PageOneKentucky.com: Felner Speaks, Ramsey Has Foot-in-Mouth Disease
Two days ago University of Louisville president Jim Ramsey didn’t know anything about a potentially fraudulent Ph.D. awarded to Robert Felner crony John Deasy. But now he knows everything and is able to say that UofL broke no rules?
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Posted in Academics, Administration, Corruption, Legal issues
Courier-Journal: U of L trustees approve review of ‘collegial governance’
Prompted by allegations of improper hirings and management at its education college, the University of Louisville’s board of trustees voted yesterday to review the governance practices of all of U of L’s schools and colleges.
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The review was requested by the faculty senate in the wake of the ongoing federal investigation of former education dean Robert Felner, who is accused of misappropriating grant money. …
The board’s action yesterday brings the number of reviews and audits being conducted as a result of the Felner investigation to five. The others are:
A faculty senate review of the university’s grievance policies, which is expected to be completed in late November.
An audit of the College of Education and Human Development’s financial records.
An independent audit by the accounting firm Cotton and Allen of U of L’s business practices as they relate to research administration.
A blue-ribbon committee to review alleged improprieties in the awarding of an education doctorate to John Deasey in 2004.
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Posted in Governance, Working conditions
Courier-Journal: Ramsey says U of L broke no rules on disputed doctorate
Spokesmen: He was only addressing part of inquiry
In a letter to the University of Louisville’s accrediting agency, President James Ramsey said yesterday that “we do not believe any violations have occurred” in awarding a doctoral degree to a student who was enrolled at the university for only one semester.
But in interviews, spokesmen for the university said Ramsey was referring only to possible violations of the accrediting agency’s residency requirement for doctoral candidates.
But in interviews, spokesmen for the university said Ramsey was referring only to possible violations of the accrediting agency’s residency requirement for doctoral candidates.
They said the committee Ramsey appointed Wednesday still will investigate other aspects of the degree — including whether then-dean Robert Felner had a conflict of interest in supervising the doctoral candidate, who had given his research center a $375,000 contract.
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Posted in Academics, Accountability
The Chronicle News Blog: Priest Charged With Dealing Drugs Out of U. of Illinois Student Center
A Roman Catholic priest has pleaded not guilty to charges that he sold cocaine out of the St. John’s Catholic Newman Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, The Pantagraph, a local newspaper, reported today.
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Posted in Legal issues
5th International Globalization, Diversity, and Education Conference
CALL FOR PAPERS
5th International Globalization, Diversity, and Education Conference
February 26-28, 2009
Spokane, Washington
Red Lion Hotel Inn at the Park
Sponsored by Washington State University College of Education program in
Cultural Studies and Social Thought in Education
The 5th annual Globalization Conference will provide a forum for
conversation on the interrelationships among cultural pedagogies,
ecopedagogies, meaning making, contemporary identity shaping, postcolonial
global issues, sustainability, cosmopolitanism, media literacy, social
theory, and social justice. We welcome participation of researchers,
educators, students, teachers, and community members. Proposals may
address the themes of the conference from any perspective. Individual
papers, panels, symposiums, film/documentary screenings, exhibitions,
poster sessions, and other creative endeavors are invited.
Proposal deadline December 8, 2008
View submission details at http://education.wsu.edu/globalization/
Conference chairs: Michael Hayes & Pauline Sameshima
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Posted in CFPs
Courier-Journal: U of L could face sanctions over one-semester Ph.D.
One-semester degree violated agency policy
By awarding a doctoral degree to a student enrolled for only one semester, the University of Louisville violated an accrediting agency’s rules and could face sanctions, the agency’s president said yesterday.
The Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, which accredits schools in 11 Southern states, including Kentucky, requires candidates for graduate degrees to earn the majority of their credits at the university awarding the degree.
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Posted in Academics
Tri-Town News: State says administrators must end use of Dr. title
Official wants board to review degrees of other employees
Two current administrators and one retired administrator from the Freehold Regional High School District can no longer be called doctors following the state Commission on Higher Education’s decision to issue a cease and desist order to stop what it deemed to be the illegal use of the titles.
FRHSD Superintendent of Schools James Wasser, Assistant Superintendent Donna Evangelista and Frank J. Tanzini, a retired assistant superintendent, were all issued cease and desist letters from Jane Oates, the commission’s executive director. The letters were dated Aug. 21.
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Posted in Academics
Inside Higher Ed: New Form of Adjunct Abuse
For many adjuncts, an extra course assignment can make all the difference in the world. More money, of course, but also the chance to do more teaching at a single institution. And for some, that extra course may result in a total teaching load that moves them up a pay scale or entitles them to health insurance or other benefits.
