By Patricia Alex, Staff Writer, The Record
Kean University will buy three properties in Princeton owned by the late Michael Graves, including his studio and residence, for use by the school’s budding architecture program that bears the name of the renowned architect.
[…]Under Farahi’s leadership, Kean hasn’t been afraid to stray far afield from its home base or the traditional mission of a publicly funded state college. Kean has campuses now in Ocean County and Wenzhou, China.
Critics have faulted the president for spending on “vanity” projects, including the architecture program itself, which opened last year despite initial objections that it was duplicative of another public program only six miles away at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark.
“The Farahi administration’s continued spending binge on unnecessary real estate and vanity projects comes at the expense of the hiring of full-time faculty, professional academic advisers, and other key student support staff, who are truly necessary for providing a quality education to our students,” said James Castiglione, who heads the faculty union.
Castiglione said full-time faculty has been nearly halved since 2005 and noted that trustees also approved a 2.5 percent tuition hike at the school during the meeting at which they signed on to the expenses in Princeton. Kean has many lower-income students.
More>>
