it to him based on nothing. It is not just a question of whether there are adequate resources. The resources that exist are being distributed badly, based on easily manipulated feelings and impressions, and nobody's getting charged with a felony over that even though there is much more responsibility there.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 6:16 PM on September 5, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 6:16 PM on September 5, 2018 [6 favorites]
A better move would be to have the fake letter and accidentally let them see the letter with the letterhead in your inbox, but then cover it up. Don't actually claim you have an offer. Just let them think you do.
posted by M-x shell at 6:34 PM on September 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by M-x shell at 6:34 PM on September 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
I thought these were the sorts of fields that were supposed to be reasonably well-compensated compared to stuff like liberal arts
The sad thing is, they are*
I get that the point is that liberal arts profs are making less than this dude, but still.
I live in one of the most expensive regions in the country, surrounded by two of the richest counties in the country, and 83k/year still seems like pretty fucking decent money to me. $60k is slightly more than a high school teacher makes here.
This couple's combined income was more than my family makes, and I'm actually pretty familiar with Ft. Collins - it would go a lot farther there.
Totally a derail, but although academics aren't paid that well compared to lots of other people, it's still a decent salary for some (for a shitload of thankless work, but still). Now, if you want to talk about adjunct wages . . .
posted by aspersioncast at 8:41 PM on September 5, 2018 [5 favorites]
The sad thing is, they are*
I get that the point is that liberal arts profs are making less than this dude, but still.
I live in one of the most expensive regions in the country, surrounded by two of the richest counties in the country, and 83k/year still seems like pretty fucking decent money to me. $60k is slightly more than a high school teacher makes here.
This couple's combined income was more than my family makes, and I'm actually pretty familiar with Ft. Collins - it would go a lot farther there.
Totally a derail, but although academics aren't paid that well compared to lots of other people, it's still a decent salary for some (for a shitload of thankless work, but still). Now, if you want to talk about adjunct wages . . .
posted by aspersioncast at 8:41 PM on September 5, 2018 [5 favorites]
Even if there wasn't evidence suggestive of abuse, the Al Capone Effect (named after the famous convicted tax fraud, also alleged (but never proven) to be a gangster) comes into force: those who feel entitled to commit fraud (i.e., believe that they are entitled to more than the world gives them, and that they are righting a wrong against themselves) probably also feel entitled to other things. That often is cited in a context of correlation between fiddling expenses and things like sexual harrassment, though given McNaughton's somewhat larger fraud, and the rampant narcissistic sense of entitlement the article suggests behind it, it's not unlikely that he sees people around him in a purely instrumental sense and has fewer qualms about harming them.
posted by acb at 4:04 AM on September 6, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by acb at 4:04 AM on September 6, 2018 [7 favorites]
83k/year still seems like pretty fucking decent money to me
It's great money. Adjuncts are the ones being shafted by academia, not TT professors.
I can understand his stress about lab funding. Without a lab, he can't do any research - which means he would have lost that nice job (by not getting tenure). But my tiny violin doesn't even play for anyone complaining about salaries so well over the median.
posted by jb at 5:58 AM on September 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's great money. Adjuncts are the ones being shafted by academia, not TT professors.
I can understand his stress about lab funding. Without a lab, he can't do any research - which means he would have lost that nice job (by not getting tenure). But my tiny violin doesn't even play for anyone complaining about salaries so well over the median.
posted by jb at 5:58 AM on September 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm a TT professor (year two) making ~62k (which is way more money than I've ever seen) with 4k in lab startup funding. (This is working fine for me, I'm not trying to bash my job offer.) This guy's story is another reminder that his academia and my academia are two completely different worlds.
posted by pemberkins at 7:45 AM on September 6, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by pemberkins at 7:45 AM on September 6, 2018 [2 favorites]
This article did a real disservice by downplaying abuse, that massively impacts how I view events.
I don't disagree with the opinion that abuse is the more serious crime. To be fair, however, this is an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and thus the fraud on (and by?) the university is the crime that is most pertinent to their readership and most relevant to the subject matter of the publication.
In any event, fuck this guy. There may very well be inequities in the way cancer research is funded, but defrauding your employer is not the solution.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:20 AM on September 6, 2018
I don't disagree with the opinion that abuse is the more serious crime. To be fair, however, this is an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and thus the fraud on (and by?) the university is the crime that is most pertinent to their readership and most relevant to the subject matter of the publication.
In any event, fuck this guy. There may very well be inequities in the way cancer research is funded, but defrauding your employer is not the solution.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:20 AM on September 6, 2018
The thing that gets me is that the fake offer didn't really work. A 6% raise? That's not really that much above COL. Equipment? That could mean a lot of things, and I wouldn't be surprised if as a condition he was required to share it freely with anyone in the school. A postdoc? Alright. OK. But I've seen retention offers with support for multiple postdocs and multiple RAs going forward some number of years.