At San Antonio College, some of those extra courses are coming with an unusual stipulation. Adjuncts are being encouraged to take on extra courses, as the institution can’t afford to hire as many full timers as it would like. But San Antonio also has rules — providing benefits and higher base pay — to those who teach 12 credits or more. What to do? The college is asking some part timers to take on the extra courses that bring their total to 12 or beyond, but then to agree in writing to pretend that they aren’t teaching 12 credits.
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Posted in Contingent labor, Salary/Economic Benefits
San Antonio Express: SAC to halt waivers that sliced profs’ pay
No one teaches for the money, but even part-time professors have their limits.
Administrators at San Antonio College have asked some adjuncts there to teach more than 12 hours, but to sign a waiver accepting pay for only 11 hours, forgoing their right to a higher pay rate and benefits that kick in at the 12-hour mark.
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Posted in Contingent labor
The Chronicle News Blog: AAUP Weighs In on Dispute Over Professor’s E-Mail at Rensselaer Polytechnic
In early July, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute pulled the plug on Donald Steiner’s e-mail account. Now the American Association of University Professors wants the university to reconnect the retired professor of nuclear engineering and engineering physics to the e-mail system.
The flap over the disconnected e-mail is the latest flashpoint in a continuing war between the administration and professors over faculty governance at Rensselaer. The provost, Robert E. Palazzo, shut down the institute’s Faculty Senate in September 2007, citing concerns about its possible interference in a review of university governance. The faculty voted overwhelmingly in favor of restoring the Faculty Senate shortly afterward.
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Posted in Working conditions
Inside Higher Ed: Turning a Blind Eye
Amid a wave of complaints about Robert Felner, a former University of Louisville dean who is now under federal investigation, administrators supported the embattled dean and even bankrolled a lawyer to defend him from faculty critics. While the university’s president and provost have recently apologized for backing Felner for so long, details emerging from the controversy show a broken grievance process at Louisville that many say favors administrators and leaves professors unprotected from retaliation.
Felner left Louisville in June to become chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, only to back out of that position when news of the federal investigation into allegations of misappropriated grant money became public. Asked about Felner’s departure, Louisville’s provost let linger the possibility that he was ultimately pressured to leave, even though Felner retained public support from the president throughout the saga.
“Things that are personnel-related we don’t talk about, and anything we might have done [can’t be discussed],” says Shirley Willihnganz, the provost. “Dean Felner did leave, taking a job at a much smaller place with a $50,000 less salary.”
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Posted in Administration
Courier-Journal: Matchbook degrees?
President James Ramsey offered a rather rosy picture of the state of the University of Louisville on Tuesday, and, to be sure, much is going on there to make the faculty, students and community proud.
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However, as the scandal at the College of Education and Human Development continues to widen, there is a stain that glowing words cannot eradicate.
The latest chapter, reported yesterday by The Courier-Journal’s Andrew Wolfson, indicates that ex-Dean Robert Felner turned the school’s Ph.D. program into the equivalent of a diploma mill. Dr. Felner, who is under federal investigation for possible mishandling of federal grants to the university, rewarded a California educator with a doctorate in a matter of one semester, flouting U of L rules and national standards.
It gets worse: John Deasy, the recipient of the degree, was superintendent of a school district that had recently awarded Dr. Felner’s National Center on Public Education and Social Policy a $375,000 contract.
Dr. Felner was a busy man. But what of the U of L college of which he was the steward? How many other doctorates awarded during his tenure were quickies? And what of the hard-working students who earned theirs according to the rules? Has their work been discredited?
Only a few weeks ago, Dr. Ramsey characterized charges against Dr. Felner as a lot of “anonymous crap.” Those hasty words, uttered in anger, indicate that the state of the university, at least in one major aspect, is not rosy at all.
His decision to appoint a blue-ribbon commission to review the Deasy matter is a good step. But correcting the Felner affair and repairing the College of Education’s reputation is going to take much more than that.
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Posted in Academics
Washington Post: Pr. George’s Schools Chief’s PhD Under Scrutiny
Prince George’s School Superintendent John E. Deasy received a doctorate from the University of Louisville, where he completed only nine credit hours.
The University of Louisville announced yesterday that it will investigate the awarding of a doctorate to John E. Deasy, now superintendent of Prince George’s County schools, after reports that he completed his graduate work there on an unusually fast track in apparent departure from the university’s standard practice.
Deasy, leader of the 130,000-student system since 2006, was awarded a doctorate of philosophy in education in May 2004 after completing nine credit hours of work at the university — equivalent to one semester — in addition to 77 credit hours he earned from other schools. Deasy also wrote a 184-page dissertation.
