Some of you may or may not have heard about the recent controversy surrounding the Dean of Lund University. In short Per Eriksson, the Dean, has recently been accused in the newspaper Sydsvenskan of being elected dean on false premises. He is also being accused of being promoted to professor on false qualifications.
Per Eriksson was appointed Dean of Lund University in 2008 and was before that in charge of the stately run investment agency Vinnova and was the Dean of Blekinge Tekniska Högskola for 10 years before that. Eriksson attracted controversy from the start due to his previous involvement in the Pentecostal church and the fact that hörandeförsamlingen, an advisory body of students and staff at the university, suggested another man for the position.
The recent controversy stems from a background check on the résumé that Per Eriksson used to apply for promotion to the rank of professor as well as for the position of Dean of Lund University. Eriksson claims in his résumé that he was the head advisor on two dissertations and acted as assistant advisor for five research students. However, his name is not registered as head advisor for the two dissertations and the authors of the papers tell Sydsvenskan that he was very inspirational to their work but that he was not their head advisor. Furthermore Eriksson claims, in his résumé, to have three patents but the first one is expired, the second one never existed and the third one was approved after he applied for the position.
The university has now launched a probe into these allegations which will produce its findings sometime in December. We at the international secretariat believes that if the Dean can’t be trusted to tell the truth on his résumé he can’t be trusted with the care of the university nor to have the confidence of the students. So the next time you are caught cheating just tell the teacher that you just did an Eriksson.
