Thanks for the $65 check; your diploma is in the mail

http://ems.gmnews.com/news/2008/1029/greg_bean/019.html
Coda ? GREG BEAN

You know, one of the great disappointments of my life was that I never received my Doctor of Divinity degree.

There was that whole problem with bouncing from one church to another like a crazed pinball, and then of course there was all that studying you had to do, and in some religions, you even had to go to a seminary, and live there, for cryin' out loud.

Which seriously cuts into the time you have for shooting eight ball, drinking cheap beer, driving around in your pickup and trying to impress women.

So, instead of becoming a man of the cloth, I became a journalist, which didn't command the salary of your garden-variety doctor of anything, but did allow me the free time to pursue my many vices.

Little did I know, however, that for a mere $65, I could have bought an advanced theological degree from an organization called the Universal Life Church.

They'll give you a minister's certificate for free, but if you want something more impressive - a Master of Christianity, a Master of Metaphysics (Spirit Quest), a Master of Druidism - it will cost a small amount of cash.

If you want to become a Doctor of Ministry, or a Doctor of Divinity, it will cost you a little more.

Still, for an expenditure of around $100, I could get an official sheepskin diploma proclaimingme a bona fide Doctor of Divinity and thereafter demand to be addressed as Dr. Bean.

Is that cool, or what? And to my knowledge, nobody has ever demanded that the recipient of a minister's certificate, a Master of Druidism degree or a Doctor of Divinity degree from the Universal Life Church quit using the honorific title before his or her name.

Which is more than you can apparently say for two more educators in the Freehold RegionalHigh School District, who were recently told by the state Commission on Higher Education that they couldn't use the title Doctor anymore. According to published reports, it turns out the pair of them got their degrees from the same bogus institution, Breyer State University, where their boss (former Dr.) James Wasser got his bogus degree.

Also ordered to drop the Dr. from their names were an instructor of psychiatry at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and an assistant professor of computer science at St. Peter's College based in Jersey City. That duo reportedly got their bogus degrees from another diploma mill, Warren National University, in Wyoming, although it was called Kennedy Western University when they "graduated."

Last August, you may recall, the same commission sent letters to Wasser, Assistant FRHSD Superintendent Donna Evangelista and former Assistant Superintendent Frank J. Tanzini ordering them to quit calling themselves Dr. as well, since their degrees had all come from the nefarious Breyer State.

Mr. Wasser, who's been on the hot seat ever since, and must be getting used to the calls for his resignation by now (although he still ignores them), even went so far as to put a video on the Web site www.frhsd.com that includes what is described as his apology. Trouble is, you can only watch it if you have a PC with Windows. Unfortunately, I have a Mac.

So all these people, and a few more it seems (two more people also got letters from the commission ordering them to eighty-six the Dr. titles, but they weren't identified) paid a lot more for their bogus degrees than the $65 or $100 I'd have to pay to get my Doctor of Divinity degree from the Universal Life Church.

The difference is, I wouldn't be trying to fool anyone with my Doctor of Divinity degree (it sure wouldn't impress my wife), and these people were apparently trying to fool everyone.

You really have to wonder how many others are out there just like them in education or public-sector jobs, people with degrees from bogus institutions trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes.

I suspect there are a lot of them, and I also predict we'll be learning who a lot of them are in coming months. People who are dishonest enough to try fobbing off a phony degree are also the kind of people who tend to make professional and personal enemies. You can almost hear the dimes dropping as we speak.

Gregory Bean is executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers. You can reach him at gbean@gmnews.com.