Eugene Nesmith
Nesmith hoped to garner more positive letters of recommendation from the outside referees for his promotion review -- so he lied and made it look as if the NHAT was a thriving company in Harlem and that he was still its Artistic Director.
Nesmith had been fired from the NHAT and the theatre had been disbanded, therefore he committed fraud when he included the following outrageous lies in his promotion dossier.
In his letter of support for Nesmith, Professor Patterson writes,
"I wish NHAT would put its summer 2013 season on the web page, but at least Professor Nesmith refers to it in his application. I wish it the greatest fortune:"
In his dossier Nesmith writes,
"...this [Actors Equity points for CCNY students who performed with NHAT] was something we did not get this year [2012], but was promised that the union would be more receptive to the idea next year [i.e., 2013]"
In his dossier Nesmith writes,
“...New Haarlem Arts Theatre is recognized as the major professional theatre uptown."
In his Promotion dossier-- Nesmith wrote that his tenure as the NHAT's Artistic Director was ongoing. He wrote,
"Founding Artistic Director, New Haarlem Arts Theatre, 2010-present"
The New Haarlem Arts Theatre No Longer Existed
and Nesmith Had been fired when this was written.
David Willinger confessed Nesmith’s fraud to Provost Liss who cited his [Willinger’s] confession in his 2012 letter about the matter:
PROVOST LISS
DAVID WILLINGER
“At your suggestion, I interviewed Professor Willinger, who was Department Chair at the time, about this. [The fact that Nesmith said that the NHAT was thriving under his artistic direction – when the theatre had been disbanded months before he made these fraudulent assertions.] Professor Willinger told me that Professor Nesmith fully believed [Hoped] that NHAT would find new funding after the College President stopped funding it, and although that turned out not to be true, nobody knew that at the time.”
Nesmith Falsified documents in his Tenure/Promotion cv.
Before a CCNY professor can submit her/his tenure cv -- they must sign a document attesting to the fact that everything in their file is true.
Although Nesmith certainly must have signed the document above, it is abundantly clear that he and his faculty mentor, David Willinger were knowingly lying on this form. They both knew that Nesmith was presenting The NHAT in his cv as a vital and ongoing successful theatre company in Harlem.
However, the NHAT had been disbanded months before he (Nesmith) signed this document and he (Nesmith) had been fired from his position as its Artistic Director.
Both Nesmith and Willinger knew that Nesmith was lying on this form but they did it anyway.
TYPOGRAPHY
ANIMATION
Hope does indeed spring eternal but tenure/promotion reviews should be based on verifiable and established accomplishments.
It was fraud when Nesmith continually lied and said that he was the current Artistic Director of a theatre company that did not exist, in order to scam outside referees into writing positive letters of recommendation for him. If I live to be 100-years old I will never understand why Provost Liss and Professor Willinger continue to defend this indefensible fraud.
Nesmith, Willinger and Liss know that the ethical thing to have done was for Nesmith to postpone his run for promotion until after the NHAT was revived and he (Nesmith) was reinstated as its Artistic Director. To lie on official tenure/promotion documents while Nesmith worked to reestablish the theatre and his Artistic directorship was fraud, full stop.
"As I mentioned to you, ...Professor Nesmith's file included virtually none of his promotion materials..."
"The fact that they were scheming...and knew that they had to hide some of this...speaks to the fact that there was consciousness of guilt"
Chris Hayes, MSNow
Because Nesmith's promotion files were mysteriously missing when Provost Lisa went to examine them-- I assert that my colleagues displayed, " consciousness of guilt" when they:
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Destroyed evidence that could corroborate my allegation about the fraud that was committed when Nesmith’s documents for his 2012-13 promotion to full professor review were compiled and sent to outside referees.
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Again, Professor Willinger actually confessed Nesmith's fraud to Provost Liss when he was interviewed about the fraud allegations regarding my 2020 whistleblower complaint.
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Provost Liss wrote:
PROVOST LISS
“At your suggestion, I interviewed Professor Willinger, who was Department Chair at the time, about this. Professor Willinger told me that Professor Nesmith fully believed [HOPED] that NHAT would find new funding after the College President stopped funding it, and although that turned out not to be true, nobody knew that at the time….”
Provost Liss
