When Melania Trump’s much-anticipated address at the Republican National Convention on Monday provoked outrage for plagiarizing Michelle Obama’s speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, the typically demure member of Trump’s campaign suddenly became the center of a lot of negative press.
The ensuing wave of critical attention towards Melania Trump dug up other questionable details about her position in the campaign—among them, its claim that she obtained “a degree in design and architecture at University in Slovenia”, according to her bio in the GOP Convention’s program. The same information appears on Melania Trump’s official website.
An obvious red flag, pointed out by snopes.com, is that “There is no ‘University in Slovenia,’ nor is there a ‘University of Slovenia.’” Previous to the RNC, multiple profiles of Melania Trump (including those for GQ and The New Yorker) had looked into her academic background and reported that she did indeed attend the school of architecture at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, to become a designer, but dropped out to pursue modeling.
snopes.com also looked into the archives of Ljubljana University, for any records pertaining to any version of Melania Trump’s name (before marrying Trump, she went by Melanija Knavs, then Melania Knauss), and came up with nothing. Further investigations for records of her name at “any other university in the country” also yielded nothing.
More Trump News:
79 Comments
Let's b-real, we all know she got a degree from Trump U. She majored in wig management.
Hold on there....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Slovenia
The ensuing wave of critical attention towards Melania Trump dug up other questionable details about her position in the campaign—among them, its claim that she obtained “a degree in design and architecture at University in Slovenia”
Aside from a grammatical error missing a word... the word 'a' aftet the word 'at' and the word 'university'.
Therefore, before getting all ridiculously out of line, I would consider consulting the universities in Slovenia as there are SEVERAL... but the ones with a design and architecture degree at the supposed time she got that degree. Do your research and you should find whether or not she had actually attended those universities and what her education really was.
Now, there maybe an equivalent of FERPA at play in Slovenia.
RickB-OR - did you read this before posting your comment?
snopes.com also looked into the archives of Ljubljana University, for any records pertaining to any version of Melania Trump’s name (before marrying Trump, she went by Melanija Knavs, then Melania Knauss), and came up with nothing. Further investigations for records of her name at “any other university in the country” also yielded nothing.
It could be they are getting nothing because of a Slovenia equivalent of FERPA and basically told that they aren't divulging information about past or present students or anything and told to buzz off.
In short, they get nothing because none of the institutions are going to divulge anything.
What are you basing that assumption on other than 'it's a thing you were capable of thinking up'?
Exactly, tduds.
tduds,
I don't know Melanie Trump but I'm not assuming she never went to any higher education institution in Slovenia.
It is possible that there is NO access to any student records by anyone other than the institution or an order of a judicial court. I just don't think the institutions are giving any records.
Remember, the articles are politicized and are not entirely honest. Why did they not get anything? Could it be because the colleges/universities basically told these 'reporters' to take a hike. It could be a legal matter and a matter of some kind of student records privacy similar to our FERPA.
So we don't know. Personally, I don't really care. Lets also consider that she is 46 years old. If she attended, maybe around the same age as we typically start college right out of high school. So let say, she started in 1988 and probably completed college by 1993/1994. Those records were probably recorded on old MS-DOS machines on 5.25" floppy disks or 3.5" floppy disks. Considering Slovenia at the time, they were undergoing a big change and independence from Socialist Yugoslavia. In those days, records were archived by print out (physical paper) and subsequently archived into what would probably be microfiche.
Even if they have the records, why in the world would a college/university (even in Slovenia) in this day and age, with concerns for protection of privacy of student records of both past and present students being the international norm in North America and Europe, even consider giving student records information of past or present students to a bunch of strangers. Those reporter/researcher trying to get this information was probably politely told to go f--- off and take a hike.
Think about it. We just don't know one way or another because that information just isn't going to be given to strangers like media reporters.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't to defend or support Donald Trump or Melania's recent substantive plagiarism.
MY POINT is not to jump to conclusion. I scrutinize the research process because there is not full disclosure on how they conducted the search for students and the full factual response. It's political so take these political articles with a grain of salt.
Is it possible that she doesn't have any such degree nor attended any of those colleges in Slovenia? Yes. Is it possible she did and these reporters still not get any confirmation one way or another about attending the college OR the degree program? Yes.
As far as I know, at the time of her 'studies' only University of Ljubljana architecture faculty existed, the rest were established later.
Yes we've already established you're capable of imagining scenarios.
