Tag Archives: crime

U of L provost who hired notorious ed school dean Robert Felner steps down

Shirley Willihnganz, the University of Louisville provost who hired “notorious ed school dean” Robert Felner has stepped down from her $342,694 a year position and will return to the faculty after a sabbatical.

Willihnganz told the Louisville Courier-Journal that the “Felner episode” was the biggest regret of her 13 years as a top administrator at U of L.

Willihnganz hired Felner as dean of the U of L College of Education and Human Development in 2003. Felner’s deanship has been described by some as a “reign of terror” because of his abusive treatment of staff, faculty, students and alumni.

Despite dozens of grievances filed against Felner and a faculty vote of no-confidence, Willihnganz and her boss, university president James Ramsey, were dismissive of complaints and vigorously defended him. Ultimately, Willihnganz was “forced to apologize” to the faculty, saying “mostly what I think I want to say is people have been hurt and something very bad happened, and as provost I feel like I am ultimately responsible for that.”

In addition to his well documented abusive behavior, Felner was also engaged in criminal activity while working for the U of L and under Willihnganz’s supervision.

In 2010, Felner was sentenced 63 months in federal prison for a scheme that bilked $2.3 million of US Department of Education money from U of L and the University of Rhode Island.

On June 20, 2008, Federal investigators (Secret Service and US Postal Inspection Service) raided Felner’s office at the U of L College of Education and Human Development (and his new office at the University of Wisconsin, Parkside, where he was in the process of taking over as campus president) to seize documents and a computer.

Read more about the Felner saga and his journey from “high performer” (Willihnganz’s description) to infamous ex-con here.

Courier-Journal reporter Andrew Wolfson asked me to comment on Willihnganz response to Felner. The statement below was quoted, in part, in the C-J story.

Of course it’s hard to disagree that the hiring of Robert Felner as dean of CEHD was, in hind sight, a disastrous decision by the U of L administration and Dr. Willihnganz in particular, but it was not entirely unpredictable. As chair of the largest department in CEHD at the time, I vigorously opposed Felner’s hire and called for the administration to resist the “old boy” network within the college that backed him. The provost’s office failed to do its due diligence in the hiring, despite a plethora of signs that Felner was not a good choice for the university. At the time, I was aware that other universities had considered Felner for deanships, but excluded him based upon thorough investigations of his career. The fact that President Ramsey and Dr. Willihnganz remained in office after defending Felner’s abusive leadership style, and ultimately criminal behavior, says much about the lack of accountability for decision making at the U of L. The damage done to the university’s reputation has been significant and is not merely the result of Felner’s felonious activities and generally abusive treatment of staff and faculty, but can also be laid in some measure at the feet of Dr. Willihnganz and President Ramsey.

The Courier-Journal reports modest positive accomplishments during on Willihnganz’s years a provost, including increased graduate rates and slight improvements in the U of L’s standing in university reputational rankings.

But, these accomplishments pale in comparison to the Felner episode and a long series shameful debacles that have tarnished the reputation of Kentucky’s second largest research university. The C-J reports that,

Under [Willihnganz’s] watch … university employees have stole, misspent or mishandled at least $7.6 million in schemes at the health science campus, the law school, the business school and the athletic department’s ticket office.

Willihnganz also was criticized for approving about $1 million in buyouts for former high-ranking employees, some of which included agreements not to disparage the university or its leaders.

Academic Fraud?
As the chief academic officer of the U of L, Willihnganz allowed the university to bestow a PhD degree on one of Felner’s associates, John Deasy, after enrolling in the CEHD doctoral program for a total of four months and apparently never actually taking any courses.

As reported in the education newspaper Substance,

John Deasy earned his PhD directly under Felner, in a period of four months, earning nine UL credit hours.

Prior to coming to UL, Deasy had awarded Felner’s research company, the National Center on Public Education and Social Policy, a $375,000 grant from the Santa Monica district where Deasy was head.

Before he came to UL, Felner had been dean at the University of Rhode Island’s College of Education from 1996-2003. Deasy studied there in the same period, while Deasy was also a Rhode Island school superintendent.

According to a highly placed source, formerly at UL, Deasy’s dissertation’s title page carries the date, “May, 2003,” while it is signed off, “April 9, 2004.” He entered the program in January, 2004.

A UL investigation of the Deasy PhD did not condemn the practice. James Ramsey, UL president, who had turned a blind eye to Felner’s notorious corruption (the faculty gave Felner a “no confidence vote” in 2006, but he served at least two more years at UL with Ramsey’s full support), gave his nod to the “blue ribbon” investigation.

Deasy is apparently cut from the same cloth as his mentor, having recently resigned as superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, under a cloud of allegations regarding ethics violations in relation to a $1 billion contract to supply iPads to LAUSD students.

A federal grand jury is currently investigating Deasy’s iPad scheme, which involved Apple and Pearson, the latter one of the world’s largest education publishers.

Many in LA were quite pleased by Deasy’s resignation as district boss.

In the end, it can be argued that the mistakes made by the U of L administration in hiring and protecting Felner, allowed Deasy to obtain a questionable PhD, which surely helped him land the high-paying job as superintendent of the second largest school district in the United States.

As LAUSD’s “Deasy episode” unfolds in a federal jury investigation, it could be that Willihnganz’s legacy will include the “graduation” of two federal convicts from the U of L College of Education and Human Development.

Convicted felon and former U Louisville ed school dean Robert Felner to be released from federal prison today

Cross-posted from Workplace Blog:


Robert Felner, former dean of the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Louisville and convicted felon, is schedule to be released from federal prison today.

Felner was sentenced to 63 months in prison for his role in defrauding the U of L and the University of Rhode Island of $2.3 million of US Department of Education funds earmarked for No Child Left Behind Act research.

