Category Archives: Media

Standardized tests: a blessing or a curse?

February 19, 2012

[...]

Donna Chiera, current president of the American Federation of Teachers New Jersey and the Perth Amboy Federation, the union chapter representing school staff in that city, would change how the New Jersey ASK tests are given.

She says it’s wrong to have young children sitting at their desk for an hour or more for a single test period and doing that every day for an entire week.

If she could change something about New Jersey’s standardized tests for elementary and middle school students, foremost it would be to space the tests out and not jam them all into the window of a few days with a few long test sessions once a year.

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Weingarten calls on Governor to investigate Farahi and safeguard whistle-blowers

February 06, 2012

Supports local demand for independent investigation of charges against Kean President

UNION, NJ…Mounting evidence of resume fraud by Kean University President Dawood Farahi necessitates both an independent investigation and protection for whistle-blowers who called academic claims into question, according to American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten. Among the causes for concern, the leader of the 1.5 million-member union noted that Kean management recently removed athletic director Glenn Hedden, allegedly for reporting a host of NCAA violations including rigging grades for student athletes by administrators.

“To ignore the requests for an independent and prompt investigation into allegations of resume fraud by President Farahi will make it all that more difficult to restore Kean University’s integrity,” Weingarten wrote to Governor Chris Christie, reiterating a request made by Kean Federation of Teachers (KFT) President James Castiglione in January.

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Christie plan for university reshuffling means another chapter for Rowan

January 30, 2012

GLASSBORO — Twenty years ago, Rowan University’s reputation was synonymous with its teachers college, which prepared hundreds of elementary and special education instructors for South Jersey classrooms each year.

Rowan

Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-LedgerThe Cooper Medical School of Rowan University is currently under construction in Camden. The building will house the first new medical school on the state in 30 years.

Back then, the school in Glassboro was known as Glassboro State College, and students looking for a bustling college town with a robust nightlife or a research institution with endless courses of study had to look elsewhere.

The run-down Gloucester County college town, once buoyed by a glass-manufacturing industry, was surrounded by peach orchards and featured two pizza joints, one bar and a lot of empty storefronts. The closest movie theater was 15 minutes away in Deptford.

Today, Rowan is a school transformed.

A $100 million gift in the early 1990s by engineer and businessman Henry Rowan kick-started a revival of both college and town, and a plan Gov. Chris Christie unveiled last week to dramatically change the state’s university system means another restructuring is on the way.

Christie’s plan calls for Rowan to take over the nearby Camden campus of Rutgers University, including its law and business schools. The plan also allows Rowan to maintain control of its new medical school, which is set to open in September.
[...]
Not everyone is convinced about the benefits of the restructuring plan. Rutgers-Camden’s faculty union released a statement condemning the plan to strip the campus of its Rutgers title.

The union instead called on legislators to endorse a “consortium model” that would allow Rutgers Camden and Rowan to share some services while maintaining their distinction.

“The loss of the Rutgers brand name for South Jersey, and the unnecessary costs of merger, would do more harm than good,” said Patrick Nowlan, executive director of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT.

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Kean president says resume errors were made by university staff

January 23, 2012

By Nic Corbett/The Star-Ledger

Kean University President Dawood Farahi

Daniel Hedden/For the Star-Ledger. Kean University President Dawood Farahi speaks during a class about how citizens can respond to threats of terrorist activity in this 2004 file photo. Farahi has admitted there were errors on his resumes, but says they were not his fault.

UNION — While the governing board at Kean University has launched an investigation about false claims on his resume, university president Dawood Farahi has acknowledged for the first time that some mistakes were made.

In a recent interview, Farahi said even though there were some errors listed on past resumes, he was not responsible. Farahi said the inaccuracies, including claims that he had been acting academic dean at Avila College in Missouri and that he published “over 50 technical articles in major publications,” were made by staff members at Kean who helped prepare his resume for routine accreditation reviews at the university in 1994, 2001 and 2008.

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Kean Mutiny: Faculty wants outside probe of school president

January 22, 2012

Bob Ingle

Bob Ingle

Kean University’s full time faculty and professional staff union is calling on Gov. Christie to investigate allegations that Kean President Dawood Farahi falsified his credentials dating back to his employment application in 1982. In a news release, the union said, “Under Dr. Farahi’s failed leadership, New Jersey’s third-largest university has closed academic departments, laid-off critical student advisors, reduced the number of full-time faculty and increased tuition and fees to pay for debt that has skyrocketed over 600 per cent.” The staff is calling it “Soprano State University.”