I'd like to give an organization such as Snopes (which is consistently apolitlcal) the benefit of the doubt and assume they're smart enough to understand the difference between "We didn't find anything" and "We weren't given access to anything" and report as such. They do this for a living. It's their only job and they're very good at it.
Now, again, can you provide anything that would suggest otherwise, using sources outside of your own brain?
(Damnit, I broke the pledge)
evaseljan,
Ok. I'll say this much, if she attended the program, it doesn't mean the school will divulge anything to strangers looking for student record information. Why do we care? I'm sure we the big reason it's brought here is the reference to her supposed degree in architecture in Slovenia.
We don't know. How many faculty was there at the time? Had they talked to past professors (retired professors) that were professors at the time? Even though there maybe a few remaining, it just might be possible she didn't have that professor for class or the professors may have forgotten about her. It could be that she wasn't really memorable.
If all they try to do is consult student records, they probably got the polite form of "Go F--- Off".
If I was wanting to really know, I would dig deeper into the research to get around the legal / institutional barriers. I don't think that was performed.
It would probably take too long.
Yes we've already established you're capable of imagining scenarios.
I'd like to give an organization such as Snopes (which is consistently apolitlcal) the benefit of the doubt and assume they're smart enough to understand the difference between "We didn't find anything" and "We weren't given access to anything" and report as such. They do this for a living. It's their only job and they're very good at it.
Now, again, can you provide anything that would suggest otherwise, using sources outside of your own brain?
Apolitical doesn't exist unless you don't live on this planet "in a galaxy far... far... away." (Star Wars reference for those words)
Donald Trump isn't the kind of figure where a person or any organization can be really, truly apolitical about. The writers of the article just can't really be.
I think they got told to go fuck off by the Universities there. They were probably told that student records information of past or current students will not be divulged.
They might have interviewed a few of the longer tenure professors but they might not remember her because there were a lot of students. If she wasn't a very memorable person, it is possible, they can't remember. The number of older tenure professors that was teaching at the time are probably small. It is highly doubtful they chased down all the living retired professors that was teaching at the time or any of them. Interviewing is a more time consuming process requiring consent of the interviewee to be interviewed.
If most of them just wants to enjoy their privacy, they are probably denied any interview in that no consent was given. The effort that may be needed is a police-like level of investigation. This isn't something Snopes.com is going to do.
I do not see sufficient disclosure on the means and method of research, who they talked to, etc. Where is the investigation report?
pretty sure snopes is a far more reliable source than your imagination Ricky.
another dumpster fire brought to you by rick balkins "out of this world" prolific imagination
"Those records were probably recorded on old MS-DOS machines on 5.25" floppy disks or 3.5" floppy disks. Considering Slovenia at the time, they were undergoing a big change and independence from Socialist Yugoslavia. In those days, records were archived by print out (physical paper) and subsequently archived into what would probably be microfiche."
Apparently this poster knows a great deal about 1980's higher ed administration management in Soviet Slovenia. Fascinating. I can't imagine anyone would have the interest or mental strength to study such a thing.
maybe she practiced architecture in Sweden
I've heard of diarrhea of the mouth, but Balkins is the first case of diarrhea of the keyboard that I've ever seen.
.
To point out the forest for those focused on the trees here:
Sorry, that last point is more tree than forest, but some stupidity must be called out for what it is.
OMG z1111 just won this thread LOLing!!!
E_I,
BORING POST BELOW
True but I didn't say the grammatical error was the fault of the archinect's editorial staff. It is citing the grammatical error in the quote. Thank you for clarifying. I didn't mean to imply the archinect's staff at error but it important to read it as "...at a university in Slovenia" but not "at university in Slovenia".
It is the "in Slovenia" that breaks the "at university" exception, used by British and sometimes in the United States, requiring the use of the definite article since any singular degree is conferred by a single university. Since the 'degree" is a singular item, the degree must be conferred by a single academic institution. Therefore, again, the university must also be singular and the article would be a definite article.
Since the word 'university' starts with a vowel, you might think you should use 'an'. Not quite so fast. It is not so much the nouns starts with vowels or consonants but that the noun starts off with either a vowel sound or a consonant sound. The phoneme of the first syllable of the noun does matter. Since the letter in "university" in this case sounds like "YOUnivsersity" as if it starts with a Y in the consonant form of the letter Y.
