I have a much longer post about Mike Garrison on the way. Until then, you should know that Garrison is largely favored to become the next President of WVU when his buddies on Board of Governors cast their vote on April (it’s a Friday!) 13th.
This, in spite of the fact that he’s just a politically connected lawyer with positively zero experience in the administration of higher education. Hey, just like David Hardesty!
Anywho, the big question I’ve heard quite a few people raise concerns the resume Mike Garrison submitted to the Search Committee and the public. This official WVU press release states that Garrison is an “an honors graduate of the West Virginia University College of Law.”
Except that, to the best of my knowledge, The West Virginia University College of Law does not confer, bestow or recognize the distinction of “honors” upon any graduate, period. There’s Order of the Coif, and that is it. They let you know that much for sure.
And I know for a fact that Mike Garrison was not Order of the Coif. Period.
Now if I’m wrong about this, I’ll happily take it down, post a correction and apologize for the confusion.
But. If the facts as I understand them are correct, then this is either a very significant typo, or Mike Garrison is flat-out lying about “graduating with honors” from the WVU CoL. This is not the kind of thing you inadvertently confuse while counting your money on the way to pick up your kids from daycare.
And this isn’t “just semantics,” either. Not in the real world. There have been quite a few people in positions much more consequential than the one Garrison aspires to take — successful CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies, for God’s sake — who were quickly and decisively fired for padding their resumes in identical ways.
This is something worth looking into.
March 28, 2007 at 2:54 pm
At the WVU Law School Class Rank is considered an honor if you graduate in the top 25% of your class.
Mike was even higher than that.
I would suspect when you graduated from law school your ranking was far below the 25%
or you would’ve had the basic research skills to learn the true facts.
March 28, 2007 at 3:24 pm
What, like basic research skills it would have taken you to discover that I did not, in fact, graduate from law school?
Way to go, detective dipshit. Good luck with your career in glorified clerical work.
If Garrison graduated in the top 25% of his class, that’s awesome. But we know he wasn’t in the top 10%, because that’s Order of the Coif.
And I still haven’t seen anything that suggests graduating in the top 25% entitles you to anything, other than saying that you graduated in top 25%.
Sure, you can consider that to be an honor, but it’s hardly the same thing as graduating with the conferred distinction of honors.
If he’s making up an imaginary award, that’s a problem.
March 28, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Law schools bestow honors other than election to Coif. In addition to the other national honorary. Order of the Barristers, there are various and sundry other “honors” such as being selected for Law Review or Moot Court or being selected for various awards which are announced at graduation.
Because of the small size of WVU College of Law, the relatively large number of available honors and the recent trend toward spreading the wealth so that the handful of exceptional students don’t monopolize the awards, probably close to half the class graduates with some sort of an honor or another.
Some of them might not mean much, but unless one claims to have received a specicif honor which he didn’t receive there is nothing wrong about claiming to having graduated with honors if one did receive some recognition.
Other than that i agree about Garrison.
March 28, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Sure your not an attorney or did you just fail law school you are really touchy about this Coif thing
March 28, 2007 at 4:59 pm
The claim about the alleged resumé padding is just the typical envious whining you see here, but the issue of whether he is qualified– let alone in the top 1000 of best possible candidates– for the job is legitmate.
The fact is that even if he was first in his class and generally recognized as a brilliant lawyer, it would be difficult to argue he would even be considered for the job were t not for insider politics.
March 28, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Dudeitscalledpunctuationyoushouldlookintoit.
Concerning the previous comment, everything you said is true, but as the problem is that the phrase “honors graduate” or “graduation with honors” is a term of art. It means a specific thing: that one received Latin academic honors (summa cum laude, magna cum laude, cum laude) or their equivalent (for example, many schools use highest distinction, high distinction, and distinction; law schools have Order of the Coif). As an aspiring university president, Garrison, of all people, should understand that meaning, and recognize that when he uses the phrase “with honors,” he’s leading people to believe that he received such recognition upon graduating from law school.
March 28, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Who is he leading to believe something false when it’s the SAME University he graduated from and everyone involved knows him? THAT’S the issue! He is likely to ge “given” the job because of whom he knows (and to whom he sucks up) and not because of his qualifications, but you just sound petty when you make the ridiculous claim that he is misleading people into thinking he is in Coif.
March 28, 2007 at 5:11 pm
again with the coif thing, the WVU release never said anything
about coif
March 28, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Can you people fucking read?
I did not say he was misleading people into thinking he was Order of the Coif.
What I said is that he’s claiming to have “graduated with honors” when no such distinction exists at the WVU CoL. You can’t say that you graduated with honors just because you decide that a class rank above a given threshold amounts to an academic honor.
By the way, for the sake of clarity could all you anonymous commenters use pseudonyms? It’s difficult to respond to “anonymous number 4″ or whatever.
