Colonel Zimon, on his resume, also said he had been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School and business school. But Harvard officials say he never had postdoctoral fellowships at either school, although they confirm that he held a National Security Fellowship, a position for active-duty military officers at the Kennedy School. Fellows in that program are not required to have doctorates.

Colonel Zimon's resume said that he had taught "seminars" at the Kennedy School. School officials say that he never taught there and that the policy agreement between the military and the school precludes military officers from teaching. But the director of the National Security Fellows program said that Colonel Gagnon and Colonel Zimon had made a one-time presentation of a research paper to the entire school in 1992, when they were fellows. On his resume, Colonel Zimon also described himself as having been a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and said that he was on the board of the institute's Center for International Studies. Officials of the center, however, note that it has no board. They say that Colonel Zimon was a fellow in the Seminar XXI Program, whose participants are government officials, and that he served on the program's board. The fellows are not required to hold doctorates. The Albright president agreed with those distinctions this week. But he said that the fellowships had been postdoctoral fellowships for him, because he held a doctorate when he had participated in them. Colonel Zimon received his doctorate in geography from Ohio State University in 1979. Members of Albright's Board of Trustees said this month that the search committee for the college's new president, which included three faculty members, had checked candidates' credentials, as had the search firm employed by the college, Spencer Stuart and Associates. "The search committee, along with the board, was satisfied with Dr. Zimon's credentials," said Salvatore M. Cutrona, the vice-chairman of the board and head of the search panel. "We tried to go through every nook and cranny related to the candidates we had, and we're proud of this one."

Ron Zera, managing director of Spencer Stuart's higher-education division, led Albright's search. He said this month that he could not remember who had examined Colonel Zimon's publications, although he said that the references had been carefully checked. "I don't know if every 't' was crossed or every 'i' dotted," Mr. Zera said. "I don't know if every line of his resume was validated. But a person with his kind of visibility and stature with the government -- when we checked him out, he was really clean." Still, he added: "There's always some 't' or some 'i' that could have slipped through." Some faculty members, meanwhile, say they feel that Colonel Zimon has misled Albright. "Colleges and universities are just not cut out to deal with someone who might be perpetuating a very deliberate and calculating fraud," said Achal Mehra, a communications professor. "They work on faith and trust that people speak the truth. It is my opinion that Colonel Zimon is pulling a first-class con job."

Copyright 1999, The Chronicle of Higher Education. Reprinted with permission. This article may not be posted, published, or printed without permission from The Chronicle.

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