Kean Federation of Teachers | 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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Star Ledger Editorial: Investigation of Kean president the best way to settle dispute

January 27, 2012

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board

Patti Sapone/The Star-Ledger. Dawood Farahi, Kean University president

The last thing New Jersey needs is another public official lying about his past. We’ve had our fill of people who should know better than to shade the truth to their advantage, followed by the tepid non-apology when they get caught. It usually begins “Mistakes were made … ”

That’s why it’s disheartening to hear the faculty union charges against Kean University president Dawood Farahi.

Union president James Castiglione says Farahi misrepresented his academic credentials, listing articles he claimed he wrote as a paid consultant that were never published in academic journals, among other things. “He lied on his résumé, and these are egregious violations of academic integrity,” Castiglione said.

The Kean board of trustees has launched an investigation.

These charges don’t come out of thin air. A large segment of the faculty has been highly critical of Farahi and gave him a vote of no confidence in 2010.

Farahi has made some unpopular changes since he took office in 2003.

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Kean’s president blames staff for errors as university’s reputation continues to falter

January 26, 2012

By Cheryl Hehl, Staff Writer

Although there is a firestorm surrounding Kean University President Dawood Farahi and whether he lied on his resumes or not, the smoking gun might be found in how the school compares to other New Jersey state universities.

After remaining mum on the entire issue revolving around allegations by the Kean University Federation of Teachers that the university president falsified his academic credentials, Farahi admitted last week in a Star-Ledger interview that some errors were made on his resumes.

Kean University

However, the university president, who was appointed in 2003 at a salary of $293,000 plus benefits along with longevity bonuses that individually tally $200,000, placed the blame on Kean staff members who helped prepare his resume for routine accreditation reviews.

But, it appears some of the errors Farahi blamed on staff members actually can be traced back to 1983 when the former Union County consultant was applying for his first position at Kean. This means he was responsible for the contents of his original resume.

For example, both the letter and the Kean application completed and signed by Farahi in 1982 have the same inconsistencies brought out last week in a LocalSource article examining all six known resumes used by the university president in the past.

In the 1982 letter and resume Farahi used to apply to Kean, he noted he had tenured status at Avila College, but not that he was an academic dean. However, in a 2008 Curriculum Vitae the university president submitted, under the heading of “Other University Experience,” Farahi said he served as Acting Academic Dean,” at Avila College.

Also confusing is that Farahi lists a Fullbright-Hays Scholarship on all his resumes from 1972 to 1974, the same time he maintains he was at the University of Kansas studying for a political science degree.

At question is whether Farahi, a naturalized citizen who immigrated to the United States in 1972 as a college student was actually eligible for the Fullbright-Hays Scholarship.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, the Fullbright Scholarship specifically sends U.S. citizens abroad “but does not provide reciprocal opportunities for international scholars to visit the United States.”

While Farahi appears to have a long history of poor academic record keeping or not examining his own resumes prepared by Kean staff members, coincidently Kean University has developed a similar record of setting poor academic standards.

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Editorial: The Farahi Syndrome

January 26, 2012

Union County LocalSource

Dawood Farahi. By now we would hope most residents of Union County, as well as all of your senators, assemblymen and local representatives, are well aware of this man. He has been the president of Kean University since 2003, earned $293,000 a year in that time, and helped increase the school’s debt from $48 million to over $350 million. In addition, he has been under continuous fire for allegedly falsifying his credentials. But we would like to make sure that everyone understands the bigger, and likely more widespread problem.

Last week, we published an article detailing the many resumes Farahi has used since 1982. And, if nothing else, they show an utter lack of organization and a complete inattention to details. Dates, titles, places, and years don’t match anywhere. On paper, Farahi does not appear to even know when he earned his masters degree, or where he was when it happened. Perhaps he’s not even aware that Kean owes $357 million, or that the student-to-teacher ratio is horrendous. Maybe he’s not aware that the faculty has been shrinking, the student population has been growing, and the graduation rate has been dismal. After all, he doesn’t seem to correctly recall anything else that happened in his life.

