Allegations of plagiarism, academically unsound tenure denials cited in 96% rejection
UNION, NJ…Kean Federation of Teachers President Dr. James Castiglione announced the overwhelming results of a 96 percent no confidence vote in Kean University Vice President of Academic Affairs Dr. Jeffrey Toney’s leadership and the entire Office of Academic Affairs after a voting period ended Wednesday night. Despite his short service, Dr. Castiglione said Dr. Toney has amassed an unfortunate record of academic integrity scandals, has instituted policies that have jeopardized academics at Kean and used unsound academic judgment in rejecting 90% of candidates applying for tenure this year.
In October Dr. Toney recommended denial of tenure to nine of ten candidates, despite unanimous recommendations affirming they earned tenure from their colleagues on departmental and college tenure committees. Both the KFT union and the Faculty Senate have called upon the Kean Board of Trustees to respect the faculty recommendations at their meeting this Saturday in Ocean County and affirm tenure for the candidates. “Tenure is the result of a rigorous peer review process,” said Castiglione. “Those who have been continually reappointed until their tenure year and recommended by their departments should be granted tenure.” Dr. Castiglione further opined that Dr. Toney’s decision to override the majority of tenure decisions without stated reasons “is yet another indication that Kean University management operates without academic integrity and has little respect for the basic tenets of shared academic governance.”
More recently, the University was embroiled in scandal when it was alleged by the union that Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs Katerina Andriotis had plagiarized nine out of 15 pages of an enrollment report verbatim from sources on the Internet. The day after the union brought a complaint Andriotis was no longer employed at Kean. In Dr. Castiglione’s opinion the blatant plagiarism of Dr. Toney’s second-in-command “is testament to the culture of academic fraud that pervades university administration under his leadership,” said Castiglione. “We teach our students to be ethical and scrupulous, and we expect our university officials to uphold higher, not lower, standards.”
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