<p>There was an article on the Philly paper today on this. Over the last few years, Penn has had 5 faculty members in serious criminal trouble for child pornography, molestation, or murder. They even allowed one of these slimes to keep teaching even after he was caught propositioning am undercover agent posing as a 15 year old. He was later caught with videos showing him with children and was recently arrested. He is no longer teaching.
So Penn is now reported to be re-evaluating their background check process.
The article mentioned that Big Ten schools, for example, do background criminal checks. But Ivies don’t. A Penn spokesperson mentioned that it might but them at a competitive disadvantage since they all compete for the same talent. Huh? Am I missing something?</p>
<p>It is one of the little known facts that the Ivy and Big 10 schools often compete for the same junior faculty. Also the Big 10 is one of the favorite recruiting grounds for senior level faculty for the Ivy schools.</p>
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<p>So by knowing beforehand that someone is a bad apple, you wouldn’t hire him. So your competition would. And how is that a disadvantage??</p>
<p>Are there so few wonderful professors that Ivies are willing to lower the bar that far??</p>
<p>Do you have a source for that statement?</p>
<p>Depending on the field, a university may receive several hundreds of applications for the same position; top universities are not usually facing a shortage of good applicants. Including applicants without criminal records. But I’ve been around several universities, private and public, and I don’t recall their doing criminal checks.</p>
<p>here you go…
<a href=“http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/16744065.htm[/url]”>http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/16744065.htm</a></p>
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I idea that a possible faculty member would factor in his or her job selection whether a school requires a background check is simply silly. If such a person exists, he or she either has a criminal background or lacks the necessary maturity to serve on the faculty. I suspect many universities required criminal background checks for non-faculty. A good argument in favor of criminal background checks is to be consistent with treatment of non-faculty.</p>
<p>When universities compete for “hot” candidates (especially at the junior, rookie level), the speed of hiring decision is an important factor. If your competitor just made an offer to someone you really like, you would want to make a counteroffer right away. However, if you have to do a criminal background check through the FBI or several police bureaus, you may wait for days, weeks, or even months. By the time you finish your check, the candidate is no longer on the job market. </p>
<p>That’s why universities really reluctant to do so. Also, how can you predict someone who may murder his wife after 20 years on the job?</p>
<p>When former Stanford grad math student Ted Streleski (sp?) applied to be a professor in UC Berkeley’s math department, he was asked on his application if he had ever committed a felony. His answer in caps: YES, MURDER. </p>
<p>He had in fact murdered his faculty advisor at Stanford.</p>
<p>True story.</p>
<p>And no, Berkeley didn’t hire him. ; )</p>
<p>Thanks, toneranger.</p>
<p>I think cj’s argument makes sense. I know of one university which pressured a young candidate to respond to its offer before the annual meeting of that candidate’s professional association was held. The university–a prestigious one–did not want to risk the chance that the candidate might be made an offer by some other institution at the annual meeting.</p>
<p>OK - I’ve worked in HR for many years and background checks are standard operating procedure at most large companies. I agree that speed of hiring is important. So, many companies make an offer contingent on a background check (if a problem comes up on the report, it’s dealt with).
Also, the turnaround time on background checks is much better than it used to be.
In my opinion, there’s NO EXCUSE for not doing a background check on faculty members. For God’s sake, these people interact with students every day. I think Universities that don’t conduct these checks should be held liable if something goes wrong.</p>
<p>Toneranger, I also work in HR, at a company where every single hire must undergo a background check. and we also make the job offer contingent on the check being OK. There have been a few (very few) occasions where we’ve rescinded an offer. If a potential faculty candidate knows he’s clean, he’s got nothing to worry about. It a potential faculty candidate knows he’s dirty, he should move on to Plan B. </p>
<p>If everyone else conducts a background check and your organization doesn’t, you will wind up with all the bad guys flocking to your organization.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, how long does it take to do a background check?</p>
<p>Toneranger and VeryHappy: You are arguing from the candidates’ perspective, and you are right; honest candidates, and they are the overwhelming majority, have nothing to worry about. However, they may feel insulted (and since they are most likely not applying to companies, they are not thinking that this is standard procedure). It may end up that instead of all the bad guys flocking to your school, the best candidates, with the greatest “marketability,” will stay away from your school.
