Multiple documents cite different dates, places and names for entries
By Cheryl Hehl, Staff Writer
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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