By Patricia Alex, Staff Writer, The Record.
Kean University faculty members criticized the school’s board of trustees at a meeting Saturday for spending $219,000 to purchase a conference table, but the trustees had no response.
It was the board’s first public meeting since news reports about the cost of the 22-foot circular multimedia conference table that was purchased without competitive bidding and installed in a new $40 million academic building on the main campus.
“The table is a focal point that speaks to a larger neglect,” said Richard Katz, a professor in the English Department. “What we really need are more tenured faculty and more student parking.”
Some said the expense was emblematic of the misplaced priorities of the administration of President Dawood Farahi.
Emily K. Filardo, a psychology professor, said the table “is just the tip of the iceberg.” Filardo represents the faculty senate at the trustees’ meetings.
She and others noted that the number of tenured faculty at the school has declined significantly as Farahi has pursued high-profile building projects at home and abroad.
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