Document: UNM Denies that Fu Ping had been a TA in that School

When Fu Ping submitted her resume to University of Illinois in 1991, she included being "Teaching Assistant, University of New Mexico (1985 - 1986)" as part of her "Work Experience."

University of New Mexico has now officially refuted her claim:

Document: Fu Ping's Resume at University of Illinois

Responding to an Freedom of Information Act request, University of Illinois has released a copy of resume Fu Ping submitted when she applied for a job at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications job in 1991.

This version of her resume predated the one that she submitted for her NSF grant application. The content is similar however. Besides missing some of the latter events, this version also claimed that she had a BA degree from Suzhou University, which has been proven to be false. She did not list her translated children's story book as publication in this one, but listed "Teaching Assistant" and "Research Assistant" at University of New Mexico and University of San Diego (should be UCSD instead, which she did attend) as past experiences.

While it is common for graduate students to work as TA and/or RA during their studies, Fu Ping was actually an undergraduate student in both UNM and UCSD. It would be highly unusual for her to have such work experiences in those schools.

UPDATE (7/30/2013): UNM has officially refuted Fu Ping's TA claim.
UPDATE (8/4/2012): UCSD could not confirm or deny Fu Ping's TA claim.

Broken Fact: Fu Ping's Fractions Myth

The Original Story:
On Pages 62-63 of Bend, Not Break, Fu Ping recalls that she did not know the concept of fractions while attending a college math class:

Calculus class was mandatory. I could follow most subjects if professors taught them from the beginning, but in this course, a great deal of mathematical knowledge was presumed. I had learned some math in an unstructured way throughout the years -- from my older siblings in Shanghai, Nanjing Mother, older children at NUAA, counting money to manage my household, and doing calculations while working at factories during my teenage years. But when the professor put fractions on the chalkboard, I stared blankly at the strange notation, which I had not seen before. I stopped him after class.
...
I placed my index finger on a fraction. "That. What does it mean when you put one number, then a slash, then another number under it?" 

"You don't know fractions?" he asked, squinting his eyes at me.
...
I went to the city library and started thumbing through math textbooks. I didn't find fractions in the high school math book, nor did I find them in the middle school texts. Finally I found them in the second-grade math textbook. Even high school math was too advanced for me. I ended up checking out the entire math curriculum from first grade on. I knew how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. But other than that, some basic concepts such as fractions, long division, square roots, and logarithms were unfamiliar to me.

In her earlier book Drifting Bottle, Fu Ping also described her difficulty with math in a Partial Differentiation Equations class. However, she did not specify the problem was with fractions.

The Changing Story:
In an interview on the John Batchelor Show on March 19, 2013, Fu Ping appeared to try to modify and justify her story:

As to computer science, I wrote this thing about fractions, it wasn't like I didn't know anything, I was trying to show the knowledge gap. When you don't have a formal education, you cannot pick up those things. It's just pieces here and there. I was working in a factory. I study from workers and farmers. I actually picked up some academic information here and there. What I found when I came to United States is that I have a lot of knowledge gap. Some thing everybody thinks they know but I didn't. Then there are some things I just know. Sometimes I feel I am quite smart, I feel like I am the most stupid person in the room because I didn't know what people are talking about. This fraction is just one example of it even though I may know some more advanced math. It is this particular thing that 3 over 5 that I didn't know. I just didn't study it because I wasn't in school in the 2nd or 3rd grades. So I skipped over those knowledge and then later it catch up on you. 

The Debunking:
Before you should ask, math textbooks in Chinese language use the same algebraic symbols as in the west: fractions are often represented by the number-slash-number notation. Fu Ping clearly indicated that her trouble was not with the notations but the whole concept of fractions, so much so that she had to go back to second-grade textbooks to "discover" it.

In 1977, when the college entrance exam was reinstated in China, Fu Ping made a big deal on how hard she studied to pass those exams. As a matter of fact, she had taken the exams twice, in 1977 and 1978, respectively. So she had plenty of time to study. Although she had chosen to take the "liberal arts" exams, it also included a mandatory math exam, which was only slightly less advanced compared to the same math exam on the "science and engineering" side.

For at least a year of preparing for exams including math, she wants us to believe that she had never come across fractions?

