Illinois Democrat to resubmit '84 dissertation to correct alleged plagiarism issues

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Nearly a quarter century after submitting his dissertation to help him earn a doctorate, former Democratic gubernatorial nominee Glenn Poshard wants a chance to do it again.

Poshard, facing allegations that he plagiarized parts of the paper, said Friday he plans to send it back to Southern Illinois University's department of educational administration and higher education, which granted him the advanced degree in 1984.

He will ask the department -- now under his command as president of the SIU system -- to review the document "and to advise me on corrections necessary to make this dissertation consistent with the highest academic standards.



"I will make whatever changes are recommended by the department, and by doing so I hope to fulfill the highest expectations that you have of me as your president," the former congressman said.

The allegations first surfaced Thursday in the student newspaper, the Daily Egyptian, which said it found 30 sections of Poshard's paper that contained verbatim text from other sources that either wasn't placed in quotation marks or wasn't cited properly.

Poshard said at a news conference Friday it's possible he made some mistakes in the 111-page paper, but they were "unintentional." Nevertheless, "they need to be promptly acknowledged and remedied," he said.

Asked how he could mistakenly place verbatim passages in his paper without quotation marks or, in some cases, attribution, Poshard first said, "I can't go into that detail here." But then he said in the cases of the missing quotation marks, the Ph.D. committee overseeing his research allowed him to do so as long as he placed in footnotes where the information came from. In other cases, he repeated that "there might be inadvertent mistakes that were made."

Poshard said he was not worried about losing his Ph.D. He acknowledged he needed the degree to get the $300,000-a-year job as president but said he never used the degree for political gain in his years in the state Senate and U.S. House.

Poshard said he has no plans to resign, although he said his future was up to the SIU board of trustees. Board President Roger Tedrick said little at Friday's news conference and didn't return a call seeking comment. Thursday, he said the board was "fully supportive" of Poshard.

Glenn Poshard helps close the corruption gap.Is there a resignation gap between Democrats and Republicans? This is the same Glenn Poshard that ran against this future convicted felon. In Illinois,the worst people can really make it to the top of the political system.