Marilee Jones, the dean of admissions of MIT, resigned after 28 years as an administrator in the admissions office. The dean for undergraduate education received information questioning Ms. Jones's academic credentials. Her résumé, used when she was hired by MIT, indicated that she had degrees from Albany Medical College, Union College, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In fact, she had no degrees from any of these schools or from anywhere else. She had attended Rensselaer Polytechnic as a part-time nonmatriculated student during the 1974-75 school year but the other institutions had no record of any attendance at their schools. When Ms. Jones arrived at MIT for her entry-level position in 1979, a degree was probably not required. She then progressed through the ranks of the admissions office and, in 1997, she was appointed dean of admissions. She explained that she wanted to disclose her lack of degrees at that point but that she had gone on for so long that she did not know how to come clean with the truth.

Ms. Jones has been on a national book tour since last year promoting her book, Less Stress, More Success: A New Approach to Guiding Your Teen Through College Admissions and Beyond. The book advises, "Holding integrity is sometimes very hard to do because temptation may be to cheat or cut corners. But just remember that 'what goes around comes around,' meaning that life has a funny way of giving back what you put out."

Ms. Jones was known around the campus for her sense of humor as well as her common sense and outspokenness. She resigned because the chancellor, Philip M. Clay, said, "There are some mistakes people can make for which 'I'm sorry' can be accepted, but this is one of those matters where the lack of integrity is sufficient all by itself."

In her letter of resignation, Ms. Jones said she "did not have the courage to correct my resume." In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, about one month before she resigned, Ms. Jones said the exaggeration of credentials by applicants was frequent, "The way the whole college application system is set up now, it really does encourage cheating and lying." The résumé exaggeration issue claimed several other professionals this year including Joseph Ellis, a Mount Holyoke College, Pulitzer-Prize winning historian who said he fought in Vietnam when he did not; Jeffrey Papow, president of IBM Lotus, who had discrepancies in both his educational and military record, and Denis Waitley, who resigned from the United Health Sciences board after the discovery that he did not have a claimed degree.

Discuss the following as it pertains to any individual falsifying his/her resume:

Peter Crist is an expert on checking backgrounds for business hires. Consider his statement: "You can't live in my world and cover stuff up. At some point in time, you will be found out if you don't come clean. It doesn't matter if it was 2 days ago or 20 years ago."

Is he correct?

Why do people falsify their résumés?

Are there legal ramifications for falsifying a resume?