He risked way too much to get way too little. If the offer had been real, he would have moved.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:22 PM on September 6, 2018 [2 favorites]
He risked way too much to get way too little. If the offer had been real, he would have moved.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:22 PM on September 6, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'm mostly shocked that no one at Colorado bothered to pick up the phone and verify that Minnesota had actually made such a huge offer. If not officially, then a friend phoning a friend, which happens all the time during academic job searches.
McNaughton doesn't deserve a career, not the least for fucking over a bunch of grad students, but I do agree that it's bullshit that Colorado was happy to sit on the funding until forced. The academic job market would be that much more humane--and maybe more fair to those without a job at all--if people weren't always going on just to get a raise from their current institution.
posted by TwoStride at 6:10 AM on September 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
McNaughton doesn't deserve a career, not the least for fucking over a bunch of grad students, but I do agree that it's bullshit that Colorado was happy to sit on the funding until forced. The academic job market would be that much more humane--and maybe more fair to those without a job at all--if people weren't always going on just to get a raise from their current institution.
posted by TwoStride at 6:10 AM on September 7, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'm mostly shocked that no one at Colorado bothered to pick up the phone and verify that Minnesota had actually made such a huge offer.
There's this weird little thing that a lot of people have where, if you assume that people are lying to you (especially friends or co-workers), it speaks badly of you. Low-level con artists live in this space, many quite comfortably. McNaughton tried to do this in the article:
There's this weird little thing that a lot of people have where, if you assume that people are lying to you (especially friends or co-workers), it speaks badly of you. Low-level con artists live in this space, many quite comfortably. McNaughton tried to do this in the article:
He had been “thrown under the bus,” he said, by Colorado State administrators, who had contacted Minnesota officials rather than confronting him privately.posted by Etrigan at 8:13 AM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm mostly shocked that no one at Colorado bothered to pick up the phone and verify that Minnesota had actually made such a huge offer. If not officially, then a friend phoning a friend, which happens all the time during academic job searches.
I also found it surprising that the fraud was never revealed through casual conversations between people in the two departments. While I recognize this:
here's this weird little thing that a lot of people have where, if you assume that people are lying to you (especially friends or co-workers), it speaks badly of you.
I don't think an accidental revelation required anyone to assume a lie. Presumably he only took the offer to the chair or dean, so it's not like the whole chemistry department knew. So ok, maybe in the weeks during which negotiation took place the chair wouldn't have spoken to anyone at U of M (and the dean is probably not a chemist). But I think there were like a couple of years after that before the wife turned him in. In that time, it seems highly likely that the chair and someone from U of M would have seen each other at the annual chemistry conference or whatever and made some sort of "Nice try, but we kept him!" comment or insinuation and the U of M person would have reacted with confusion. Note that ANYONE in the chemistry department at U of M could play this role, not just the U of M chair, since a whole department would be aware of a job talk/job offer.
I've accidentally revealed to a colleague at another university that we were poaching a faculty member from them.
"Yeah, one of your grad students was doing a job talk here...Jane, something...it was on that stuff like you do, is it your student?"
"Jane? No, I don't know any grad student named Jane...and you said she does thing I do?"
"I'm pretty sure it was Jane something.."
"...There's a Jane Doe..."
"Oh yes, that sounds familiar..!"
"There's a Jane Doe who does this stuff, but she's a professor..."
"Oh ummm...maybe it wasn't Jane Doe."
Really, it happens very very easily. Academic fields are very small worlds.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:30 AM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
I also found it surprising that the fraud was never revealed through casual conversations between people in the two departments. While I recognize this:
here's this weird little thing that a lot of people have where, if you assume that people are lying to you (especially friends or co-workers), it speaks badly of you.
I don't think an accidental revelation required anyone to assume a lie. Presumably he only took the offer to the chair or dean, so it's not like the whole chemistry department knew. So ok, maybe in the weeks during which negotiation took place the chair wouldn't have spoken to anyone at U of M (and the dean is probably not a chemist). But I think there were like a couple of years after that before the wife turned him in. In that time, it seems highly likely that the chair and someone from U of M would have seen each other at the annual chemistry conference or whatever and made some sort of "Nice try, but we kept him!" comment or insinuation and the U of M person would have reacted with confusion. Note that ANYONE in the chemistry department at U of M could play this role, not just the U of M chair, since a whole department would be aware of a job talk/job offer.
I've accidentally revealed to a colleague at another university that we were poaching a faculty member from them.
"Yeah, one of your grad students was doing a job talk here...Jane, something...it was on that stuff like you do, is it your student?"
"Jane? No, I don't know any grad student named Jane...and you said she does thing I do?"
"I'm pretty sure it was Jane something.."
"...There's a Jane Doe..."
"Oh yes, that sounds familiar..!"
"There's a Jane Doe who does this stuff, but she's a professor..."
"Oh ummm...maybe it wasn't Jane Doe."
Really, it happens very very easily. Academic fields are very small worlds.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:30 AM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
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But yeah, don't create fake job offer letters, kids.
posted by scruss at 7:37 AM on September 5, 2018 [14 favorites]