The president of Malone University, an evangelical Christian college in Canton, Ohio, has resigned. According to a press release from the college:
Malone University President Gary W. Streit has announced his intention to retire from the position. The decision was reached in response to recent concerns about the use of unattributed materials in some of his speeches. Malone University adheres to the highest standards of academic integrity. By taking this action, President Streit has demonstrated to the students and public that the university’s academic integrity standards apply equally to all members of the Malone community.
“Unattributed” is PR-speak for plagiarizing. And oh what plagiarizing it was. Apparently Streit was forced to resign after students started to notice that the speeches he gave in chapel seemed to be lifted verbatim from things that were very easy to find in the Internet.
According to an article about Streit in the Chronicle of Higher Education, in a public address to the college on January 13 the Malone president described the Roman God Janus like this:
In Roman mythology, Janus was the god of gates, of doors, of beginnings and of endings. His most prominent remnant in modern culture is his namesake, the month of January, which begins each new year. He is most often depicted as having two faces or heads, facing in opposite directions.
This is the Wikipedia entry for Janus on January 13. Streit apparently also lifted portions of his speech from a mythology Web site and from Associated Press articles.
Streit had been at Malone since 2007. He previously served as president of Olivet Nazarene University. Malone does not plan to investigate Streit’s work or statements any further. Because Streit has already retired, the college said that it would not bother to looking into the plagiarism allegations. There would “really be no point,” said Suzanne Thomas, director of marketing and public relations at Malone.
The chairman of the Malone University board of directors said, “We love Gary and his wife, Marla, we respect his decision, and we honor their joint service to Malone over the past three years.”