Yeah, but he hired former Gov. Jim McGreevey to teach ethics at the Union County school. That was a get, wasn’t it? Doesn’t that afford Kean bragging rights over Princeton?

Credentials are taken very seriously in academic circles. There should be an investigation that includes people from other colleges who understand academia to clear the air once and for all. This could be settled easily by producing the documents in question or evidence he accomplished what he said he did. There is a lot at stake. Loss of academic accreditation could make Kean degrees worthless.

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Kean University Union Calls on Governor for External Investigation

January 20, 2012

Allegations of resume fraud risk further accreditation, NCAA sanctions

UNION, NJ…The Kean University full-time faculty and professional staff union has released a letter today calling for Governor Chris Christie to convene an independent investigation into allegations that Kean President Dawood Farahi has falsified his professional and academic credentials dating back to his application for employment in 1982. Since first writing to the Kean Board of Trustees nearly two months ago, union President Dr. James A. Castiglione reports receiving more documentation that items listed on Dr. Farahi’s resumes over the last three decades are inaccurate, prompting the call to investigate.

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Kean U. Board Investigates Allegations About President

January 10, 2012

The board of Kean University is investigating allegations of false statements on the résumé of Dawood Farahi, the president, The Wall Street Journal reported. The faculty union at Kean has questioned whether Farahi falsely claimed to have written more than 50 articles, including some allegedly published in journals that do not exist. Professors at Kean have had numerous conflicts with Farahi, and have charged that he does not respect the faculty role in governance, and that his priorities don’t reflect academic needs at the New Jersey institution. A statement from Farahi denied the allegations and said that they were motivated by “hate, prejudice and greed.”

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Kean U. Board Investigates President Over Alleged Spurious Credentials

January 10, 2012

Kean University’s Board of Trustees is looking into assertions by the institution’s faculty union that Kean’s president falsified his résumé. According to The Wall Street Journal, the university’s board chairwoman wrote a letter to the Kean Federation of Teachers saying that the board’s executive committee was examining “serious issues” raised by the union. The union has contended that the president, Dawood Farahi, falsely claimed to have published more than 50 articles in “major publications” and lied when he claimed to have served as acting dean at Avila University before taking over as president of Kean, in 2003.

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Kean University Union releases findings challenging President’s resume claims

January 09, 2012

Calls on Kean Trustees to initiate an independent, academic investigation

UNION, NJ…The Kean University full-time faculty and professional staff Union has presented evidence of suspected fraud by President Dawood Farahi, the latest in a series of scandals that have plagued his presidency, and is calling for a full and independent investigation by the Kean University Board of Trustees, according to Union President Dr. James A. Castiglione.
Research by faculty members on and off campus has documented that Dr. Farahi’s resume and application for employment contain false claims of scholarship in the opinion of the Kean Federation of Teachers.
• Dr. Farahi’s curriculum vitae (CV) claims “Over 50 technical articles in major publications” but extensive searches of scholarly databases find no such publications.
• Dr. Farahi’s application for employment claims several publications that cannot be substantiated and several that have been refuted by the editors of their respective journals. For example, although Dr. Farahi claims to have an article titled, “Patterns of Administrative Efficiency” accepted for publication in Administrative Science Quarterly in 1981, the journal editor specifically refutes Dr. Farahi’s claim, stating emphatically, “ASQ has never published an article by Dawood Farahi, nor have we ever accepted an article by Dawood Farahi…”

More>>Kean University Union releases findings challenging President’s resume claims

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Newark’s First Foray into Teacher Evaluation Pilot, with Teachers Front and Center

December 14, 2011

[...] Newark is one of 11 districts in the state piloting a controversial plan led by Gov. Chris Christie that would more closely tie teacher evaluation — and potentially tenure — to student achievement.

And while plenty of controversy remains, several in the group last night said they appreciated at least being included in the process, no small thing in a state-operated district that has not always held such trust between teachers and administration.

One vote of appreciation, if not full confidence, came from the union leaders that up until then had been lukewarm and even hostile to the plans.

“You seem to be more open and willing to different stakeholders,” said Cheryl Skeete, executive vice president of the American Federation of Teachers NJ, the umbrella organization for the Newark Teachers Union.

“It seems more well-rounded than earlier when we were told it was only one way,” she told Anderson’s staff. “That should help in getting more buy-in.”

That should mean something. The NTU has openly opposed the pilot as it stood up till now, surely contributing to the fact that not one of the district’s 80-plus schools voted to join the pilot in its first year. That left just seven schools included, all of them as a condition of large federal grants.

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