Can a pug get forklift certified?
What if MBA didn’t stand for “Master of Business Administration,” but it instead stood for “My Beautiful Angel”? That would be the case if my cat had an MBA. In fact, it is the case – she is a beautiful angel. My angel baby. MAB? Anyway
Sometimes when a cat has an MBA, it actually does stand for Master of Business Administration. This was the case for Colby Nolan.
Beautiful precious Colby belonged to a deputy attorney general in the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office. And in 2004, the Office was investigating Trinity Southern University, a diploma mill operating out of Texas.
Trinity Southern was suspected of awarding illegitimate academic credentials to essentially anyone who had a few hundred dollars to burn, with no coursework or exams required. And to confirm their suspicions, Pennsylvania investigators submitted an application on behalf of Colby, hoping to obtain for him a bachelor’s degree in business administration for $299.
Colby’s application boasted of his ample experience:
“...the student application claimed Colby completed three courses at a community college and worked at two different retailers as a manager. Colby’s previous work experience included food prep at a fast-food restaurant, babysitting and a paper route…”
Not only was Colby’s application for a bachelor’s degree accepted, but the school also informed Colby that his impressive resume qualified him for an executive MBA (for an extra $100).
Colby heartily accepted and was awarded his degree (with a 3.5 GPA). Soon after, his owner sued the school and shut them down, which was honestly really inconsiderate to Colby and his academic aspirations. What if he wanted to get his PhD next? Now he’ll never be able to.
Colby and his educational journey was so joyful and fraudulent, which is the best combination of adjectives I can possibly conceive of. Wikipedia’s “List of animals awarded human credentials” contains many such gems.
Here we learn that Colby was far from the first kitty who tried and succeeded at getting a fake degree. In fact, Colby was simply carrying on the proud tradition of feline achievement in higher education.
Let’s take a trip back to the 1970s and meet Kitty O’Malley.
Kitty the cat received her high school diploma from Washington High Academy, which was thankfully pretty easy for her because Washington High Academy was – you guessed it – a diploma mill.
But while the task of getting her diploma was as simple as sending $25 to a sketchy address in Florida, using that diploma to gain admission to a legitimate university was a bit tougher.
Kitty’s diploma was deemed woefully insufficient for her journey to pursue a postsecondary degree, apart from the schools that didn’t require a high school degree in the first place. (One school said, “If we did require one, we certainly wouldn’t accept that one.”)
Asked what kind of reception a diploma from Washington High Academy would receive, the admissions director of one school said, “We’d tell you that you don’t have a high school degree.”
One school had a strict diploma requirement but was a bit more lax about transcripts, giving a very interesting reason for this:
The 1970s were a different time. “Schools burn down”? Like, sure, ok, I guess, but does that really happen often enough that you cite it as a reason for why you don’t need a transcript? Anyway
“We like it when students have extracurricular experience from high school, but sometimes they are kidnapped into indentured servitude and don’t have time for chess club, so we try to be understanding.”
- Colleges in the 1970s, probably
There’s no rule that says a dog can’t be a bartender
So we’ve established that cats can get fake degrees, but what about their canine counterparts? To answer that question, allow me to point you to a pug that is more professionally qualified than you will ever be.
Phoebe the pug holds over 250 professional and career certifications, making her “the most professionally accomplished canine ever,” according to Forbes.
Her certifications include “forklift safety, transportation of dangerous goods, pleasure craft operator, food handler, [and] responsible liquor services.”
Phoebe also received a defensive-driving certificate through an online Alberta Motor Association course, which (human) individuals usually take as a first step towards getting demerit points removed from their driver’s license.
This upset the Alberta Motor Association so much that they released what I consider to be the greatest media statement of all time: “To be clear: no dog received a demerit reduction.”
Another canine overachiever I need you to meet is Wally.
In 2004, Wally received his associate’s degree in Childhood Development from the illegitimate Almeda University. His application listed such relevant experiences as “Plays with the kids every day ... teaches them to interact better with each other ... Teaches them responsibilities like feeding the dog.”
When this ruse was publicized, Almeda got really upset and put out a press release accusing Wally’s owner of perjury (lol)
In their words:
“he completed an application that included a background of the following: Eight-years tutoring pre-K children, curriculum design and development, teaching coping skills, and volunteer coaching. Clearly, this was a series of intentional lies to establish a believable identity, not a true account of his dog’s credentials.”
The press release continued:
“Although it is preposterous to believe the accusation that Almeda would grant a degree to a person with the same skills as a dog, this doesn’t prevent attention-seekers from breaking laws and filling the web with inaccurate blogs to create this perception.”
(stealing this)
As you’ve surely learned by this point, these “animal earns college degree” stories usually begin and end there – the cat/dog gets a diploma, everybody laughs, someone gets prosecuted for fraud, we all move on with our lives. But not so for Wally.
Four years after Wally’s triumphant graduation from Almeda, his name resurfaced in the sleepy Wisconsin town of Lake Geneva.
In 2008, this town of ~7,000 was in the throes of a hotly contested mayoral election between William “Bill” Chesen and Spyro “Speedo” Condos. And it’s very important for you to know that Bill Chesen held a bachelor’s degree from Almeda University, the very same institution that counted Wally the dog as a proud alumnus.
