A recent string of scandals involving faculty members lying about their credentials have prompted questions about whether universities are doing enough to check the backgrounds of the individuals they choose to hire.

Quincy Troupe, a humanities professor at the University of California, was at the height of his academic career when his life was turned upside down; he lacked a college diploma. He originally listed his bachelor’s degree from Grambling College on his resume, claiming to have graduated in 1963. In reality, he never even finished a semester.

Troupe was an accomplished poet who had published 13 books and won two American Book Awards. In 2002, he was chosen as one of three finalists to be the first official poet laureate of California. Four months after California’s governor announced he had won, a routine background check turned up the lie. Troupe immediately resigned the post. The university considered suspending him for up to a year without pay, but he decided to retire come this June.

Troupe says he began listing a fake bachelor’s degree on his resume around 1976 when a colleague told him he could earn more money and job security if he were on the tenure track. He would need at least a B.A. to make the transition. He spent 20 years at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York earning tenure and advancing on to become a professor.

After some investigation, it turned up that nobody at UC ever verified Troupe’s educational credentials when he was hired as a full professor in 1990. The university claims that with his experience and accomplishments they had no reason to question his credentials.

Plagiarism, faking academic credentials and stealing research are serious blows to academic integrity, said Kenneth Zeichner, School of Education Associate Dean at the University of Wisconsin.

“To misrepresent yourself in that way is a real serious problem … not that the person isn’t a good teacher but it shows some sort of ethic breech that deserves to be punished,” he said.

Zeichner added that there are other opportunities for people to teach or lecture at a university. Different departments have different standards, but there are always ways to value a person’s life experience in terms of a particular program.

UW Communications spokesman Kent Barrett said UW does not have a strict process when it comes to hiring faculty, but that it is very easy to check to see if someone graduated from somewhere and that they list the correct resources. Although there is no specific rule or procedure they follow, it is just “common sense” to check a person’s references and qualifications.

“[We] don’t slack off,” Barrett said. “The reason for this is that these are faculty members who will have to work for whoever the ‘hireree’ is for years to come, and they want to make sure they are getting the best person.”

Barrett said that in light of what he calls UW’s thorough hiring process, the chances of the university hiring someone who committed resume fraud are slim.