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While searching for papers published by my lecturer, I couldn’t find any record of him being awarded a doctorate from any university.

I asked him about his academic profile and I’m not getting any legitimate answers from the faculty.

I had done my coursework prior to joining the current university and the lecturer teaches even the most basic concepts wrong.

How do I approach this situation?

Edit: The lecturer claims himself a Dr. and refer to it as a P.hD from USA.

Premise: I recently watched a video on YouTube about fake PhDs and the percentage being close to 55%. I check Google Scholar, ResearchGate and few other indexing services. I wrote to the faculty and they aren’t answering my request for details.

Tagachi
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    What country is your university in? – David Raveh Nov 23 '23 at 22:47
  • @david Located in the UK – Tagachi Nov 23 '23 at 22:55
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    Why do you say "fake questions"? Could you please explain further? – Yemon Choi Nov 23 '23 at 23:46
  • It should be fake qualification @yem I corrected it. – Tagachi Nov 24 '23 at 00:53
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    Is a doctorate necessary for the position? There are doctorates beyond PhD, actually. Are they from another country? – Buffy Nov 24 '23 at 00:53
  • @buffy doctorate isn’t necessary for the job, but he refers to himself, Dr. so and so. The lecturer claims he got his “P.hD” from the US. – Tagachi Nov 24 '23 at 00:54
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    To "report"? That lecturer's superior; the unit that hired him. – GEdgar Nov 24 '23 at 01:27
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    Is his CV posted somewhere publicly? – shoover Nov 24 '23 at 01:30
  • Keep digging, you’ll get to the bottom of it! – A rural reader Nov 24 '23 at 01:56
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    It's not strictly necessary to have publications to have a PhD, and it's not necessarily the case that programs publish a list of people receiving degrees. So, at this point you don't necessarily have evidence of anything. – Bryan Krause Nov 24 '23 at 02:22
  • Ask him for his CV. If he refuses or doesn't respond, indicate this to his superior, and ask the superior for his CV. I would advise making these requests in a non-accusatory manner. – David Raveh Nov 24 '23 at 02:39
  • "papers published by my lecturer" What is the quality of those papers ? Assuming your university is a reputable one, the chances are the university checked this lecturer's qualification. Does your university has the rule that a lecturer has to have PhD degree in order to teach ? – Nobody Nov 24 '23 at 06:25
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    If the position requires a PhD, they will have checked the certificate when the person was hired. – Nick Nov 26 '23 at 15:47

2 Answers2

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From the given information, I would say chances are that you are just wrong.

  1. The reason why you started digging is that they're making mistakes in class. Whether or not someone has a PhD doesn't have much influence on whether they can teach a particular subject well. The jump from "they make mistakes" to "their PhD is fake" is pretty absurd.

  2. The "faculty" doesn't answer you. Well, unfortunately there are cases where not-so-modest students feel entitled to bully lecturers. Whoever you approached may suspect that this is the case here.

  3. Most academics will have a website with the sort of information you're looking for, but there doesn't need to be any public information for a PhD to be valid, so this argument doesn't hold much water.

  4. You saw something on YouTube... Well, not exactly a reputable source, is it?

Nick
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  • I have a PhD and made many in class math mistakes early on in my teaching career, even pretty significant misunderstanding on my part. I still make mistakes in class but much less frequently and much less severe now. PhD just means a particular narrow expertise not imperviousness to misunderstanding. – jdods Nov 29 '23 at 05:20
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Perhaps check his LinkedIn page if that is used in your field? You could then have a starting place to find the correct granting institution. You could always write an email to the Dean/other college head explaining your thoughts. I would try just some regular Google searching first though. It's possible he could have alternate name spellings or maybe even have his PhD from another country making it harder to find.

Caroline
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