At issue is the relatively small number of credit hours Deasy earned from the University of Louisville and what kind of exception to university policy might have been made to award his degree.
The university’s graduate handbook indicates that doctoral students typically complete their work in a minimum of three years, including at least one year — 18 credit hours — in full-time residency.
This week, Kentucky media reported on questions raised about the awarding of Deasy’s doctorate as part of news coverage of a federal investigation centered on Robert Felner, the former dean of the university’s College of Education and Human Development. Felner was also Deasy’s academic adviser and chairman of his dissertation committee.
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Posted in Academics
The Chronicle News Blog: U. of Louisville Forms Panel to Investigate Degree Controversy
The University of Louisville’s president, James R. Ramsey, announced today the formation of a committee to investigate allegations that the university had improperly awarded a Ph.D. to a prominent former student.
The degree recipient, John E. Deasy, had previously been involved in directing a $375,000 grant to a university research center that was run by a former dean who now is the focus of a federal criminal investigation.
“I have asked the committee to review this incident quickly, but thoroughly, and to report to me any improper or questionable behavior in the granting of this degree,” Mr. Ramsey said in a written statement. “If someone received a degree he did not earn, we would have no choice but to recommend rescinding that degree.”
The committee members come from both inside and outside the university and include a retired Kentucky Supreme Court justice. Fact-finding is already under way, officials said. —Paul Fain
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Posted in Academics, Corruption, Ethics, Legal issues
The Chronicle News Blog: Was the Price of a Ph.D. at the U. of Louisville 9 Credits and a $375,000 Grant?
A high-school superintendent earned a Ph.D. from the University of Louisville in only one semester after awarding a $375,000 grant to a university center run by Robert Felner, Louisville’s former education dean, Louisville’s Courier-Journal reported today.
The explosive news came amid a federal investigation of Mr. Felner over allegations that he misused a $649,000 grant. Among other reviews, the university is auditing finances at its education school, while the University of Rhode Island is inspecting a research center Mr. Felner founded while serving as that institution’s dean of education.
Mr. Felner stepped down from his Louisville post in August, when he was named chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at Parkside. Days later, after reports of the Louisville investigation emerged, Wisconsin officials asked for Mr. Felner’s resignation. Today’s development is certain to intensify the firestorm around Mr. Felner’s rocky run through higher education.
In 2002, John E. Deasy, then superintendent of the Santa Monica-Malibu school district, in California, secured a $375,000 grant for Mr. Felner’s National Center on Public Education and Social Policy to conduct surveys of the school district. Two years later, Mr. Deasy was awarded a Ph.D. in education from the university, after being enrolled for only one semester of nine credit hours, the newspaper reported, citing university records.
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Posted in Academics, Administration
Courier-Journal: Felner OK’d quick Ph.D. from U of L for ex-client
Two years after giving former University of Louisville dean Robert Felner’s research center a $375,000 contract, a California school superintendent received a doctoral degree from UofL in only one semester.
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A spokesman for the American Association of University Professors said it is “virtually unheard of” for a student to be awarded a Ph.D. in that amount of time.
UofL’s own rules say that to earn a doctorate, “at least two years of study must be spent” at the university, including at least one in “full-time residency.”
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Posted in Academics, Administration, Corruption, Legal issues
Los Angeles Times: UC Berkeley tree-sitters end their protest
Efforts to remove tree sitters from an oak grove on the UC Berkeley campus continue today as workers build scaffolding to aid in the effort.
Four men come down from a redwood after reaching an agreement to end the long-running protest. Campus police Chief Victoria Harrison negotiated with them while dangling in a basket lifted by a crane.
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Posted in Protests
The Chronicle News Blog: Many Black Women Veer Off Path to Tenure, Researchers Say
Washington — Black women appear to be substantially less likely than other segments of the population to get on and stay on academe’s tenure track, according to a forthcoming report commissioned by the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education.
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Posted in Faculty
Live Leak: Police Caught Abusing Fans Who Rushed Field After ECU-WVU Game
There are now at least three different investigations in claims that police officers used excessive force after Saturday’s East Carolina game. ECU police say they are looking into the allegations after video from WITN and ESPN showed police officers tackling fans, some who were punched when they tried to take the field after the big win over West Virginia. ECU police chief today said three people More..
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Posted in Uncategorized
Daily Reflector: ECU chancellor: ‘We will get to the bottom of this’
East Carolina University Police continue interviewing witnesses and viewing video that may indicate excessive force was used by officers at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium following the ECU football team’s win over West Virginia University.
Chief Scott Shelton announced at a press conference Monday afternoon that while they hope to conclude investigating major incidents in the next day or two, the overall assessment may continue into next week.
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Posted in Legal issues
