Faculty termination raises controversy
When Chadd Davis, a senior Criminal Justice major, came into one of his classes halfway through this semester to find a new teacher there, he was confused. Only after he contacted William Plouffe, his former professor and advisor, with a question about his senior comprehensive exams did he found out Plouffe had been fired, under circumstances that struck him as strange.
The circumstances surrounding Plouffe’s termination, as detailed in a Petition for Review the former professor submitted to President F. Javier Cevallos and the Pennsylvania Attorney General involve alleged interpersonal conflicts that Plouffe describes between himself and other members of the Criminal Justice department. The document suggests misconduct and alleged illegal behavior on the department’s behalf, as well as improper handling of the termination process on the part of the President.
The purpose for the Petition for Review, explained Dr. Paul Quinn, a physics professor and president of KU’s chapter of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF-KU), is to ask Cevallos to reverse his position. If this does not happen, Plouffe may pursue legal action against the university.
According to the Petition, “Plouffe was dismissed prior to the expiration of his contract, breaching his contract of employment, which would have expired in January of 2010, without just cause and in violation of various laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the United States.”
Plouffe was hired by KU at the beginning of the Spring 2008 semester, and his alleged troubles began soon after. He claims that the department chair, Dr. Alexander Pisciotta, requested that Plouffe place the name of Dr. Keith Logan, a fellow Criminal Justice professor who needed more publications for his tenure application, as co-author on an academic publication he was working on.
According to Plouffe, he was pressured into agreeing, under the circumstances that Logan share the work, which he allegedly failed to do. The publication did not occur, “thereby harming Plouffe’s academic reputation because Plouffe had used his contacts to arrange a relatively immediate potential publication to benefit Logan under pressure from the Chair,” according to the Petition.
Logan told The Keystone that he was not aware of anyone requesting that his name be placed on Plouffe’s publication, and that he did contribute some work to the publication but that Plouffe requested more than he was able to provide.
“He told me what he needed and I provided that,” Logan said. “He asked for more, and I said I couldn’t do the additional work…I don’t believe [Pisciotta] would ask someone to do this. He’s an ethical person.”
The Petition lists a series of events following the issue of the publication that suggest the department chair’s favoritism toward Logan and unprofessional behavior by Logan and Pisciotta. Logan denied all of Plouffe’s claims.
For example, the Petition alleges that “it came to Plouffe’s attention from various students that Logan was uncollegially and unethically telling students not to take Plouffe’s courses.” Logan rebutted that he had no recollection of saying that to any students. “I may have counseled [students] on taking a better course to fulfill a requirement or possibly suggested a different course…to better educate that student,” he said.
Beyond interpersonal conflicts, Plouffe alleges a mishandling of his review process. Each year, untenured professors receive a review from a PET (Performance Evaluation Tenure) Committee and the department chair. The reviews, based on teaching performance and academic work done outside the classroom, are the basis for whether or not the professor will be rehired by the university.
Plouffe said in the Petition that “the reviews were excellent except for a single paragraph indicating that Plouffe allegedly had some ‘miscommunication’ problems…Inclusion of such comments violated the Collective Bargaining Agreement as they were not part of the contractually mandated evaluative subjects.”
On the advice of Quinn, Plouffe issued a rebuttal to the review. After his contract was renewed for a second year, Pisciotta filed a reply to the rebuttal in January 2009, “making a number of unfavorable allegations against Plouffe that were not included in the original review,” according to the Petition.
Quinn told The Keystone that APSCUF-KU became involved after this occurred. Through a rebuttal of a review is permitted, “the committee doesn’t have chance to respond,” Quinn said. “The person being evaluated gets the last word.” Quinn said that the union told Pisciotta that his reply was not allowed, and it was subsequently removed from Plouffe’s file.
Plouffe’s most serious allegation against the Criminal Justice department describes a situation that arose when he was working on a Search Committee with several other professors to hire a new faculty member. The Petition claims that Plouffe was told that one of the candidates was “favored,” being an alleged personal friend of Pisciotta and another professor. Plouffe said that after reviewing the favored candidate’s resume, he found that the candidate did not meet the requirements for hire and that the candidate had misrepresented his experience and academic performance.
After raising his concerns with the department, Plouffe says that he received the response that “these facts did not matter and that they wanted the favored candidate to be placed on the hire list,” the Petition says. After allegedly failing to resolve the issue within the department, Plouffe went to the Office of Social Equity, which “sustained Plouffe’s complaint and informed the Criminal Justice Department that the favored candidate would not be considered for hire,” the document claims.
The Keystone was unable to determine the truth to this allegation because both Pisciotta and the Office of Social Equity declined to comment on personnel issues.
Dr. Pietro Toggia, a professor in the Criminal Justice department who also participated on the Search Committee, said that he recalled the situation but that the misrepresentation on the resume had been blown out of proportion. Plouffe’s Petition says that the candidate did not have a master’s degree, which is required for the position, but Toggia said that the potential did have a master’s degree in Public Administration, and was working on one in Criminal Justice at another university, which the members of the Search Committee had determined to be acceptable.
Furthermore, Toggia said that the candidate was not a friend, but in fact had been a former student of professor Marc Renzema, who had written a recommendation letter for him. Toggia also said that Pisciotta had not been involved. “The chair has no say in the search process. We never sought approval from him on a candidate.”
Following these and other conflicts, Plouffe said that in July 2009 he was “interrogated” by Dean Anne Zayaitz, and claims that he was denied union representation despite the fact that disciplinary matters were being discussed.
Shortly afterwards, Plouffe received notification from Human Resources that an investigation was being conducted on him. He says the allegations were vague and that his and the union’s repeated attempts to obtain more information on the charges against him were denied.
A hearing was held with the President on Oct. 6, during which Cevallos gave Plouffe permission to put together documents rebutting the charges against him and detailing the violations Plouffe had witnessed in the Criminal Justice department. Plouffe says he submitted over 100 pages of documents at 12:30 p.m. the following Friday, but by the time he finished teaching his class around 1:50 p.m., a letter notifying him of his immediate dismissal was waiting for him. According to the Petition, “It would have been impossible for the President to read all of the documents submitted… in such a short time and then prepare the letter of dismissal. This is another example of bad faith in this matter.”
Cevallos was not available for comment on the circumstances of Plouffe’s dismissal procedure, and Zayaitz declined to comment on personnel matters.
Quinn assisted Plouffe in filing a grievance on the handling of the termination process. “I wouldn’t file a grievance if I didn’t think there was a problem,” he told The Keystone. “I feel the process could have been better.”
Toggia, Logan, and Quinn all vouched for the respectability of the Criminal Justice department. “I can assure you no criminal wrongdoing or ethical practices happen in this department,” Toggia said. He added that he was surprised by many of the Petition’s allegations. “Certain things were cited or referenced out of context, exaggerated, or misinterpreted,” he said.
Logan went a step further in denouncing Plouffe’s claims. “I’m concerned that a lot of the things being alleged are defamatory in nature and not supportable by facts,” he said. “I say that very seriously.”
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