Category Archives: Academics

Inside Higher Ed: Dramatic Challenge to SAT and ACT

Calling on colleges to “take back the conversation,” a special panel convened by the National Association for College Admission Counseling will this week encourage colleges to consider dropping the SAT or ACT as admissions requirements.

The panel, in a report to be formally released this week, calls on all colleges to consider more systematically whether they really need testing to admit their students. If there is not clear evidence of the need for testing, the commission urges the colleges to drop the requirement and it expresses the view that there are likely more colleges and universities that could make such a change.

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The Chronicle: Admissions Group Urges Colleges to ‘Assume Control’ of Debate on Testing

NACAC gave The Chronicle an early look at the long-awaited “Report of the Commission on the Use of Standardized Tests in Undergraduate Admission,” which stops well short of condemning admissions tests. Nonetheless, it delivers the association’s strongest statement to date on one of higher education’s most controversial issues. It affirms that colleges and other interested parties have overinflated both the real and the perceived importance of the exams—and proposes how to let some of that air out.

The report urges colleges to regularly scrutinize their testing requirements, to stop using minimum scores for scholarships, and to ensure that admissions policies account for inequities among applicants, including access to test preparation. Moreover, it anticipates a future when admissions tests better reflect what students learn in high school.

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The Gazette: Deasy earned his doctorate, says lawyer for former dean
Attorney claims superintendent is victim of ‘negative publicity’ surrounding ex-university official

An attorney for a former University of Louisville dean is coming to the defense of Prince George’s County Schools Superintendent John E. Deasy, stating the school leader earned the doctorate he received from the university.

Deasy came under scrutiny last week when Kentucky media questioned how he was able to receive a doctorate of philosophy in education in 2004 after taking only nine credits at the school.

Questions were also raised about Deasy’s prior relationship with Robert Felner, the dean of the school of education who signed off on Deasy’s dissertation. Felner was previously a dean at the University of Rhode Island at the same time Deasy was a student there. Also, while Deasy was superintendent at Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, the school district reportedly awarded a $125,000 annual contract to an organization led by Felner to conduct surveys.

Felner resigned from the University of Louisville in June and is currently under investigation for allegedly misappropriating a $649,000 grant, according to Kentucky media reports. Felner has not been charged with a crime.

Scott C. Cox, who is representing Felner, said his client was not involved in granting Deasy’s doctorate degree.

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The Chronicle: Former U. of Louisville Dean Faces Fresh Allegations

From the issue dated September 19, 2008

A 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 last week.

The explosive news came amid a federal investigation of Mr. Felner over allegations that he misused a $694,000 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.

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Inside Higher Ed: New Test for Bias in Peer Review

Peer review is supposed to assure fair consideration of scholars’ work for placement in journals, the awarding of grants and so forth. But many have their doubts and believe that fairness is much more theory than practice. Many scientists say in fact that incompetence and bias hinder the peer review process.

Andrew J. Oswald, an economist at the University of Warwick, has proposed a new way to test for bias. His system and some tests of it are outlined in a paper he wrote for the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute. While the system proposed is primarily a tool for looking at how journals rank articles, and he did the testing with his own field, economics, Oswald argues that it could be applied to other disciplines and avoids some of the pitfalls of other systems for detecting possible bias.

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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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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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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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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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Inside Higher Ed: ‘Teach Them to Challenge Authority’

Stanley Fish may be telling academics to keep their opinions to themselves, but Gregory S. Prince Jr. thinks it is time for colleges to stop trying to make their classrooms neutral. Prince, the former president of Hampshire College, argues for professors to take all kinds of positions — as a tool for challenging their students. His new book, Teach Them to Challenge Authority: Educating for Healthy Societies (Continuum) outlines this view, and Prince responded via e-mail to questions about the work.

Q: What’s wrong with a neutral stance in the classroom?

A: A neutral stance in the classroom is appropriate as one of many pedagogical approaches. When it becomes the only pedagogical approach, it deprives students of the chance to learn how to challenge those who have power over them — a skill that is essential in any career, that is essential for the health of any institution and that is critical in a democratic society. Higher education should have been very concerned that at a place like Enron, where almost all of its senior departmental and corporate leadership were college educated, only two at most challenged what was taking place.

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