In response to an inquiry about his academic credentials, Aurora Public Schools Board member and House District 42 candidate Eric Nelson, an Aurora Democrat, transmitted images of two diplomas to The Colorado Statesman on Tuesday, although even a cursory examination of the documents casts doubt on their authenticity.

Nelson, 38, has been the target of questions about his background since The Statesman was first to report Monday that records show he has an extensive criminal background, had been denied an insurance license and had a bail-bondsman license revoked and only served eight weeks in the Air Force despite a propensity to wear an officer’s uniform and list a more extensive service history on his resumés over the years.

Along with Aurora Democrat Dominique “Nikki” Jackson, Nelson is a candidate in the June 28 primary in the heavily Democratic district currently represented by term-limited state Rep. Rhonda Fields.The winner of the mail-ballot primary will face Republican Mike Donald. Nelson was elected to the school board in 2013, placing second in a field of five candidates for four at-large positions, and serves as the board’s secretary.

On Tuesday, in response to information unveiled in an investigation by The Statesman, Fields and House Speaker Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, D-Boulder, urged Nelson to withdraw from the race, and Hullinghorst also endorsed Jackson. Fellow APS board members said they were troubled by allegations about Nelson and plan to review the situation.

The Statesman also reported that Nelson has claimed at various times he has earned as many as seven degrees, including an MBA from Northeastern University in Boston and a Master in Social Work from Northwest Nazarene University in Idaho, even though the registrar at Northeastern said the school had no record he had ever attended and a local nonprofit that briefly employed Nelson said that real social workers didn’t believe he had a degree in the field.

Nelson protested that the registrar’s office must have made a mistake and said he would forward proof of his academic accomplishments to The Statesman on Monday, although it wasn’t until Tuesday that photographs of two diplomas arrived via text message from Nelson’s phone number.

One depicts a diploma from Northeastern University conferring a Master of Business Administration upon Eric Durane Nelson – Nelson’s full name – dated May 10, 2002, embossed with a seal that appears to be gold leaf. The other appears to be a diploma from Northwest Nazarene University conferring a Master of Science in Social Work upon Eric Durane Nelson, dated May 15, 1999. Both diplomas attest that Nelson graduated with honors – Magna Cum Laude at Northwest Nazarene and Summa Cum Laude at Northeastern.

A closer look, however, reveals mistakes and unusual material on the diplomas, suggesting they might be forgeries.

The Northeastern MBA diploma, for instance, includes the signature of a “Winston Washington” on the line for the academic institution’s president. Northeastern has only had seven presidents in its 118-year history, however, and none of them have been named Winston Washington.

There also isn’t a single school among dozens that issue MBAs that include the Summa Cum Laude honor on the same line as the name of the Master in Business Administration degree, as Nelson’s diploma has it, according to a thorough search of online images of MBA diplomas.

The difficulties with the Northwest Nazarene diploma are immediately apparent.

For one thing, the seal of the school, situated between groups of signatures in the lower portion of the diploma – the signatures and some text above them seems to be placed on the sheepskin at an unusual leftward slant, as though the printer was suffering from mild vertigo – contains a misspelled word, and that word is part of the name of the university. “Nottwest Nazarene University,” the seal reads.

But there’s more.

The text of the diploma includes multiple references to a “Glassboro College” in New Jersey. Records show the academic institution was never actually called “Glassboro College” – it was the Glassboro Normal School, then the New Jersey State Teachers College at Glassboro, and  then Glassboro State College – and changed its name to Rowan University in 1992. (The school played a minor role in Cold War history in 1967 when it was the site of a summit between President Lyndon Johnson and Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin that led to a brief thaw in relations between the two superpowers.)

There has never been a relationship between Northwest Nazarene University and Rowan University, nor any other incarnation of the school perhaps once colloquially known as Glassboro College, officials at both schools confirmed.

And yet, Nelson’s diploma says that the degree is being issued under the “authority vested in the Board of Trustees, Glassboro College,” and elsewhere proclaims that “this degree is granted at Glassboro, New Jersey.”

It also turns out that Northwest Nazarene doesn’t offer a “Master of Science in Social Work” degree, and an administrator at the school had never heard of such a thing.

In fact, Edwin H. Robinson, Ph.D., the vice president for academic affairs at the university, told The Statesman he had never seen a Northwest Nazarene diploma that looked anything like the one furnished by Nelson, and he’s seen plenty of the real ones.

“Thank you for your inquiry concerning the fraudulent diploma from Northwest Nazarene University,” Robinson wrote in an email. “Obviously, the diploma is not one officially granted by our University. The misspelled name on the seal, the mention of ‘Glassboro College,’ the wrong nomenclature for university trustees and officers, and the forged signatures reflect a very poor job of trying to duplicate a diploma.”

It wasn’t just the diploma that wasn’t right.

“Mr. Nelson has never been a student at Northwest Nazarene University, and we disclaim any association with his fraudulent academic credential,” Robinson wrote.

Nelson didn’t respond to a request for comments on Tuesday night.

– ernest@coloradostatesman.com