But last week, Farahi did at least acknowledge the errors in an interview with the Star-Ledger, but he failed to accept blame for documents tracing his own personal life. “I did not create the data sheet,” Farahi said in the article, blaming staff members for the errors.

But Farahi is just one person. He is just the current front man that gives a name to the problem. He is the local face of what has become a systemic failure in the governance of state higher education. The Farahi syndrome is likely widespread, and opens every state college and university to its symptoms: abuse and political patronage.

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Kean president says resume errors were made by university staff

January 23, 2012

By Nic Corbett/The Star-Ledger

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 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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Farahi’s resumes: The cause for concern

January 19, 2012

Multiple documents cite different dates, places and names for entries

By Cheryl Hehl, Staff Writer

Kean University

Six resumes used by Kean University President Dawood Farahi since 1982 show numerous questionable or fraudulent changes on entries for publications, academic positions, dissertation, undergraduate degrees and the Fulbright scholarship he maintains he received.

Farahi took over as president of the state university in 2003, earning $293,000 annually, with bonuses. Since then he has locked horns with the Kean Federation of Teachers over numerous issues, including whether the university president has lied about his credentials, positions prior to Kean, and number of published submissions to other universities and academic publishing houses.

The faculty union also has taken issue with how Farahi has expected more accountability from professors, including expecting them to teach more classes, spend additional hours on campus and account for their teaching time. In addition the union has called on the university for an independent audit to explain why Kean debt rose dramatically in just six years.

After several investigative articles by LocalSource in recent weeks brought out that the university president increased Kean debt from $40 million to more than $350 million in just six years and falsified his academic credentials, the Kean University Board of Trustees said the executive board would investigate these allegations.

In the meantime, LocalSource examined all six resumes that have been utilized by Farahi in the past, including one he used when applying for the position of president of Kean University.

Farahi makes a number of claims about publications on all six resumes that are false or unproven in various ways. Some claims, for instance, are false while others reference journals or societies or publishing houses that do not exist or may not exist.

Others are non-peer reviewed documents that allegedly have been passed off as peer-reviewed publications. Noteworthy is that throughout all six resumes Farahi never used proper academic bibliographic formatting so his claims are difficult to find.

One of the problems that surfaced is that the university president often confuses reports that he produced as a paid consultant working for the county and various Union County municipalities, including Elizabeth and Union. The result is that there is nothing to back up his claims of having certain publications published at various university presses. This was substantiated in last week’s LocalSource when responses from several university’s showed they had no record of Farahi’s reports or papers in their publications.

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Letters from schools show no record of Kean president’s publication claims

January 12, 2012

By Cheryl Hehl, Staff Writer

Kean Hall

Kean University President Darwood Farahi is being investigated by the university’s board of trustees amid allegations that he falsified his academic credentials.

A copy of a letter dated Dec. 16 obtained by LocalSource from Kean Board of Trustees Chair Ada Morell to Kean Federation of Teachers President James Castiglione backed up that the board was reviewing information the union provided at the end of November.

“The letters raise serious issues and have been referred to the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees for handling,” Morell said in her letter to Castiglione, stressing that “at the conclusion of the executive committee’s review, the board will determine what action, if any, is appropriate.”

Morell’s response to Castiglione occurred after the union president had to send a follow-up letter Dec. 13 urging the board to respond to the “serious allegations of potential academic fraud” leveled Nov. 29 by the union about Farahi.

In that letter Castiglione called on the board to order a “complete investigation” of their own into Farahi’s academic credentials.

“Given the seriousness of the allegations and the potential damage to the university, it is incumbent on the board to have an independent academic investigation and address these claims without delay,” the union president said.

LocalSource broke this story online Dec. 9 and in print Dec. 15, noting that the teachers union supplied the Kean Board of Trustees with considerable information supporting their claim that Farahi had falsified his academic credentials.

Among the allegedly bogus claims investigated by the Kean Federation of Teachers included Farahi’s claims on his resume that he published over 50 technical articles in major publications. However, after extensive searches of scholarly databases in and out of state, the faculty union found no evidence to support the university president’s claims.

Also, many of the claims have been refuted by editors of these journals.

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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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