Inside Higher Ed | American Federation of Teachers New Jersey, AFL-CIO

Résumé Scrutiny

February 01, 2012

By Kevin Kiley

Kean University President Dawood Farahi faces allegations that his resume contains false claims

There are probably a few academics who have looked up old journal articles by their universities’ presidents to get a sense of their leaders’ intellectual development. But at Kean University, the archive search is far from an academic pursuit.

When he applied for a faculty position in the master of public affairs program at Kean in 1983, Dawood Y. Farahi, now the New Jersey public institution’s president, claimed that an article he wrote was accepted for publication by a major academic journal in his field, but a representative from the journal said it has no record of accepting or publishing his work.

In the 1983 résumé, Farahi claimed that the article “Patterns of Administrative Efficiency” was accepted for publication by Management Science in 1981. In December, Gerard P. Cachon, the journal’s editor and a business professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, responded to a request by Kean faculty members, saying the publication had no record of the article.

“Management Science publishes everything we accept,” Cachon wrote in a letter provided by faculty union leaders to Inside Higher Ed and confirmed by Cachon. “There is a delay from the ‘accept’ decision to the article appearing in print because of the typesetting and production process. I have been told that we have no papers in that stage which were accepted more than 1 year ago.”

Faculty members at Kean say the the 1983 résumé is one of several examples they have found of erroneous claims of publication and other misleading statements on what they claim to be six additional résumés by Farahi, beginning in 1982 and spanning almost 30 years, that they obtained through a combination of open-records requests and searching university records and reports.

The faculty union has brought its concerns over Farahi’s academic record to the university’s Board of Trustees, which is currently investigating the president. “The Executive Committee of the board has employed independent counsel to review and research this matter in a thorough and comprehensive manner, and to report back to the Executive Committee with its findings,” said board chairwoman Ada Morell in a statement. “I am hopeful this work will be completed shortly.”

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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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College Staffing Grew in 2010, Most Heavily Among Part-Timers

November 23, 2011

The number of college faculty members and administrators edged up by 2.6 percent in 2010, to nearly 3.9 million, with growth coming disproportionately at for-profit colleges and among part-time workers, according to a federal report Tuesday. The annual report examines staffing levels and salaries at postsecondary institutions that qualify to award federal financial aid, and the key findings of this year’s report generally continue the trends of recent years. Of the roughly 100,000 gain in total employees employed by the colleges in 2010 over 2009, about 50,000 of them work part time (though part-time employees make up slightly more than a third of all postsecondary employees), and for-profit colleges added about 40,000 workers. The proportion of full-time faculty members who have tenure or are on the tenure track slipped by a full percentage point, to 62.7 percent from 63.7 in 2009.

Fallout From Penn State

November 23, 2011

By Allie Grasgreen

Unfavorable public attitudes about the way Pennsylvania State University officials handled a scandal alleging sex abuse of children may be influencing their overall judgment of college athletic programs and the institutions that house them, according to a new poll.

Forty percent of poll respondents said that, if they had a child preparing to go to college, they would be either likely (23 percent) or very likely (17 percent) to discourage him or her from choosing a Division I institution “that places a strong emphasis on sports.” That’s just fewer than the number of people who said they’d be somewhat unlikely (22 percent) or very unlikely (19 percent) to do so. Nineteen percent were unsure.

A full 72 percent of respondents said Division I college athletic programs have “too much influence over college life.” Only 3 percent said programs have too little influence; 16 percent said they have “about the right amount” and 9 percent were unsure.

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SUNY Union Adds Measures for Adjunct Faculty

September 27, 2011

The Delegate Assembly of the United University Professions, the faculty union of the State University of New York, has adopted a package of measures designed to promote the interests of non-tenure-track faculty members. The UUP, affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers and the American Association of University Professors, pledged to adopt a system in which adjuncts who go on and off payroll can remain members of the union. Further, each campus chapter will have an officer focused on contingent issues, and at least one spot on the statewide union’s executive board will be held by someone off the tenure track.

-from http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/09/27/qt#271322

Going to Bat for Tenure

September 12, 2011

Faculty leaders at Western Nevada College are hopeful they have found a new way to oppose layoffs of five tenured faculty members. The Faculty Senate has passed a resolution calling on colleagues not to participate in any new hire search committees until the tenured positions are restored.

Faculty leaders said they were confused and angry when the administration announced it was searching for new positions soon after faculty layoffs were deemed necessary. Administrators, though, say the move was needed in a time of change for the college.

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A Faculty (Led) Search

August 25, 2011

Everyone wants a seat at the table when a campus picks a new leader, and it’s rare that groups say they have enough representation. With so many campus constituencies — including faculty, staff, students, alumni, trustees, and community members — finding enough seats is tough, and more often than not, faculty members say they’re not given their fair share.

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Another Round at Rutgers

August 24, 2011

Catherine A. Lugg, a professor of education and treasurer of the faculty union, believes, as do others, that the university’s trajectory toward big-time sports began with a few outspoken members of the Board of Governors who wanted Rutgers to become a football powerhouse — and the power and tunnel vision of those members made voices of opposition irrelevant, they say. Even as things haven’t turned out as planned, the university has kept with it. “I think it’s just the proverbial snowball coming down a hill, picking up speed,” Lugg said — a few problematic decisions made years ago have been exacerbated with time.

As Lugg pointed out, Rutgers’s very geography works against a unified fan culture. The disjointed main campus is actually broken into five pieces, requiring a bus to get from one end to the other. And it sits between the two American professional sports meccas of Philadelphia and New York. While Rutgers football undoubtedly draws more of a crowd now than it did in the past, it still finished 4-8 last year. (A losing record of 59-63 over 10 seasons makes the $2 million salary of head coach Greg Schiano, already a symbol of misdirected priorities for many frustrated faculty members, even more contentious.)

“I don’t think anyone got up first thing in the morning and said, ‘We’re just going to decide to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in an effort that won’t succeed’…. But it’s kind of like, when do you fish or cut bait?” Lugg said. “Athletics — it adds to student culture, yes, but should it displace academic mission? No. I’m a former high school athlete. I love sports. But you know, it’s an issue of priorities.”

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