Just a few years ago, Anoop Shankar was a rising academic star at WVU, on the verge of being appointed to the new “Chair of Excellence” at the University’s School of Public Health.
There was just one problem. According to an investigative report by NBC News, Shankar falsified his academic credentials… in a big way.
“Shankar isn’t a Ph.D. He didn’t graduate from the Harvard of India (The All India Institute of Health Sciences). He didn’t write the dozens of scholarly publications on his resume,” NBC’s Nona Aronowitz and Tony Dokoupil reported Wednesday. “At least two of his green card references—attesting to ‘world class creativity,’ ‘genius insight,’ and ‘a new avenue for treating hypertension’—were a forgery.”
NBC says Shankar’s story began to unravel almost immediately after Ian Rockett, chair of the WVU promotion and tenure committee at the School of Public Health, began a routine review in 2012 after Shankar was nominated for the prestigious chair of the epidemiology department.
The University forced Shankar out in 2012, but NBC says there was a six month gap between the time the fraud was revealed and when Shankar left. Shankar later secured a position at Virginia Commonwealth University, but was let go earlier this summer after the school learned of his background.
Dr. Christopher Colenda, president and CEO of West Virginia United Health System and Chancellor for Health Sciences at WVU, said on Metronews Talkline Thursday that VCU never checked with WVU about Shankar’s credentials. And, he added, the University followed proper procedures in handling the Shankar case.
“We do have an academic process in which we take these allegations very seriously, Colenda told me, adding that the University’s concerns were relayed to the National Institutes for Health and the Centers for Disease Control, agencies that funded research conducted by Shankar.
The NBC report suggests there was some initial hesitation by WVU to fire Shankar, even after Rockett’s investigation turned up serious discrepancies in Shankar’s vitae. Shankar’s defenders thought there might be a logical explanation. Plus, WVU was getting national attention and big federal grants for Shankar’s work.
As if the story is not already messy, consider this twist: NBC reports on what appeared to be a ham handed attempt by two of Shankar’s students to blackmail Rockett by alleging that Rockett made unwanted sexual advances to one of the students. Rockett filed a defamation suit against Shankar and the two students.
WVU concluded there was no evidence to support the students’ claims against Rockett and Shankar ended up paying Rockett $45,000 in an out of court settlement.
But back to the focal point of the fraud. How could WVU have been duped so easily by Shankar? Was the University so enamored with the possibility of a “rising star” in public health that they failed to execute proper due diligence until Shankar was up for a prestigious endowed chair?
Does anybody over there Google?
In fairness, the WVU process for exposing the fraud did eventually work. However, that effort was late and took way too long. No doubt the lawyers advised WVU to say nothing publicly—they didn’t—which allowed the duplicitous Shankar to land at VCU.
Colleges and universities survive on reputation and academic integrity. WVU officials speak proudly, as they should, about the University’s mission of higher education as the school seeks to raise its national and international profile.
The Shankar debacle is a reminder of how a careless approach toward efforts to achieve that excellence is embarrassing and counterproductive.