Does Hartzell lie about his academic achievements?
I wouldn't say he lies, but on his website he certainly is careless or ambiguous when stating them, and makes it easy for somebody to draw the wrong conclusion about them.
http://www.rickhartzell.com/credentials/ Hartzell claims to have been a "Professor" at Coe College from 1977-1980, when he was a newly-minted graduate with only a masters degree. I don't know for a fact what his rank at Coe was, but according to its faculty handbook, newly hired teachers with master degrees are hired as "Instructors", not "Professors".
http://www.coe.edu/uploads/pdfs/academi ... ndbook.pdfAlso on his website, he states from 1980-1982 : "University of Iowa Ph.D. Graduate Assistant, Assistant Baseball Coach".
Now, in the context of what came before on the Credentials page on which this entry appears, I initially (and quite naturally, I believe) read this to mean Hartzell had been awarded a Ph.D from Iowa, while also serving as a graduate assistant baseball coach. But I see now that, with the absence of a comma between "Ph.D" and "Graduate", an alternate interpretation is possible, that being that "Ph.D" is merely a descriptive qualifier of "Graduate Assistant", and not an assertion that Hartzell had been awarded a Ph.D, which, in fact, he had not.
Whether this was merely sloppy draftsmanship by Hartzell, or evidence of an intent to deceive the reader by ambiguity into believing that Hartsell earned a Ph.D at Iowa, I don't know.