63-month prison term ends Felner Chronicle

Finally, the Robert Felner Chronicle comes to an end -- with a 63-month prison term.

Almost two years after he was offered the post of chancellor at UW-Parkside, Felner was formally sentenced to prison today, when a Louisville judge accepted a plea agreement tentatively made in January. Besides prison, Felner was ordered to make restitution of $510,000 to the University of Louisville, where he was dean of the College of Education, $1.64 million to the University of Rhode Island and $88,750 to the Rock Island County Council on Addiction in Illinois.

Offered the position of chancellor at Parkside in the Spring of 2008, Felner withdrew shortly before he was due to take office in August -- after it was revealed that he was being investigated on charges of mishandling federal grants.The incident was a major embarrassment for UW-Parkside, and led to a review of UW system candidate search procedures.

Lane Earns then served for a year as Parkside's interim chancellor, until Deborah Ford assumed the post last August.

PageOneKentucky has a complete chronology here.

Our own chronology is here.

Felner: The Neverending Story

Wish we could take credit even for the headline above, but it comes from the Page One Kentucky blog, which has been leading this story all week.

But wait, there's more!

People on the chancellor search committee at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside knew the man they recommended as a finalist got a no-confidence vote at the college where he was dean, but they didn’t tell the Board of Regents or the UW System president about it — raising more tough questions about the university system’s vetting process. --Journal-Sentinel

EFL Associates, the search firm responsible for finding Robert Felner for the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, charged $70,000 in fees and expenses. We’re pretty much certain at this time that UW-Parkside is convulsing on the floor of its local dive bar and/or trying to drink the pain away. Can you even imagine? $70,000 and EFL didn’t turn up a damn thing?

We have uncovered information that (more than) suggests Robert Felner hired his girlfriend in January 2005 at an annual salary $20K-$30K higher than many tenured faculty -- and she had no (still doesn’t) terminal degree. She was a former high school assistant principal who now serves as co-principal on several grants in which Felner is the primary. Nearly everyone we have spoken with at the University of Louisville brings the relationship up because they say it’s indicative of greater problems (i.e, everybody hired while Felner was in charge happened to be young and blonde.)

We have also discovered that Felner threatened to leave the University of Louisville on several occasions and used written offers from other schools in order to obtain matching offers from the Provost. In 2006 Felner got an offer from Ohio State University that he claimed to be considering seriously. So seriously, in fact, that the University of Louisville gave him another raise and threw a giant party in his honor that included some interesting (to say the least) t-shirts sold to people who wanted to attend the event. --Page One Kentucky

Felner has been involved in at least one public flap involving research grants. In 2003 he resigned as dean of the University of Rhode Island's School of Education, blaming a state law for his departure. According to an account in The Providence Journal, Mr. Felner said he lost $15-million in research grants because of a cap on university staffing that prevented him from hiring enough employees to conduct the research. Calling the research a "missed opportunity," Mr. Felner told the newspaper: "Can you imagine Brown University turning down grant money?"

In the case of a failed search, consultants typically conduct a second search without charging a fee. (Jason) Meschke (president of EFL Associates) said his firm was contractually required to do so for the Parkside campus. "We are standing by the contract," he said. (Wisconsin University system spokesman David) Giroux said the system was considering the Parkside search a "teachable moment" -- Chronicle of Higher Education

The federal investigation into allegations of mishandled funds at the University of Louisville has led another university to review grant expenditures made by the dean at the center of the investigation. A spokeswoman at the University of Rhode Island, where Robert Felner worked from 1996 to 2003, confirmed today the school is reviewing his grant expenditures while he was employed there. --Louisville Courier-Journal

University of Wisconsin-Parkside officials knew as early as last Friday that there was a federal investigation into Robert Felner when agents showed up at the chancellor's office to take away boxes of paperwork he already sent here... David Giroux, a UW System spokesman, said officials weren't aware of the federal investigation until Felner informed the university in a phone call Sunday, two days after agents came to Parkside. Giroux said Parkside didn't inform UW officials of the investigation until Monday. --Kenosha News

Robert Felner recommended as next UW-Parkside chancellor

UW-Parkside sent out this release on their likely next chancellor, Dr. Robert Felner:

FELNER RECOMMENDED AS NEXT UW-PARKSIDE CHANCELLOR

MADISON, Wis.— Dr. Robert Felner, dean of the College Education and Human Development at the University of Louisville, has been recommended as the next chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.

