More On University Of Louisville's "Bride" "Corpse", Robert Felner. This Time PH.Ds Are For Sale.

Read more here or below:
Felner OK'd quick Ph.D. from U of L for ex-client

By Andrew Wolfson

Two years after giving former University of Louisville dean Robert Felner's research center a $375,000 contract, a California school superintendent received a doctoral degree from U of L in only one semester.
Advertisement

A spokesman for the American Association of University Professors said it is "virtually unheard of" for a student to be awarded a Ph.D. in that amount of time.

U of L's own rules say that to earn a doctorate, "at least two years of study must be spent" at the university, including at least one in "full-time residency."

But with Felner as chairman of his dissertation committee, John Deasy, then superintendent of California's Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, was awarded a doctorate in philosophy in May 2004 after being enrolled at U of L for nine credit hours, university records show.

Two years earlier, Deasy persuaded his school board to approve a three-year, $125,000-per-year contract with Felner's National Center on Public Education and Social Policy to conduct surveys in the 12,800-student California school district.

Deasy, now superintendent of the Prince Georges County (Md.) Public Schools, didn't respond to telephone messages and e-mails sent to him by a reporter.

Felner, now the focus of a federal investigation into allegations that he misappropriated a $649,000 grant, declined to respond to questions submitted through one of his lawyers. No charges have been filed.

Felner resigned as dean of U of L's College of Education and Human Development in June to take a job in Wisconsin, but withdrew from that position after news of the probe became public.

With his doctorate from U of L, Deasy in 2006 bested two other candidates to win the job in Prince Georges County, which has 10 times as many students as his former district in California, and paid a $250,000 starting salary -- $97,000 more than he'd been earning.

Superintendent-search consultants and the American Association of School Administrators say that to be competitive, a candidate for a large district must have a doctoral degree. The advertisement for the opening in Prince Georges County said a master's degree was required but a Ph.D. was preferred, said John White, a district spokesman.

Citing a federal student privacy law, U of L spokesman John Drees said the university couldn't comment on how Deasy obtained his doctorate so quickly.

Deasy was the only doctoral student whom Felner supervised during his five years at U of L, according to a dissertation database.
'Quite extraordinary'

Most universities have residency requirements for doctoral candidates, in part to ensure the integrity of degrees, said Martin Snyder, director of external relations for the Washington-based American Association of University Professors.

"To have only one semester at the institution would seem quite extraordinary to me," he said.

U of L's graduate school handbook says that "in order that the student may be assured of an opportunity to utilize the educational facilities properly and to participate in the intellectual life and research atmosphere of the University, at least two years of study must be spent at the University of Louisville and at least one must be spent in full-time residency. Full-time residency is defined as enrolling in 18 hours of credit within 12 consecutive months."

William Pierce, the graduate school's interim dean, said it would be "highly irregular" and "exceedingly uncommon" for the requirement to be waived, though it might be permitted for a doctoral student whose mentor moved from another university to U of L.

One of the five members of Deasy's dissertation committee, Daniel Mahony, who was an associate dean and professor in the College of Education and later associate university provost, said he was told Felner had sought and won approval from Ronald Atlas, then dean of the graduate school, for a waiver of the residency requirement. Atlas is on sabbatical this year and couldn't be reached for comment.

At the University of Kentucky, it takes at least two years to earn a Ph.D. and there are "no waivers -- period," said Jeannine Blackwell, dean of the graduate school.

Drees couldn't immediately say how many waivers, if any, have been granted at U of L. He said there are no written rules governing waivers, although he noted that Felner, as the dean of a college, would not have authority to grant one.
Sanctity of degrees

Deasy, who previously led a small school district in Rhode Island, was enrolled in a doctoral program at the University of Rhode Island for seven semesters, from 1997 to 2002, according to the university. Felner was, at the time, the university's education dean.

But Deasy didn't complete his degree there, and he didn't mention his Rhode Island studies on a resume published with his dissertation. The resume does say he earned 30 credits beyond his master's at State University of New York, whose Albany campus confirmed that he was enrolled there from 1991 to 1993.

Teresa Fishman, director of Clemson University's Center for Academic Integrity, a consortium of 360 institutions, said it would be unusual for a school like U of L to have awarded a candidate a degree "as if he had completed all of the work at their institution."

U of L graduate school rules allow the transfer of only six semester hours from another university.

The U of L College of Education doctoral handbook says that students with master's degrees need 60 additional hours for a doctorate. "Typically, well-prepared students complete their doctoral work in 3.5 to five years," it says.

The sanctity of the degrees is an extremely serious matter in the academic world, in part because awarding unearned degrees can jeopardize a university's accreditation.

After the disclosure this year that West Virginia University improperly awarded a master's in business administration to the governor's daughter, the university rescinded the degree, and its president, provost and business school dean resigned.

At Virginia Commonwealth University, after a report that that a former Richmond police chief was awarded a degree despite meeting only half the requirements, two deans were forced to resign. An internal review found 37 exceptions were made to allow the degree to be conferred.
Deasy's doctorate

Deasy's dissertation was approved by a five-member committee that was headed by Felner and included three of his strongest supporters in the College of Education.

Two of them, professors Robert Ronau and Joseph Petrosko, defended Felner when the College of Education faculty voted no confidence in him in March 2006.

Ronau, the college's associate dean for research, declined to comment, and another member of the dissertation panel, Cheryl Kolander, associate dean of the department of health and sports sciences, didn't respond to calls and e-mails.

Petrosko, who heads the department of leadership, foundations and human resource education, said that he assumed that Deasy's degree "went through university procedures."

Petrosko and Mahony, who is now dean of education at Kent State University, said neither Felner nor Deasy disclosed that Deasy's school district had a contract with Felner's center, which he ran from the University of Rhode Island.

Mahony said his only role as a dissertation committee member was to evaluate the quality of Deasy's 151-page dissertation, but that as an administrator, he would not allow a faculty member to supervise a doctoral student with whom he had a business relationship.

Fishman, the Center for Academic Integrity director, said that at the least, the relationship should have been disclosed. "This kind of situation might suggest impropriety even if none existed, so the greater degree of transparency, the more likely it would be that things could be kept and seen as above board," she said.

Deasy's dissertation -- "An analysis of leadership: investigating superintendent leadership in context within a standards-based, non-optional reform initiative" -- was based on interviews with four superintendents in Rhode Island, where he headed a small district from 1996 to 2001.

Deasy dedicated his dissertation paper to Felner, thanking him for his "guidance and encouragement" and adding that "his help goes beyond this work and to the real work of leadership in our public schools."
The contract

The year after Deasy was hired to run the 16-school Santa Monica-Malibu district in 2001, he recommended that his board hire Felner's Rhode Island center to survey administrators, assistant administrators, staff, students and parents to provide schools with data on whether the district's goals were being implemented.

As originally proposed, the contract would have paid a total of $125,000, but it was revised to pay that amount per year for a minimum of three consecutive years, according to records obtained under the California Public Records Act.

The center, which Felner headed until 2006, did most of its surveys in Rhode Island schools, although its Web site says it has worked with schools in more than 20 states.

Deasy, a nationally recognized school-reform advocate, won the Prince Georges County job in 2006 over two candidates with more experience in large, urban districts.

The Washington Post said in a story published then that Deasy presented himself as a leader free of ethical taint.

"Do your LexisNexis," he challenged the Prince Georges County board, referring to the database of news stories. "Not going to find a thing."

Editor's comment: Felner is a "piece of work", isn't he?