The Penn spokesperson was enunciating the Penn perspective less in the context of a competitive market in which the other competitors have not (yet) agreed to do background checks. It did come out very unfortunate.</p>
<p>The company we use to do the background checks alleges they can do it in four days or less. Occasionally it takes more, because the company wants to make sure that the John Smith with that birth date is in fact YOUR John Smith; naturally they don’t want to report wrong info. Also, if something turns up, they try to verify it with additional research. But it’s almost always wrapped up within a week.</p>
<p>That said, we’re doing a quick criminal and motor vehicle history check. If you talk to the CIA or the FBI, their checks can take six months or so.</p>
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<p>I don’t think so. I don’t understand why a great professor with no problems in his background would be offended or annoyed at a background check, assuming the check is done on all applicants. What I don’t understand is why a college wouldn’t do the checks, which have become much more common. Given all that’s going on in the world, and given how much these professors are around young people (even if they are legally adults), I’d want the college I send my kids to to do this as SOP.</p>
<p>After all, many parents now ask about safety, drinking and rape statistics. why not find out if the profs have been screened also??</p>
<p>VeryHappy:</p>
<p>Thanks for the information. Again, you are looking at the issue from the point of view of the students and parents (why would I send my child to x?) rather than from the point of view of the job applicant or the hiring department.
Ideally, all academic applicants should be screened. In practice, no one will budge until everyone does.</p>
<p>I respectfully disagree. A convicted person could have reformed, and he/she have been penalized already for the crime. To exclude someone in that situation for jobs that he/she is qualified will serve no useful purpose to our society.</p>
<p>We don’t do criminal background checks on student applicants.</p>
<p>With 4.7% of college women raped while intoxicated in college, and about four times as many sexually assaulted, perhaps we should. (All I’m suggesting is putting the energy where the risk actually is.)</p>
<p>Padad, it depends on the industry, the job, and the risk. I think you’d agree that someone convicted of pedophilia – having served his time – should not be a nursery school teacher.</p>
<p>Should someone convicted of “Grand theft - auto” be permitted to work in an auto dealership?</p>
<p>Should someone convicted of rape be permitted to take female customers out for test drives? There’s a big potential for liability if something 'bad" happens and the female customer says that the company could or should have known about the salesman’s past.</p>
<p>Should someone convicted of bank robbery be permitted to work in a bank?</p>
<p>Etc.</p>
<p>VeryHappy, Am I wrong to think that it is a central tenet in our society that one is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and this applies even for past offenders? </p>
<p>I don’t see the applicability of your examples, with the exception perhaps on the pedophile. The others have nothing to do with job performance.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how anyone can argue that faculty should be exempt from checks when so many other types of employees ARE subject to background checks. Pilots, teachers, bankers, day care workers, flight attendants, air traffic controllers. It’s obvious that our culture believes that we should, at the very least, be aware of past criminal activity. We can then make a decision as to whether or not the transgression is relevant.
Of course, I understand that background checks may may cause recruitment issues for the first one in the Ivy group to make a move - perhaps scaring away or insulting candidates. But, in my mind, this is too important to ignore. And it’s a weak excuse for doing nothing. At least one of these institutions should take a stand - and make a change. The others will follow - it’s really hard to argue against it.
On this issue of forgiving: Once a pedophile, always a pedophile. Research shows how difficult it is to rehabilitate these folks. Would you want the pedophile Penn professor to relocate to the West Coast and begin a new teaching career- perhaps at Stanford?<br>
Yes, I’m looking at it from the standpoint of the students (and parents). They’re the customers after all…</p>
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<p>PaDad, it’s not always about job performance. It’s about the safety of the customers, about the security of the company’s “goods,” about liability for the company.</p>
<p>Should a convicted arsonist be hired to be a fire fighter?</p>
<p>And, relevant to my company, should someone with a terrible driving record be hired to work at an auto dealer where he’ll be driving both cars and customers as a routine part of his job? I vote No.</p>
<p>Legally, of course, there’s no problem with this. If my company decides not to hire someone because of his race, that’s a “protected class,” and we can’t do that. But convicted criminals are not “protected,” and the company gets to decide what’s best for the company and the customers.</p>