March 28, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Temper temper you brought up Coif and keep talking about it.
Nice language for an attorney.
March 28, 2007 at 5:41 pm
If you want to split hairs there is a difference between saying “I graduated with honors” and “I’m an honors graduate.”
A person who received an honor graduated with that honor.
You did indeed imply that Coif is the only “honor” bestowed at WVU by talking about the things you consider honors and saying WVU COL only has Coif. It simply is not true that Coif is the only honor. The fact that WVU College of Law does not put the latinate “laudes” (or anglicized equivalents) on diplomas does not mean that only Coif members graduated “with honors.”
Barristers is also a very prestigious order and everyone I know considers it an “honor.” Same with Law Review and Moot Court. I don’t know what honors Garrison received and I don’t think it is particularly relevant. If you do then why not track down what honor he received and write about why you think it is not worthy?
The time might be better spent with arguing that we are shortchanging WVU by selecting political insiders for the interrelated purposes of rewarding friends of the power elite and making it easier for the power elite to control an academic institution. We should select people with extensive experience, or, even better, extensive achievements in university administration and that we appear to be ignoring that for the second time in a row is very troubling, but quit the childish whining about trivialities.
March 28, 2007 at 5:56 pm
4:41 anon: I’m not sure why you think it’s trivial for a prospective university president to stretch his resume. I suspect that anyone who’s been involved in a selection process of this sort would agree that it’s a very serious issue. It’s especially relevant in this situation, because most people seem to think that the resume being stretched is sorely inadequate for a WVU president.
March 28, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Primarily, what is trivial is the exceedingly lame attempt to claim he stretched his resumé by saying he graduated with honors. If he received an honor it’s not a stretch. HK just sounds like a petulant child making baseless accusations.
Because the President of WVU is an important position it trivializes the issues which should guide selection by focusing on a non-issue when the issue of selecting someone whose qualifications would be suspect even if he received every damn honor WVU ever bestowe. The concern should be his lack of objective qualifications for the job and the likely eventuality he will get the job anyway because of raw politics.
By sounding like complete and utter assholes, people who try to make an issue of this nonsense about honors just end up turning off people who might be receptive to the good arguments for why he should not be selected.
I oppose Garrison’s selection but i can’t fail to recognize that some of the people who agree with me about that are immature idiots who make really stupid arguments.
March 28, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Well, I like the Black guy for president. He’s been a college president, he’s Black… oh yeah, he’s been an effing college president.
March 28, 2007 at 7:29 pm
I don’t know what it is about this that you people don’t get. “Hair splitting,” if you want to call it that, over stuff that most people find trivial is what you lawyers do for a living, so spare me.
If Garrison was on Moot Court or Law review, that’s what he should say. You don’t just bestow the distinction of “graduated with honors” on yourself just because it makes you sound more scholarly to the people who didn’t go to law school and don’t know what the hell Moot Court is.
I think that this is an obvious attempt on the part of Garrison to stretch his laughably inadequate resume into something that’s a little more palatable to the public. If you don’t think that’s conduct unbecoming the prospective president of West Virginia’s flagship University, then maybe you should be at Surb’s blog instead.
And like I said, I have another more general post about Garrison on the way. I hope you will go to trouble of reading it before commenting.
And if you people don’t start using pseudonyms, I’m turning off anonymous commenting.
March 28, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Okay so if we eliminate Garrison, that leaves us Dan from Portland and Marv from K-State. Lovely.
March 28, 2007 at 9:25 pm
And that’s because Garrison stacked the selection committee with friends of his who were sure to put him in the final 3 with a couple of lightweights.
He knows what he’s doing.
March 28, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Although I think that the bigger issue is Garrison’s obvious lack of qualifications, I also agree that it is not trivial that there is a “mistake” on his resume. As stated earlier, the term “with honors” is a term of art, indicating a specific distinction bestowed by the law school upon a student. It is not something that you can simply tack onto your resume based on your own assumptions as to what constitutes an “honor.”
Pursuant to the WVU College of Law Student Handbook, only one award is classified as an “academic honor” – Order of the Coif, which I think everyone can agree Garrison did not achieve. Under the Honors section of the handbook, the school describes the procedures involved in receiving your class rank. It does not say that graduating within a certain percentage of your law school class equals graduating “with honors.” This section also discusses Law Review, Order of the Barristers, and Moot Court. No where in the handbook does it describe an achievement entitled “with honors.” Now, if a person was selected for Law Review, Order of the Coif, Order of the Barristers or Moot Court, the proper course of action would be to list that specific achievement on his resume, not simply “with honors,” a nondescript and nonexistent term.
The handbook can be found at http://www.wvu.edu/~law/Student_Handbook/HANDBOOK%202006-2007.pdf. Check it out for yourself and see what you think.