One day, someone in Lake Geneva printed a political cartoon showing our dear Wally with a diploma in his mouth and a speech bubble that said, “I graduated with Bill Chesen.”
A copy of this political cartoon was left on a bench somewhere in Lake Geneva, where it was discovered by a woman who sat down to smoke a cigarette. When she found the cartoon, Bill Chesen happened to be nearby, so she handed it to him.
Bill was not very happy about this cartoon, believing it to be “defamatory.” But rather than just being quietly upset – this being small-town Wisconsin – Bill, naturally, called the police.
The police showed up to “keep the peace” because of the “political atmosphere and conflict between the candidates,” but ultimately no charges were filed. According to the Assistant District Attorney, “The voters were entitled to know that his degree was of questionable value.”
Anyway, Bill Chesen won the election and this is where things really started to get spicy. Let me paint you a picture through headlines:
I found a local news site, Lake Geneva News, that has a whole section of stories about this saga, neatly organized under the label “Chesen’s Coup d’etat.”
Basically, this was just some S-tier small town drama, but it was also small town drama that made the Wall Street Journal, so I’ll try to explain what actually happened to the best of my abilities.
After Bill was elected mayor, one member of the eight-person city council resigned, as they were moving out of Lake Geneva.
Vacancies on the city council in Lake Geneva can either be filled by a special election or a majority vote of the remaining members of the council. The council members opted for the latter.
By a 4-2 vote, the members decided to add none other than Speedo Condos, the chief rival of Mayor Bill, to the city council. This decision upset Bill. From the Wall Street Journal:
Mr. Chesen alleges the four council members hatched a plan in violation of open-meeting laws to install Mr. Condos in the seat and take over the government. In a deposition, he also charged them with wasting the time of city workers and spending a suspicious amount of time in Mr. Condos’s restaurant.
It also feels relevant to mention at this point that Bill and Speedo went to high school together, and “bad feelings between the two go back at least that far.” Bill was quoted in the Chicago Tribune, saying, “I was president of the student council; he was a jock. We didn’t pay any attention to each other.”
Anyway, in response, Bill asked the city, county, and state to all file civil charges against the four traitorous members of the council who had voted to install Speedo, but this effort was unsuccessful.
Undeterred, Bill took matters into his own hands and suspended the four members, claiming his authority from a state law passed nearly a century earlier.
Bill saw this as a courageous action on his part, aimed at defeating corruption in municipal government. Or, as he put it, “Dirty pool has been the standard. And that’s got to stop. This is Wisconsin, not Illinois. We don’t have governors sitting in prison.” (!!!)
However, others saw it differently. Dan Thompson, the president of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, said, “The municipal attorneys are all buzzing about this among themselves,” (cute) and one Lake Geneva resident complained, “It’s embarrassing that this is going on. It’s stupid. It’s kid’s play. And you can quote me on that.” (they did)
It was up to the Lake Geneva Police Department to enforce the suspension, and the way this went down was simply insane.
One of the suspended members, 77-year-old Arleen Krohn, was leaving a meeting at City Hall when she was greeted by two police officers waiting for her. They served her with the suspension papers and immediately seized her electronic key to City Hall. Arleen, formerly a school crossing guard for 23 years, said, “I couldn’t believe it. What had we done wrong?”
With the eight-member council now down to four members, they lacked a quorum and could not legally conduct any business. Oops!
Bill called a meeting to try to appoint four new members to the council, but his rival, Speedo, immediately moved to end the meeting for lack of a quorum, which prompted some cheers from people in attendance.
(Let me just say that whenever small town drama gets so intense you have people cheering at city council meetings, it’s time to turn down the temperature a little bit.)
Recognizing the reality of the situation, Bill partially admitted defeat by unsuspending two of the members so the city council could actually do stuff.
At this point, the trail runs a little cold as far as “major newspapers reporting on whatever the hell is going on in Lake Geneva,” but the aforementioned Lake Geneva News helpfully came in clutch with the hopeful headline “Happy Days are Here Again?!”
The article reports that all four suspended members were eventually allowed to return to the council, and that is basically the end of the Lake Geneva coup d’etat saga. I tried to find more recent updates on what Bill Chesen is up to nowadays and whether he has attempted any more coups since then, but I couldn’t find anything. I think it’s safe to assume no news is good news on the “Bill Chesen lusting after world domination” beat.
At the very least, I can tell you that Bill is no longer mayor, and I also could not find an obituary for him, so presumably he is still around and in his 70s, somewhere in the world. If you know Bill, please send him my blog and ask him not to sue me for defamation.
Let this be a lesson to all that if you have a big ego, there are other ways to fulfill it than by playing dictator in your local government. Not everyone needs to be mayor! As Bill told the Wall Street Journal, “I’m not a good politician by any stretch of the imagination. But I’m a firm believer in what’s right is right.”
Maybe, just maybe, “what’s right” would have been letting a different, canine alumnus of Almeda University become mayor. Wally, if you’re still around, Lake Geneva needs you! After all, a dog as mayor is not unprecedented.
That’s all for this week. As always, thanks for reading! Until next time.
If you enjoyed this piece, consider tossing me a few bucks (I will spend it on snacks)
great work as always, my beautiful angel <3
Man, I gotta get my cats some degrees! Pigeon Swilley-Fritschner MBA, PHD