Broken Fact: Fu Ping's Graduate Study at University of New Mexico

The Original Story:
In Bend, Not Break, Fu Ping claimed that she became a graduate student at University of New Mexico after a year of studying English. On Pages 61-62, she wrote:

After completing the English as a foreign language course in a year, I was able to pass the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and enroll as a full-time graduate student at UNM. I knew by then that I didn't want to study literature, but what should I pursue? ... 

Computer programming was a new field of study in the early eighties, and there were almost no women interested in it. I was accepted as a computer science master's student even though I had no prior course work in the subject. Nearly everyone was starting from scratch, just like me, which helped me to keep up.

Then, on Page 66:

Less than one year away from completing my master's degree in computer science, I dropped out of the University of New Mexico.

The Earlier Story:
In Drifting Bottle, she was (perhaps intentionally) vague about the level of computer science program she entered (Page 67):

There is a lot of freedom studying in America, students can make their own choices on changing majors or schools. I originally entered the master's program in the College of Arts of University of New Mexico. But I felt that it is ridiculous to study Chinese literature in America and I wasn't interested in English literature. So I decided to change majors. I went to College of Engineering and found that computer programming is closest to literature. Writing programs is a kind of art, it's logic is close to writing articles. 

I applied for Computer Science and was accepted without much trouble. My adviser gave me a long list of courses I had to make up, most of them in math and physics... 

美国读书很自由，转专业、转学都是学生自己的选择。最初我在新墨西哥大学文学院里读硕士，一方面觉得到美国来读中国文学有点荒唐，另一方面对英国文学又不感兴趣，于是我决定改行。跑到工学院调查一下，发现学计算机软件与文学最接近，编程序是一种艺术，其逻辑思维与写文章差不多。 

去计算机系申请，没费多少周折就被录取了。指导教授给我列了一大堆补修课程，其中主要是数学和物理课。……

The Debunking:
University of New Mexico has now confirmed that Fu Ping enrolled in that school as an undergraduate student. She was never a graduate student there, not to mention close to completing a master's degree.

Her own description above is also consistent with this fact. "Nearly everyone was starting from scratch" obviously applies to an undergraduate major. By the time students enter a graduate school, however new the major is, they should have already had a solid foundation for it.

Fu Ping had little to none math background by her own admission. It would be quite incredible for UNM to accept her as a graduate student in computer science right away.

It's not clear why Fu Ping needed to claim herself as a graduate student at UNM and then dropping out of there to enter UCSD as an undergraduate student of the same major later. It's truly puzzling.

Document: University of New Mexico Responses on Fu Ping

Upon inquiries by Albert Wang, University of New Mexico has provided the following responses regarding Fu Ping's study at that school:

From: Judi Halpern
Sent: Wednesday, April 03, 2013 5:19 PM
To: Albert Wang
Subject: RE: Ping Fu, a student enrolled at The University of New Mexico, Albuqurque, from September 1984 to July 1986
Mr. Wang,

This is what I can tell you we have a student by the name of Ping Fu with a birth year of 1958.  This student attended the University of New Mexico as an undergraduate student.  The studet was a transfer student who started as a junior in the Fall 1984.  The student attended UNM up to the Summer 1986.  I find no evidence that the student graduated with a bachelor or any other degree from UNM.  I have no evidence that the student transferred to UC San Diego.  You will need to confirm that with them.

If you have further questions, please let me know.

Good Day,

Judi

______________________
Judi Halpern
Grade Petition Coordinator/
Athletic Admissions Specialist
University of New Mexico
Records & Registration
MSC11 6325
1155 University Blvd. SE
Albuquerque, NM  87106
Phone: (505) 277-7736
Fax: (505) 277-6809

From: Maureen McGuire
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2013 3:39 PM
To: Albert Wang
Cc: Agnes Thomas ; Michele Huff ; Judith Halpern
Subject: Re: FW: Ping Fu, a student enrolled at The University of New Mexico, Albuqurque, from September 1984 to July 1986
Mr Wang -

The directory information indicates that she entered UNM as an undecided undergraduate student.  She declared Computer Science as her major in Spring, 1986 and earned 48 credit hours at UNM.  UNM accepted 60 credit hours transferred from other institutions towards the degree for a total of 108 earned credit hours.

Maureen McGuire