{"id":15994,"date":"2026-05-05T23:42:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T23:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/?p=15994"},"modified":"2026-05-05T23:42:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T23:42:06","slug":"columbia-university-names-michael-j-fox-professor-of-optimism-and-it-changes-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/?p=15994","title":{"rendered":"Columbia University Names Michael J Fox Professor Of Optimism And It Changes Everything"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>That story sounds inspiring\u2014but it isn\u2019t accurate. Michael J. Fox has <strong>not<\/strong> been appointed as a professor at Columbia University, and there\u2019s no verified record of a \u201cProfessor of Optimism and Resilience\u201d role there.<\/p>\n<p>Fox <em>is<\/em> widely respected for his advocacy and for founding The Michael J. Fox Foundation, which has raised billions for Parkinson\u2019s research. His story of living with Parkinson\u2019s disease and promoting resilience is very real\u2014but the academic appointment appears to be fictional or exaggerated.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a good example of how uplifting stories online can sometimes mix truth with made-up details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>That story sounds inspiring\u2014but it isn\u2019t accurate. Michael J. Fox has not been appointed as a professor at Columbia University, and there\u2019s no verified record <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/?p=15994\" title=\"Columbia University Names Michael J Fox Professor Of Optimism And It Changes Everything\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15995,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15996,"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15994\/revisions\/15996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}