Therefore, 'a" is used instead of 'an'.
http://www.englishpage.com/articles/a-vs-an.htm
damn z111......i was going to say maybe she is a Building Designer or something, damn you......and who the fuck cares........hold on, wait, lets not be stupid here! don't first ladies always get somekind of philanthropic domestic humanitarian hobby project? what if she decides its architecture?
Rick there are over 100 grammatical errors in your own posts in the thread. I am not exaggerating. I stopped counting at 103, and had not yet reached your most recent message at all. For the love of God: "maybe" does not mean "may be", and "then" does not mean "than". You are the least qualified person in the history of the internet to judge anybody's grammar.
She dropped out after her freshman year with a few passed classes, a couple failed exams, and an incomplete internship. You can see how Balkins would identify with this. Spinning a whole architecture degree out of a handful of first-year electives is even slightly more legitimate than claiming to be "at architecture school at U of O" when one actually means "not admitted, but physically lurking in the building when managing to keep from being spotted by the architecture department's administration and thrown out by security. "
It is my opinion that if she made that claim that she should have to produce evidence that she actually went to that school and has a diploma from there. reporters can only look as deep as they can look and she should have to produce something to prove her claim
Drumpfgasm
Rick there are over 100 grammatical errors in your own posts in the thread. I am not exaggerating. I stopped counting at 103, and had not yet reached your most recent message at all. For the love of God: "maybe" does not mean "may be", and "then" does not mean "than". You are the least qualified person in the history of the internet to judge anybody's grammar.
For the love of God, my posts are comments. They are not blog articles, academic writings or even commercial/professional writings. Forum comments are informal, casual and usually grammatically incorrect just like Facebook comments and instant messaging.
I do expect the employees of Archinect to be held to a higher standard. I expect commercial/professional writings to be held to an even higher standard. I expect writings from news media to be properly written with correct grammar. I expect that because I would expect that more time would be spent in writing and proof reading than a casual comment on an internet forum. I expect internet forum posts to be close to real time with only only a little more latency than instant messages. I expect the time spent on a typical post to be maybe 5 MINUTES. Yes, 5 MINUTES. Not 5 hours but 5 MINUTES.
I expect instant messages to usually have less than 2 minutes spent to write such a message.
I expect academic writings to have from hours to several months of 20 or more hours a week invested.
I expect that for commercial/professional, academic and research writings but internet comments where I may spend maybe 5 minutes give or take a few minutes to write.
She dropped out after her freshman year with a few passed classes, a couple failed exams, and an incomplete internship. You can see how Balkins would identify with this. Spinning a whole architecture degree out of a handful of first-year electives is even slightly more legitimate than claiming to be "at architecture school at U of O" when one actually means "not admitted, but physically lurking in the building when managing to keep from being spotted by the architecture department's administration and thrown out by security. "
Whoever Mr. FormallyUnknown is,
I do have a few years of classes, many of them in Lawrence Hall in the School of Architecture and Allied Arts (the architecture school?) at University of Oregon. Classes in Architecture, HOPE Conference courses, Landscape architecture course, Architectural history, and Historic Preservation courses. That is on top of about 2 year degree worth of classes in historic preservation at a community college, additional courses in computer aided design & drafting that had a significantly larger architectural focus considering that was the area of subject matter that the instructor of the CAD courses was familiar with. 7+ FULL ACADEMIC YEARS worth of college level education (including a degree in computer programming & networking) plus another 5+ FTE equivalent full time self-directed studies in architectural subject matters, engineering, etc.
It is my opinion that if she made that claim that she should have to produce evidence that she actually went to that school and has a diploma from there. reporters can only look as deep as they can look and she should have to produce something to prove her claim
Amen !!!!
I do agree with that. It is possible the media can't get anything from the university for any number of reasons. She did make a claim of a degree conferred so a copy of the degree certificate would be appropriate with original present. I wouldn't expect her or anyone to give away their original.
The college or school should be able to verify a degree conferred to a student. That information should be available and 25+ years or so isn't that long ago.
RickB-OR here is where you are wrong, it says "at University in Slovania" you see that capital U suggest that the name of the university is "university in slovania" therefore there is no need for the "a" that you speak of. Just like you say you took courses "at University of Oregon"
Ok... ok... Simmer down folks.
She DID NOT obtain any degree at/in any University or Faculty in the Republic of Slovenia. OK? That’s it.
