I could take up surfing!


I believe that the University of Minnesota, Morris is an ideal learning environment: small classes, good teachers, a real commitment to education. But I also have to be honest and tell you that it has one flaw — location. We really are on the edge of nowhere. I suppose I could spin it and say it has a kind of monastic atmosphere, free of distractions, but I often pine for a place that is a little closer to a real airport, maybe has some public transportation that can take me to someplace other than a grocery store, and has some of the amenities of a larger city.

Now I discover there is a solution. Invent a place! Alireza Heidari is an amazingly prolific ‘scientist’ who has published hundreds of papers and is on the editorial board of countless journals, and he does it all from his institution, California South University.

What? You’ve never heard of it? It’s just down the road from UC Irvine; it takes up 50 city blocks, has 39,000 students, and is one of the top 50 universities in the United States! I don’t know how you missed it.

Well, actually, Heidari has carried out the most extreme job of résumé padding ever. He invented a whole fictitious university, and built an entire web site to document its existence. Although, really, he simply stole the University of Alberta’s website, and through the power of search and replace, changed “Canada” to the US, and “Edmonton” to southern California. It’s a good trick. I’m sure Edmontonians are confused and uncertain whether to celebrate the better climate or be horrified to find themselves under President Trump.

I’m going to suggest to the administration that we edit our web page to say we’re the University of Hawaii, Morris, and relocate the campus to Kauai. I’m tired of being so cold all the time, and we could also fix up our ocean beach deficit at the same time.

Comments

  1. Reginald Selkirk says

    Unoriginal. The University of Miami, in Ohio, already pulled this off, and quite successfully.

  2. jrkrideau says

    @ 1 Reginald Selkirk
    Hey wait a minute! The University of Miami in Ohio was around when Florida was still a Spanish swamp.

    The university in Florida is the impostor. Luring students south to endure alligator attacks and heat stroke. They should be ashamed.

  3. jrkrideau says

    I’m tired of being so cold all the time
    Reminds me of a former colleague who was accepted for grad school at the University of Minnesota and the University of Hawaii. She picked Minnesota

    When we, incredulously, asked why, she explained that as someone from the Philippines she had not realized the difference.

    And then she ended up in Ottawa.

  4. pipefighter says

    Fort Saskatchewanite here. I say we convert the communities of Edmonton into a traction city and invade southern California. With all this new California nonsense we could easily take advantage of the infighting and form our own city state.

  5. says

    Impressive. The only hoaxers I’ve encountered have been pikers by comparison: (1) the instructor who said she had not reported her Ph.D. to admin because she “didn’t need the salary increase”(!) and (2) the instructor who claimed to be a UC Berkeley doctoral student who was “A.B.D.” but couldn’t tell us the name of his faculty advisor. Oops!

  6. Scott Simmons says

    http://calsu.us/index.php/about-us/ :
    “The California South University is a major economic driver in California. The university’s impact on the California economy is an estimated $12.3 billion annually, or five per cent of the state’s gross domestic product. With more than 15,000 employees, the university is California’s fourth-largest employer.”

    HAHAHAHAHAHA