Whether this addition to Garrison’s resume is an attempt to mislead the public or just a mistake, it is problematic. If Garrison is attempting to bolster his resume by claiming that he received some sort of “honors” in law school that he did not achieve or does not exist, the WVU Board of Governors should eliminate him as a candidate. I think that the last thing that WVU needs is a president that beefs up his resume with fake achievements. If Garrison made a mistake, I also think that the Board should strongly reconsider him as a viable candidate. As a potential future president of WVU, he should carefully examine his resume for mistakes. Furthermore, he should, at a minimum, be aware of the exact achievements that his own law school awards. Should someone so careless with his resume be trusted with the great responsibility of running our flagship university?
March 29, 2007 at 8:11 am
5:07 anon.: You haven’t, by chance, been telling people you’re an “honors graduate” of WVU Law because of your top-50% class rank, have you?
Seriously, if you know of other alums who’ve used this or similar terminology, you should link to their online bios. If your theory is right, and practically every graduate of WVU Law is an “honors graduate,” then surely someone else, somewhere, has said so on their resume. But if this is a Mike G. original, then maybe it’s not as trivial as you think.
Care to ante up? Or am I just another idiot distracting you from your urgent mission of debating Garrison’s qualifications? (On that subject, why do you think it’s so important, at this late stage, that we all focus on his qualifications and not waste time on “trivialities”? This is a done deal. ANYTHING you have to say about it now is trivial. It doesn’t really matter if we’re discussing his official bio, or his qualifications, or the price of bananas in Canada. We’re just playing Monday-morning quarterback.)
March 29, 2007 at 9:37 am
Here’s the first hit I got on a google search. I’ve not included the guy’s name because I don’t wantto force him to put with your whining. I’m sure there are countless others. This guy was Coif but note he included many other things as “honors.”
Education:
West Virginia University College of Law, Morgantown, West Virginia, 1984
J.D.
Honors: Baker Cup Moot Court Award, 1982
Honors: Order of Barristers, 1983 – 1984
Honors: Attorney General for Students, 1983 – 1984
Honors: President, Marilyn E. Lugar Trial Association, 1983 – 1984
Honors: Moot Court Board Member, 1981-1983
Law Review: West Virginia Law Review, Member, 1982 – 1984
****
I personally don’t advertise and as I am not applying for any jobs don’t have curriculum vitae but I have no problem with people categorizing such things as “honors.”
Trying to make something out of this just makes you look foolish, and if you persist then yes, you are just another idiot.
March 29, 2007 at 9:54 am
That’s a nice record of achievement, but not what I asked you to find. Try again?
March 29, 2007 at 10:10 am
No. If you want to waste time knock yourself out. This thread is stupid and I am not degrading myself further by participating in it.
There are REAL and important concerns about Garrison’s suitability for the job, but a press release describing him as having graduated with honors is not among them.
If anyone here is capable of writing something marginally intelligent about why WVU should not appoint a person whose professional experience is almost entirely as a political appointee in state government because that is not proper preparation for the responsibilities of overseeing a large, land grant university and that it is another glaring example of what is wrong with how things are done in this State then maybe this will become more than the sad, pathetic, whinings of the disaffected.
March 29, 2007 at 11:15 am
Hippie Killer is correct. You cannot graduate from WVU COL with honors.
March 29, 2007 at 11:19 am
Garrison’s actual resume has been posted on the WVU presidential search website:
http://presidentialsearch.wvu.edu/finalists
The relevant portion is:
West Virginia University College of Law
Doctor of Jurisprudence 1996
National Moot Court Team
National Lugar Trial Competition Team
Order of Barristers
Interviewing, Counseling and Negotiation Student Award
Class Rank 25/140
Moot court, Lugar, and OOB are all “honors” He is NOT claiming that he graduated “with honors”. The press release uses the phrase to cover the several honors (in the generic sense) that he achieved.
And he was damn close to Order of the Coif as well.
March 29, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Neo-anonymous,
Your last comment reminded me of when I used to play 8-ball a lot as an undergrad. After drinking a few, my skills would begin to fade and I would start losing. I was a sore loser and eventually I would put on my coat and go home in a huff. My friends used to tease me ever after when I was on the losing end of anything, “Oooh, what are you gonna do, put on your coat and go home?”
April 13, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Listen, just log onto Westlaw and search Michael Garrison – you will find all his scholarly articles, appeal court cases and everything else – I mean the guy surely published several law review articles and must have more than a few big appellate court opinions out there right?
April 13, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Hey, President Garrison was listed as the third out of four Steptoe & Johnson lawyers in the per curiam decision (1 page opinion) in Rusmisell v. Smith, 36 Fed.Appx. 527 (2002), a case that was not selected for publication in the Federal Reporter.
Now, stick that in your pipe and smoke it — that’s qualifications enough for me!
May 1, 2008 at 4:56 pm
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