She indeed was a student at Faculty of Architecture (Fakulteta za arhitekturo), which is part of University of Ljubljana (Univerza v Ljubljani). Bu she dropped out as a freshman.
She never got a degree. Ever.
How do I know that? We were colleagues in same class.
Further reading:
fa.uni-lj.si
Edit: Back then the “Faculty of Architecture” didn’t even existed yet. It was called “Faculty of Architecture, Civil and Geodetic engineering” in 1995 the faculty split into FA and FCG…
and once she becomes First Lady and does that hobby shit the first ladies do she will receive an Honorary Doctorate, you know I am right.
Thank you for that, tomažsajovic! So do you live in Ljubljana now? God I love that city, so beautiful.
So, is the moral here that Trump's trophy wife is more qualified to design buildings than Balkarinosky?
So, is the moral here that Trump's trophy wife is more qualified to design buildings than Balkarinosky?
I'm pretty sure she knows erection...
Nice one, Jerome!
On the Archinect FB page people are carrying on about how Archinect should "stick to architecture" and not comment about politics. LOL. If Ms. Trump had claimed she got a degree in journalism Archinect wouldn't be covering it. Do these people hear themselves?
I just don't understand it. I've had personal experience with people applying for an important job with fake credentials and getting caught - do people really not understand that it's *really easy* to verify a degree? How dumb or egomaniacal are people that they think they can fake this?!
we have a facebook page?
...you learn something new everyday I guess.
The plans for Her first project as First Lady for an America pavilion on the mall.
^ needs more gold trim.
RickB-OR here is where you are wrong, it says "at University in Slovania" you see that capital U suggest that the name of the university is "university in slovania" therefore there is no need for the "a" that you speak of. Just like you say you took courses "at University of Oregon"
The above quote is so asinine and stupid that it is not worth a response other than a comment about how asinine and stupid the quote above is.
Before you all get your knickers in a twist about what "University in Slovenia" means, I attend the University in question and said Architecture School.
1) At the time Ms Trump was going to school, The Faculty of Architecture (then called The Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Surveying) of the University in Ljubljana (then called The University of Edvard Kardelj in Ljubljana) was the only architecture school she could have attended as it was the only one. There never was an official one-and-only 'University in Slovenia' and even if they were just generalizing about it just being 'a' university in Slovenia that doesn't make sense as there was only one - The University of Edvard Kardelj in Ljubljana. But OK, this actually is irrelavant. Thing is, does she have a degree?
2) If she had a degree in architecture, it would have been published and you would be able to find record of it in Slovenia's virtual library http://cobiss7.izum.si/scripts/cobiss?ukaz=SFRM&id=2019200627667958 This is true of all degrees I believe even from the Yugoslav years, as I can find thesis work from my parents' and their friends who finished school around 1990, before Slovenia's Independence. Based on her age I think that she should have graduated around 1996, about the time she moved to New York, but there is nothing in the database about her doing so.
I don't want to say anything political about this, I just don't get why she made her academic background so murky. I don't believe it would hurt anyone if she just said she didn't have a degree. Who cares if she doesn't have a degree, her job isn't something you'd need one for. But if she's lying about it it just makes me sad that someone can so easily lie about a degree that some people put 5+ years of their life into to finish and it just goes unnoticed and unchecked. :(
Ok... ok... Simmer down folks.
She DID NOT obtain any degree at/in any University or Faculty in the Republic of Slovenia. OK? That’s it.
She indeed was a student at Faculty of Architecture (Fakulteta za arhitekturo), which is part of University of Ljubljana (Univerza v Ljubljani). Bu she dropped out as a freshman.
She never got a degree. Ever.
How do I know that? We were colleagues in same class.
Further reading:
fa.uni-lj.si
Thanks, Tom (shorthand form... don't want to have to go through the ALT-key codes)
Would you cite your sources and how you verified the information so that its on the record?
Less is More - MelaniaTrump
Tom... I think I speak for eveyone on this forum (everyone minus one to be honest) when I say this about the Balkin's question:
x_x_x ,
Thank you. I would like to know what I would be searching for. What would the name of the publication be called?
RickB-OR here is where you are wrong, it says "at University in Slovania" you see that capital U suggest that the name of the university is "university in slovania" therefore there is no need for the "a" that you speak of. Just like you say you took courses "at University of Oregon"
The above quote is so asinine and stupid that it is not worth a response other than a comment about how asinine and stupid the quote above is.
Andrew,
You are the one that is wrong so correct yourself.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.