The College of the Bahamas was in turmoil last night as the future of its president, Dr. Rodney Smith, hung in the balance in the wake of his ‘plagiarism’ confession.
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\nA senior academic called on Dr. Smith to resign immediately. Meanwhile, the lecturers union was expected to echo his demand at an emergency executive meeting last night.
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\nThe college council – the governing body – was also reported to be in crisis talks yesterday to decide on Dr. Smith’s fate.
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\nThe call for his resignation came from Mr. Felix Bethel, who said that the president’s position was untenable after he admitted using another academic’s material in a speech he delivered to students last week without attribution.
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\nIronically, according to college sources, the speech was about honesty and integrity on campus and came after widespread discussion about plagiarism among students.
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\nDr. Smith’s public apology last week for failing to name one of three writers whose work he used in a convocation address sent shock waves through the Oakes Field Campus.
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The controversy plunges COB into its biggest-ever crisis only a year after Dr. Smith – a Harvard graduate – was appointed with a fanfare from college council chairman Franklyn Wilson.<\/P>
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Mr. Wilson was the main driving force in easing out former president Dr. Leon Higgs and bringing in Dr. Smith at a salary of $120,000 a year, twice Dr. Higgs salary.
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One lecturer said: “Dr. Smith was Mr. Wilson’s hand-picked choice. We therefore have to wonder at Mr. Wilson’s judgement.”<\/P>
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(Editor’s Note: Mr. Wilson is the famously unethical Bahamian businessman who has earned himself the nickname “snake”.)<\/small><\/p>\n
Article Source: John Marquis, The Tribune<\/SMALL><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ethical lapse stirs calls for resignation of President who was hand-picked by ethically-challenged Franklyn Wilson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}