多伦多信息港/在多伦多星报(Toronto Star)曝光约克大学(York University)一位中国毕业生伪造该学校文凭以及另一学生凭借假文凭进入奥斯古德大厦法学院(Osgoode Hall Law School)后，约克大学采取了更加严格的管理措施。
约克大学已经开通了网上文凭查询服务“Entitled YU Verify”。使用者登陆约克大学网站就可知道被查询人是否获得了约克大学的学位或文凭、该学位或文凭的类型及授予日期。当然，查询者要有被查询人的基本信息(姓名和出生日期)或其约克大学学号才能查询。约克大学发言人比利克(Alex Bilyk)表示学校在文凭或成绩单上也做了一些更改，出于安全原因，他不便透露具体内容。
根据注册办公室(Registrar’s Office)的说明，约克大学的网上文凭查询服务不包括1982年以前毕业生及奥斯古德大厦法学院今年6月或1993年以前毕业生的信息。
多伦多星报在去年12月份进行秘密调查，曝光了约克大学中国毕业生孙鹏(Peng Sun)以3千元出售假约克大学文凭。同时，他还出售带有约克大学水印标记、几可乱真的成绩单复印本。调查中，星报的一位记者假扮银行职员，用4千元现金从孙鹏手里买到了一本MBA文凭和一份密封的成绩单复印本。孙鹏还对记者夸口说，他做这行已有四年，伪造过数百本约克大学和多伦多大学的文凭。他的客户主要是在加拿大辍学或考试不及格的中国留学生。这些留学生都想拿文凭，回国找份好工作。
“我很多朋友在这待了两三年，又不想上学，(从我这)拿到约克大学和多伦多大学的文凭，然后在中国找到了工作。”他说。孙鹏伪造的学士、MBA或博士文凭都一个价，用他的话说，这些不过就是几张纸而已。
交易后，两名星报记者将孙鹏堵在车里，并要回了他们的钱。孙鹏没有被起诉犯罪，他自己的约克大学学位是真的。他于2007年毕业于Atkinson School of Administrative Studies，取得人力资源管理学士学位。
星报还对28岁格林纳达移民Quami Frederick利用网上买来的假文凭进入颇有声誉的奥斯古德大厦法学院进行了曝光。星报报道Frederick在格林纳达的圣乔治大学(St. George’s University)取得的商业管理理科学士学位证书为伪造，那时已在奥斯古德大厦法学院就读三年的她刚刚在Wildeboer Dellelce LLP法律公司找到工作。
2005年，美国国土安全局和特勤局在华盛顿州捣毁一个假文凭制造窝点，之后公布了购买假文凭者名单，Frederick的名字赫然在列。其实，有心者只要给圣乔治大学打个电话就能知道Frederick从未在该校上过学。
Frederick不仅使用假文凭，还伪造了三年来的学习成绩。星报报道此事后，法律公司不再聘用她，她也从约克大学退学。
多伦多大学早已开通网上学位查询服务，但其网站上表示查询结果出来前要等5天。瑞尔森大学(Ryerson University)没有网上查询服务，但可以通过电子邮件或传真查询。
To catch a cheat: York U. targets bogus degrees
Online service lets users instantly verify degrees
Dale Brazao/ Staff Reporter
Published On Sat Nov 21 2009
(A Star investigation revealed how Peng Sun was churning out copies of degrees for $3,000. DALE BRAZAO/TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO)
York University has brought in tough new controls in the wake of a Toronto Star investigation that showed a former student fabricated dozens of its degrees, and another got into Osgoode Hall Law School with a degree purchased from a diploma mill.
The new online degree verification is an invaluable tool for employers, immigration officials and other schools wanting to check whether someone holds a genuine York degree, said Alex Bilyk, spokesman for the university.
“We’ve also made changes to our degrees and transcripts. However, we’re not comfortable revealing further details on that for obvious security reasons,” Bilyk said of the moves meant to strengthen and safeguard the integrity of the university’s degrees.
Entitled YU Verify, the online service provides instant confirmation on whether someone received a degree and/or certificate from York, the type of degree or certificate and the year in which it was conferred. To verify a degree at www.yorku.ca/roweb/services/yuverify/ you either need basic biographical information about the person (e.g. first and last name, day and month of birth) or their York University student number.
The service is a work in progress and may not yet contain information on students who graduated before 1982 or law students who graduated from Osgoode Hall this past June or before 1993, according to the Registrar’s Office.
A Star undercover investigation last December revealed how former York University student Peng Sun was churning out near-perfect copies of York U. degrees for $3,000. He also sold copies of transcripts on watermarked paper containing the university logo that were virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.
A Star reporter posing as a bank clerk was able to buy an MBA and a sealed transcript of marks from Sun for $4,000 cash after a series of meetings in parking lots around Toronto. During the investigation, Sun, 26, boasted to the undercover reporter that he had manufactured hundreds of York and University of Toronto degrees in the four years he had been operating.
His clients, he said, were mainly Chinese visa students who had skipped or flunked school during their time in Canada and wanted to go home with a degree that would get them good jobs.
“I have friends in China who spent three years here, didn’t want to go to school but got York and U of T degrees (from me), then got a job. There are many of them. It’s funny,” he said.
The price for a BA, MBA or PhD was the same because for him it was just paper and ink, Sun said.
Two Star reporters confronted Sun in his car after the transaction; when they demanded the money back, he complied. Sun was never charged with a crime. Sun’s own degree from York University is real. He graduated from the Atkinson School of Administrative Studies in 2007 with a bachelor’s in human resources management.
The Star investigation also showed how Quami Frederick, a 28-year-old immigrant from Grenada, got into the prestigious Osgoode Hall Law School with a degree she had purchased from a diploma mill on the Internet.
Frederick, in her third year at Osgoode Hall, had just landed a job with the Bay St. labour law firm Wildeboer Dellelce LLP when the Star revealed her bachelor of science in business administration from St. George’s University in Grenada was a fake.
Frederick’s name was on a list of bogus degree buyers compiled by U.S. Homeland Security and Secret Service agents who took down a Washington State diploma mill in 2005. A simple call to St. George’s University in Grenada would have revealed that Frederick had never attended the school.
“The integrity of our admissions process is of paramount importance to the law school,” Patrick Monahan, the law school dean at the time, wrote to students following the Star exposé. “If even a single individual is able to gain entrance to the school improperly, that takes a place in the class away from another qualified deserving applicant.” Monahan is now vice-president academic and provost of the university.
Not only did Frederick use the bogus degree to get into Osgoode, she also forged her transcript of marks for the three years she attended. She quit York after the Star article and the law firm withdrew its job offer.
“We’ve taken appropriate steps to detect bogus transcripts and any person caught will be prevented from continuing with the application,” said Bilyk.
“We welcome continued support from police to catch and charge individuals, and we are thankful to you (the Star) for having brought that to our attention.”
The University of Toronto already has online degree verification but its website says it needs a turnaround of five days to fill requests. Ryerson University verifies degrees by email or fax, but not online.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/728893–to-catch-a-cheat-york-u-targets-bogus-degrees