The U of L reported suspected fraud to federal officials and, in June 2008, on Felner’s last day of work at U of L, federal officers conducted simultaneous raids on the U of L College of Education and Human Development and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, where Felner had accepted the presidency and was in the process of moving. The investigation involved the US Secret Service, US Postal Inspection Service and the Internal Revenue Service.

In January 2010, Felner pleaded guilty to nine Federal charges, including income tax evasion.

For a refresher course on the felonious Felner see PageOneKentucky.com’ summary of events. For a full course of Felner on PageOneKentucky click here. (Shout out to Jake at PageOneKentucky for excellent investigative reporting on Felner and the U of L.)

For Workplace Blog coverage of Felner click here.

Here is a Louisville Courier-Journal profile of Felner: Robert Felner profile: Arrogant, outrageous, abusive and duplicitous.

A couple of footnotes to the Felner Story:

(1) Los Angeles school superintendent, John Deasy, has had his academic credentials called into question. Deasy was given a PhD by the University of Louisville after he was enrolled for four months and received a total of nine credits. Deasy’s doctoral advisor was Robert Felner. Deasy had previously awarded $375,000 in consulting contracts to Felner, while Deasy was Superintendent of Santa Monica schools.

(2) U of L has been making double retirement payouts to administrators in exchange for their silence.

Records show that the school paid a full year’s salary to outgoing vice presidents Michael Curtin ($252,350) and Larry Owsley ($248,255) and to assistant to the president Vivian Hibbs ($66,391) to induce them not to “disparage, demean or impugn the university or its senior leadership.”

And last month U of L made a $346,000.00 settlement with Angela Kosawha:

The University of Louisville is paying another large settlement in connection with the retirement of a high-ranking official — this time, $346,844 to its top lawyer. University counsel Angela Koshewa is on a three-month leave of absence before she officially retires June 1. Documents obtained under the Kentucky Open Records Act show the university is paying Koshewa — who has questioned some expenditures and proposals backed by President James Ramsey and Dr. David Dunn, the executive vice president for Health Affairs — twice her final salary.

Current U of L President James Ramsey and Provost Shirley Willihnganz are the same campus officials who hired Robert Felner, and defended him when he was initially charged with defrauding the university.

Rouge Forum Update: People vs Union Bosses plus Dunkirk and Matewan! And wait! There’s More!

Rouge Forum Update: People vs Union Bosses plus Dunkirk and Matewan! And wait! There’s More!

The Little Red Schoolhouse Front:

Company Town: by Carl Sandburg

You live in a company house
You go to a company school
You work for this company
According to the company’s rules
You all drink company water
And all use company lights
The company preacher teaches us
What the company thinks is right….

Half of Detroit Kids Poisoned by Lead–Not Good For High-Stakes Tests: “the higher the lead level, the worse a student’s scores on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program exam, or MEAP. Overall, 58% of roughly 39,000 DPS students tested — 22,755 children — had a history of lead poisoning, according to the study.Perhaps more startling: Of the 39,199 students tested as young children, only 23 had no lead in their bodies.”

Students as Money–Michigan Districts Pay Bribe for Best School Status: “he districts did not make the cut because of test scores or graduation rates but instead because they paid a marketing firm $25,000.”

Too Many Teachers; Not Enough Wars, Too Many Kiddies: “Michigan State University has pushed its 500 graduating teachers to look out of state. As local jobs have dried up, it started an internship program in Chicago, which is a four-hour drive from the East Lansing, Mich., campus. Professors now go with students to the annual campus job fair to make sure they do not hover around the Michigan tables, but walk over to, say, North Carolina, Virginia or Texas.”

The Ongoing Failure of Racist Capitalist Schooling in Detroit: “Detroit Public Schools fourth- and eighth-graders performed worst in the nation on a national reading test whose results were released this morning. Like math scores unveiled in December from the National Assessment of Education Progress, Detroit children’s reading scores are the worst in the 40-year history of the test.

Detroit Mayor Can’t Halt Barbarism: “Detroit Mayor Dave Bing acknowledged that police and city officials don’t know how to stop the crime wave.”

Who is Lying in this PBS Newshour Broadcast On Detroit Schools? Everybody. As Usual.

Bribe? What Bribe? Payoffs to Bobb Ok in Michigan Court: “Wayne Circuit Court Judge Susan Borman indicated today Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb is entitled to receive part of his pay from private foundations. The issue — challenged by the district’s school board, a civil rights group and a coalition of teachers who oppose charter schools — was whether Bobb was in conflict of interest for accepting $89,000 of his salary from a foundation that supports private and charter schools. Bobb receives $280,000 in salary and $145,000 in supplemental income from foundations for fixing the school district’s finances.”

Duncan Lies About Texas Textbook Standards Adopted May 21: “”Whatever Texas decides, I do not think there will be large ripple effects around the country,” Duncan said to CNN. “Textbook companies today have a real ability to customize textbooks.”

We Say Fightback! Front:

Puerto Rico Universities Occupied, Struck, and Shut for A Month+: “The students here have hunkered down, bringing the academic calendar to a halt. They are a month into a strike that has crippled an 11-campus system with more than 62,000 students, intent on persuading the administration to revoke austerity measures that they believe will unfairly hamper low-income students. Only one campus, for medical sciences, is operational.”

BBC on the Brit Teachers’ Test Boycott (watch the short video): “Tens of thousands of children in England are missing their Sats tests as head teachers in hundreds of schools stage a boycott. About 600,000 10 and 11-year-olds were due to take the national schools tests from Monday. But heads and deputies from two big teaching unions voted for a boycott…”

Bangkok is Burning–Tweetphotos (Rick Parkany photo)

IVAW Confronts Recruiters–War is not a Game!

Read more here.