Sun 15 Nov 2009
Get a Grip
Posted by David under Bernard Moore at 8:08 pm
Comment by Professor Peter Just:
I think it might be useful to review the actual facts surrounding this whole business, at least as far as we know them right now.
1. The College hired Mr. Moore in a visiting capacity; he later pled guilty to a serious white-collar crime. Apparently someone forgot to run him through the Acme Cryptofelon Detector we keep in the basement of Hopkins Hall.
2. There is anecdotal evidence Mr. Moore was a poor classroom teacher.
3. Mr. Moore seems to have good contacts in Washington, evidenced in particular by his role in organizing a visit of the Black Congressional Caucus just after the election and a similar event that had to be cancelled on account of 1).
Taken all together, this strikes me as unfortunate, but hardly the Worst Thing that has happened to the College since the Defection of 1821. Perhaps Mr. Moore’s contributions to the College were more substantial outside the classroom than in it, but this isn’t the first time a visiting instructor hasn’t panned out, nor will it be the last.
Could we all take a deep breath and get a grip?
The Defection of 1821 was led by a “Mr. Moore” as well.
I do not know if Professor Bernard Moore and President Zephaniah Swift Moore are related.
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22 Responses to “Get a Grip”
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bfleming says:
Why even have a Cryptofelon Detector if you’re not going to use it?
'12 says:
Zephaniah reincarnate!
David says:
Off topic: ‘12, you seem to be using a different Williams student’s e-mail. Can you check?
Ronit says:
It doesn’t take a cryptofelon detector to run a routine background check on a new hire.
ANONYMOUS COWARD called "Just Me" says:
——-======= ANONYMOUS, FAKED ADDRESS =======—————
It is notable that it at least appears to be the case that those for whom Williams College is a source of income are far less outraged by the Bernard Moore imbroglio than those for whom Williams College is a destination for contributions. Time will tell which group has the power to make its interpretation stick.
——-======= ANONYMOUS, FAKED ADDRESS =======—————
[Gosh, the irony of faking your email address to post to this thread. --93kwt as moderator.]
midprof says:
@JustMe, I’m not sure that’s fair. You can bet that any hard-working, fair-playing professor who values excellent instruction (count me in) is outraged and sickened by what is alleged here. However, Prof. Just has outlined the *facts* as they are known so far. Shedding more heat than light on the matter (as many contributors have) is not to be confused with the moral high ground.
frank uible says:
Be assured that the vast majority of the alums and others, who have contributed to the College, are also hard-working and fair-playing and additionally value competent management of and by the College.
PTC says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFj3OXVL_wQ
Know what I am saying!
Midprof says:
Sorry — I meant recent ‘contributors’ to the ephblog/Moore discussion — not ‘contributors’ to the College, of course.
Derek says:
Well, so much for my request for a moratorium. JustMe has made a stupid and false differentiation. I do not think anyone has actually done what “justme” says.
Please — let us let interpretation follow events, and not the other way around. Nothing about this represents Williams in any way.
dcat
JG says:
@Ronit: True but since he had a faked social, the College would have needed the cryptofelon detector to see through his super-villian disguise. How come Williams doesn’t count a superhero among its esteemed alumni!
Vicarious '83 says:
I’m pretty skeptical that a “routine” background check would have saved Williams from hiring what appears to be a pretty talented con artist. According to the Record article, Moore, using five separate aliases, got past all of the following:
USC
Univ. of Puget Sound
George Washington Univ.
Claremont State Univ.
Howard University
California DMV
Social Security Administration
Federal student aid administrators
At least 12 separate issuers of consumer credit
It appears to me that Moore is pretty good at creating aliases that stand up to what we might call standard or routine background checks. I could be wrong, but what are the routine steps that Williams should have taken to ensure that it wouldn’t wind up joining the list above?
Williams is supposed to get Form I-9 completed on all new hires, and it was required from my son for his work study job. I’d be surprised if Moore wasn’t prepared with documents that satisfy the I-9. Maybe Williams should have run a credit report (maybe it did), but why? He doesn’t handle money for the college. His “Ernest B. Moore” credit report might have raised a concern, I don’t know, but would a credit report on the name he gave Williams have directed one’s attention to the “Ernest B. Moore” report? I doubt it.
kthomas says:
@Just Me: You must attach a valid email to your posts.
kthomas says:
@JG: He had a social that matched his name and did not come back on the rejects sheet when Williams submitted it per regulation? Do we know? If so, pretty impressive trick.
kthomas says:
@Derek: If ‘justme’ would add some identifying information to his or her post, then he/she would bear responsibility for the opinion expressed. Evidently she or he does not wish to take on that burden. Evidently he/she is willing to engage in a little minor fraud to avoid that burden.
kthomas says:
midprof writes:
November 16th, 2009 at 7:24 amJG says:
@kthomas: One of the articles and the statement of facts from the DOJ mentioned that he had several socials that he used to get this student loans in a few different names. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that he used one of the socials that didn’t have a criminal record for at least Howard and Williams, and probably also Claremont. I have no idea if Williams ran a background check – even a cursory one – I was merely pointing out that such a check was unlikely to turn up anything given that he was a con man whose m.o. was to fake identities.
kthomas says:
@JG: Hmm. Thanks.
This entire story– the details of what happened, who did what, when, where, why, and how? — remain very unclear to me. It certainly strikes me that it may be a quite interesting story.
The verification procedures for a SSN check for a student loan, of course, are different from those required from an employer. (As a sometimes employer, I’m not familiar with those required of student loans). My specific question is in regards to the procedure used for submitting the SSN for employment purposes.
Quick, someone call Frank… Abignale!
kthomas says:
Hrmph. Now that I remember it– said CEO also had the office manager take my, and other employees’ info from employment files, and … used our credit to pay expenses and fund the venture. While failing to pay us.
My understanding that this is not so uncommon.
Hmm. Nice mansion he has down in Palo Alto. Are we past statute?
kthomas says:
And then there was the guy, who engaged the Actor’s Guild and the offices next to Red Herring. When potential investors were due to arrive, actors arrived beforehand to fill the desks and look busy and etc.
I thought this was a particularly brilliant to the business of startups– and so much more efficient. In the case of Tripod, you actually had to hire a staff, to do nothing which produced value other than taking other people’s money.
RealityCheck says:
Some very good points above though I respectfully disagree with Peter Just. Most of the posts have not lost their grip but are pursuing lines of inquiry that seem important.
To call the VERY specific and detailed comments by Mr. Moore’s students simply “anecdotal” is to do them a disservice. And I believe the students who say they reported their concerns to the college.
As to the effectiveness of your Acme Cryptofelon Detector – I would never trust one of those. Known to be defective.
If he had SS#’s tied to real names it would be difficult to detect. However all Williams had to do was contact Mr. Moore’s undergraduate institution to verify that he graduated and held a degree as claimed and they would have discovered that the name of the person before them did not match the name from the school. You don’t need a Acme Cryptofelon for that all you need is a telephone.
Peter Just says:
@RealityCheck: Just for the record (as it were), to call evidence “anecdotal” is not to dismiss it nor to do a disservice to its sources. “Anecdotal evidence” is a term social scientists use to characterize data for which one can’t specify the statistical significance, as one can, for example, in the case of student course surveys. From what I understand, and to no one’s surprise, the statistical data regarding student opinions of Mr. Moore’s teaching was also horrific as well as statistically significant, but I haven’t actually seen it. To call the evidence of Mr. Moore’s poor teaching that has been made available to readers of Ephblog “anecdotal” is neither to defend Mr. Moore nor to dismiss the opinions of the students who have conveyed it; it is simply to characterize the nature of the data.