UW System President Kevin P. Reilly and the Board of Regents’ Special Committee for the UW-Parkside Chancellor Search announced the recommendation today. The full board is expected to act on the appointment in June.

“Dr. Felner’s distinguished career and significant academic leadership experience will no doubt accelerate the forward momentum the institution has achieved over the past decade,” said Reilly. “He will be a strong leader in a part of the state where we expect the population to grow significantly in the coming years.”

Felner has been a dean at Louisville since 2003, and co-chaired that campus’ University-Community Partnership Board for two years. He previously served as professor and director of the School of Education at the University of Rhode Island for seven years. With more than 30 years of experience in higher education, Felner has held faculty appointments at the University of Illinois, Auburn University, and Yale University, in addition to those at Louisville and the University of Rhode Island.

“I was impressed with UW-Parkside in a number of ways,” said Felner. “I am particularly excited about the institution’s commitment to providing excellent educational experiences for all students, to its commitment to equity and social justice, to being deeply engaged in the community, and to creating partnerships with business, industry, the schools and government to enhance the lives of the people of the region. I also have a strong personal connection to the institution’s focus on first-generation college students and those from diverse backgrounds. If not for a strong, student-centered institution like Parkside, I would never have imagined myself in college, to say thinking of being a chancellor.”

“When I was younger, for family reasons, I had to leave high school, go to work, and finally get a GED. I was fortunate to find a university that allowed me to translate my GED into the opportunity for a quality college education. As are the faculty at UW-Parkside, my professors were strong scholars who were still deeply committed to offering me the personalized attention I needed to succeed, and I did because of them. I look forward to working with my new UW-Parkside colleagues who share those values of preparing generations of Wisconsin’s citizens for today’s global community and are committed to enhancing the economic and social well-being of our communities, the region, state and nation.”

Felner earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology from the University of Rochester in New York. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Connecticut.

“The campus is enthusiastic about the arrival of Dr. Felner,” said UW-Parkside Professor Chris Evans, chair of the UW-Parkside search and screen committee. “We are looking forward to the exciting, hard work ahead of us all.”

“Building on the campus’ longstanding commitment to equity and social justice, and its strong connections to the community, we must work together to make UW-Parkside a truly spectacular place—a destination of choice for students across the state,” said Felner. “This campus will have a transformational impact on the lives of our students and all our community neighbors, offering educational opportunities that are equal in quality to that which they might find anywhere else in the world.”

Felner was one of four finalists for the UW-Parkside chancellor position recommended by the campus committee. The other finalists were: Dr. T.J. Bryan, Fayetteville State University; Dr. Gloria J. Gibson, Arkansas State University-Jonesboro; and Dr. Maurice C. Taylor, Morgan State University.

“It was clear that Dr. Felner emerged from this competitive national search with broad support from our local community and the campus,” said Michael J. Falbo, chair of the Board of Regents Special Committee and a UW-Parkside alumnus. “It’s equally clear that he has the right skills to help this campus play its part in the growth and development of a vibrant Southeastern Wisconsin. To boost our economy, we must help more Wisconsin residents from all walks of life attain their college degree. The campus must work in partnership with local businesses to create more high-paying jobs. Dr. Felner is the person to lead us in that direction.”

Serving with Falbo on the Regents’ Special Committee were fellow regents: Jeffrey B. Bartell of Madison, Eileen Connolly-Keesler of Oshkosh and Judith V. Crain of Green Bay.

Felner will succeed Chancellor John P. (Jack) Keating as the UW-Parkside’s chief executive. Keating announced in January that he would step down in August 2008 after leading the campus for more than a decade.

As one of 11 comprehensive universities within the UW System, the UW-Parkside campus enrolls more than 5,000 students from 55 Wisconsin counties – the most diverse student body in the system. Leading approximately 500 faculty, academic staff and classified staff members, the UW-Parkside chancellor is responsible for operation and leadership of the campus.