Time to Clean House at Claremont McKenna College

I graduated in 1990 with a BA from Claremont McKenna College, known to those at the Claremont Colleges as CMC. Yes, that’s the college that was recently caught cheating.  CMC reported inflated SAT scores to US News & World Report and other publications who were ranking and profiling liberal arts colleges.

I guess I’m far enough along in life that it won’t really hurt me in any meaningful way but it’s not fun to have your undergraduate degree tarnished. Sort of like having Enron on your resume.

I  read the article in the New York Times and felt very disappointed.  I also received an email from Pamela Gann, the current President of CMC.  It was thoughtful and contrite and made me think the right things were happening.  At the end of her email she stated: “While I am sorry to report this to you, I remain deeply committed to ensuring that Claremont McKenna will respond to this matter in a manner that is accurate, honest, and that will reflect the longstanding integrity of our great college.”

In the NY Times piece it was announced that Richard C. Vos the Dean of Admissions had taken sole responsibility and resigned….so apparently no one else was involved or did anything wrong.  Really?  One scapegoat after 6 years of cheating?  How would Wall Street react if a publicly traded company misrepresented earnings for 6 years and then fired only the CFO and hoped that investors would see this as a sufficient response.