Paul Kirk
A top Durban accountancy lecturer has had his doctorate in business management withdrawn after a United States university discovered that large portions of his doctoral thesis were plagiarised from accountancy magazines. Ian Dey-van-Heerden is head of the department of accounting at Natal Technikon and supervises 19 other lecturers and four administrative staff. Dey-van-Heerden represents himself as mister on the technikon’s website, but when the Mail & Guardian attempted to contact him by telephone switchboard operators said they had instructions to refer to him as doctor. Last year Dey-van-Heerden obtained a PhD from Hawthorne University in Salt Lake City, Utah. The title of his thesis was Should Activity Based Management Systems Be Used by State Subsidised Tertiary Institutions as a System for Management Decision-making, in the Pursuance of Being a Centre of Academic Excellence, with Specific Reference to Technikon Natal?. However, less than nine months after being issued the degree was withdrawn. Hawthorne University had discovered that the bulk of Dey-van-Heerden’s dissertation was plagiarised from accountancy magazines.
To make matters worse, Dey-van-Heerden never bothered to type out the articles himself. Instead investigations by Hawthorne revealed he used a home computer to scan articles, pie charts and graphs from magazines. These were then enlarged or reduced, printed out and presented as original work. The M&G has studied the doctorate and obtained copies of some of the magazines mainly British in origin. Dey-van-Heerden was notified that his PhD had been withdrawn in December last year, but he has not reported this to his employers. In a harshly worded letter written by Kraig Munzert, president of the university, the lecturer was informed that his actions had damaged the reputation of the institution. A copy of this letter is in the possession of the M&G. In it Munzert points out that large chunks of the thesis were copied from accountancy journals. “In short your dissertation was plagiarised,” he writes. “This breach of academic ethics is viewed very seriously by this institution. Your actions in this matter threaten the integrity of this institution and reflect negatively on its administration, faculty and alumni. Further you have directly violated the academic rules you agreed to uphold when you enrolled in this institution.” Munzert then revokes the degree “on behalf of the Board of Regents of Hawthorne University of Salt Lake City, Utah. With all due gravity.” Hawthorne University refused to comment on the letter, but a representative said they had authenticated all the documents and said the evidence against Dey-van-Heerden was “overwhelming”. Dey-van-Heerden could not be reached for comment despite numerous attempts. When the M&G visited the technikon four times on two consecutive days he could not be found.
At the time of going to press Dey-van-Heerden’s telephone was being answered by a woman who refused to identify herself. She claimed she had instructions not to put the calls through to Dey-van-Heerden. Terry Dagnall-Quinn, dean of the department of commerce, was in a meeting at the time of going to press. The day before, the M&G had contacted his secretary and faxed a list of questions to his office. These were not answered.