DEPARTMENTAL MISREPRESENTATION
AND SLOPPY SCHOLARSHIP?
Hattiesburg�Nepotism, embellished resumes, vendetta firings�the current crisis at USM has all the makings of an Emmy-winning soap opera. Writers of daytime drama would be hard pressed to develop plot lines as intriguing as events transpiring at USM. The media are either avoiding or missing acts in this stage show that illuminate just how dissolute the Thames administration has been and continues to be. Today�s expose� focuses on Shelby�s daughter Dana Thames, chair of USM�s Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education, and recipient of the largest pay raise in the 2003 pay raise package. Fire Shelby has received information from anonymous readers and has looked at information in the public domain: this report on departmental misrepresentation and academic negligence emanates from both.
One would think that, amid the paranoid climate on USM�s campus and with charges of nepotism and academic dishonesty aswirl, Shelby�s gal Dana would have been more careful about how she lists faculty on her department�s website. Additionally, since Dana sits in judgment of others� academic productivity, perhaps she should have been more judicious concerning her own publication of two near-identical articles, with no cross-citation between the two, in two different educational journals. Should she not have learned from Dad Shelby's right-hand-woman Angie Dvorak that misrepresentation in any form always has a way of surfacing?
POINT ONE: DEPARTMENTAL MISREPRESENTATION OF "TENURED FACULTY"
If one visits Dana Thames� departmental website, which was last updated March 4, 2004, the day before Professors Glamser and Stringer were fired by Dad Shelby, one will find a table headed "TENURED FACULTY." According to more than one Fire Shelby reader, the problem is that ALMOST HALF of the people listed as tenured faculty on the web page ARE NOT tenured. Indeed, several aren�t even professors but are graduate students (assistants) or teaching adjuncts in the department. Do other departments list grad students or adjuncts as tenured faculty on their web pages? Fire Shelby has not seen this and knows this not to be standard, or even minimally acceptable, practice.
HERE is a link to the web page for Dana Thames� department on USM�s website. Scroll halfway down the page to view the "Tenured Faculty" table. (Nine days after Fire Shelby posted this article, Dana Thames' website was edited. Not to fret, though! We captured screen shots on March 21, before her March 29 edit. Screen shots are available HERE.)
According to anonymous sources, some of the professors incorrectly listed as tenured are:
Mary Beth Evans � retired professor who adjuncts
Renee Falconer � Assistant Professor, not tenured
Doug Feldman� Assistant Professor, not tenured
Rose Jones� Assistant Professor, not tenured
Marilyn Larman� Associate Professor, not tenured
Perrin Lowery� Associate Professor, not tenured
Beth Richmond � Barksdale Reading Institute scholar, not tenured
According to Fire Shelby�s sources, the following people misrepresented under the �tenured faculty� heading as �one-year instructors� actually are graduate students or non-Ph.D adjuncts:
Jerry Worley
Shelly Robinson
Kathleen York
Prospective students looking at the website might be impressed with the number of tenured faculty in Thames� department. However, anyone with any knowledge of the process of tenure and title will easily recognize the problems�intentional or not�with Thames� department�s web page. Just another example of reckless behavior in the Thames administration. And this kind of departmental inflation will net you a fifteen percent pay raise. Would this be allowed if Dana�s daddy weren�t president of the university? Would others be rewarded for running such a loose ship?
POINT TWO: A TALE OF TWO ARTICLES
Dana Thames authored an article entitled �An Exploration of the Effects of Individualized Language Arts Instruction on the Attitudes of Poor Readers,� which was published in 1993 in the journal The Reading Professor, 16 (1), 4-22. (Cook Library stacks, LB1049.9 .R43)
The following year, Thames submitted an article entitled �Poor Readers� Attitudes: Effects of Using Interests and Trade Books in an Integrated Language Arts Approach,� which was published in Reading Research and Instruction, 33(4), 293-308. (Cook Library stacks, LB1050 .J63)
An anonymous reader brought to Fire Shelby�s attention that the articles are remarkably similar; indeed, whole paragraphs and pages from the first article are cut-and-pasted, reworded, and reorganized.
The following are comparative glances at snippets from both articles. Because of the remarkable similarities in the two papers, it is indecipherable as to whether or not these two studies are identical or two separate studies. What is clear is that wording in both�including in the Results section�is virtually identical, with no cross-reference or citation between the two articles.
In the article published first in The Reading Professor, Thames describes �Procedures:�
�In late August, treatment and comparison groups were formed by randomly selecting 63 students from a list of 97 elementary schools whose performance in reading was consistently poor and then randomly assigning them to the two groups; the 33 preservice teachers, who were enrolled in a reading practicum course, were randomly assigned to students in the treatment group to provide tutorial instruction in language arts areas."
In the article published the following year in Reading Research and Instruction, Thames describes �Procedures:�
�In January, treatment and comparison groups were formed by randomly selecting 58 students from a list of 78 elementary schools whose performance in reading was consistently poor and then randomly assigning them to the two groups; the 29 preservice teachers, who were enrolled in a reading practicum course, were randomly assigned to students in the treatment group to provide tutorial instruction in language arts areas.�
Here is Thames �Discussion� of her study in the first article, published in The Reading Professor:
�It was important to find that upper elementary students� attitudes about themselves as learners may be improved rather quickly through appropriate intervention. In this study, improvement in students� attitudes about themselves as learners took place in a relatively short period of time, approximately 12 weeks. This is encouraging, considering that the position generally held by attitude theorists�is that attitudes are not altered quickly. Whether the positive changes in students� attitudes will remain stable over time, assuming they continue to experience success in school-based language arts activities, will likely depend on many factors (e.g., school environment, home environment, parental attitudes, teacher attitudes, gender, socio economic factors, etc.).
Thames �Discussion� of her study in the second article, published in Reading Research and Instruction:
�It was gratifying to find that improvement in students� attitudes took place in a relatively short period of time, approximately 12 weeks. This is encouraging, considering that the position generally held by attitude theorists�is that attitudes are not altered quickly. . . . Whether the positive changes in students� attitudes will remain stable over time, assuming they continue to experience success in school-based language arts activities, will likely depend on many factors (e.g., school environment, home environment, parental attitudes, teacher attitudes, gender, socio economic factors, etc.).�
Above are just a couple of similarities between the two articles�there are MANY more, and Fire Shelby invites our readers to check out the journals and decide for themselves. There is no reference to Thames� earlier article in her second article. There is no citation in the second article indicating that verbatim materials in it were taken from an earlier article. As an anonymous source told Fire Shelby, it is improper to cut and paste without using quotation marks and giving credit to the first article (the one in 1993; the second article should have referenced the first. The anonymous source asserts that Thames is appearing to have authored two separate research articles, but they are not separate�a few words, terms, and dates were altered. The anonymous source believes that the second journal would not have accepted an article in which so much text was reproduced without it at least being referenced. Again, Fire Shelby readers should look at the articles and decide for themselves if this is �good scholarship.�
The paramount point that emerges after viewing misrepresentation on the website and sloppiness in publication of the two articles is that Dana Thames sits in academic judgment of others, as Dvorak does. According to the Shelby Thames administration, this kind of misrepresentation is acceptable, if not celebrated�as the fifteen percent pay raise indicates.