Davitt McAteer’s maneuverings recalled by Wash Post blogger.
Tag: Wheeling Jesuit University
Wheeling Jesuit president: 2008 independent review found no problem in federal grant billings – The Washington Post
An unnamed “independent, special counsel experienced in federal grants who had served as general counsel for a major research university” examined how Wheeling Jesuit U. allocated its NASA grants and issued a clean bill for the U. in 2008, WJU president Richard Beyer says in the wake of recently publicized findings to the contrary by a NASA investigator:
That person, who was not named in Beyer’s statement, “determined the university’s cost-allocation method to be permissible under federal regulations and found no improprieties.”
The period covered by the NASA agent’s report was 2005 through 2011 and referred to WJU vice president Davitt McAteer, who oversaw the grant expenditures..
McAteer’s attorney hasn’t commented on the allegations, but the affidavit suggests he and the university could face five possible federal crimes — theft of federal funds; major fraud; conspiracy; false claims; and wire fraud.
Public corruption targeted in West Virginia
West Virginia feds going after bad guys who steal from the government, including by “misuse of federal grant monies.”
This after raids on offices of Wheeling Jesuit University based on NASA investigator’s warrant accusing WJU vice president J. Davitt McAteer of misusing federal grant monies and the WJU board of collusion in the matter.
Jesuit SNAP’d again — this time in Philadelphia
The long arm of The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has reached cross country, from California in the 90s to Pennsylvania two days ago. Rev. Thomas Gleeson SJ has been found (out) again:
Another accused priest works in Philadelphia Archdiocese
Jesuit was accused of sexually harassing a young seminarian
Despite a settlement in 2002 [sic], he’s chaplain at a Philly university
SNAP wants him removed and students and staff told of his past
“It’s not just kids,” [SNAP] says, “Clerics also assault vulnerable adults”
The seminarian was a scholastic, a Jesuit in training. Gleeson was president of the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. The Jesuits contested the hearing of the case, calling on a clerical exemption from workplace harassment liability, but when that issue was decided against them in late 1999, they settled with the complainant.
Gleeson was transferred back to his home base (Maryland Province) and put in charge of a retreat center in Wernersville PA, serving also as a director and trustee of Wheeling (WV) Jesuit University, where with two other (Jesuit) trustees he effected the dismissal of the WJU president in 2009, after two years in office.
In the aftermath of the widely unpopular firing, Gleeson was revealed by SNAP as having been accused of harassment. In a few months, he left the Wernersville post, remaining in his Wheeling Jesuit positions, SNAP’s protest notwithstanding.
Last October he assumed a chaplaincy at St. Joseph’s U., Philadelphia, where SNAP found him again and duly exposed and protested his California record, again calling on church authorities to depose him.
The Philadelphia Daily News ran a story:
[Former Jesuit scholastic] John Bollard alleged in the suit that Gleeson and two other priests harassed him for five years while he was a seminarian at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, where Gleeson was president.
The suit was settled in 2000 out of court, with the priests denying any wrongdoing.
Unwillingness to argue the case is typical. Monetary settlement has been the norm in Catholic abuse cases, presumably according to legal and public-relations advice. But Bollard told his side on “Sixty Minutes,” and the grim details, never contested in court, remained to shock many and besmirch reputations.
Bollard, who said he was 25 when the incidents started, alleged in the suit that Gleeson had asked him to masturbate with him.
The other Jesuit priests, Drew Sotelo and Anton Harris, were accused of sending suggestive pornographic pictures of naked men to Bollard and asking him to cruise gay bars.
Harris sent a card “depicting a fully aroused man,” with the note, “Thought this might inspire some theological thoughts.”
Indeed, Harris lost his Seattle U. vice president’s job in 2006 once the Seattle Post-Intelligencer published its story, in which a Seattle U. spokeswoman unfortunately brushed off the law suit story as “old news,” betraying remarkable disregard for public, especially Catholic, opinion and tradition.
A similar pattern is evident in Philadelphia. A St. Joseph U. spokeswoman told the News they had known of “the allegations,” but that Gleeson had denied them and neither archdiocese nor Maryland Province had objected to his hiring as a chaplain. The paper also reported that the St. Joseph community had not been informed of Gleeson’s past.
This changed with a memo to students and another to faculty, as recounted in The Hawk, the student newspaper.
Saint Joseph’s University President Timothy Lannon, S.J., sent separate emails to students and staff regarding Gleeson’s employment at the university and the allegations leveled against him late yesterday afternoon. Both emails indicated that the university was made aware of Gleeson’s past by a recent letter from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. [Italics added]
However, the president’s claiming he knew nothing of Gleeson’s history is in contradiction of what the spokeswoman had told the newspaper hours earlier, as The Hawk writer points out.
[I]n a Philadelphia Daily News article published this morning, Assistant Vice President for University Communications Harriet Goodheart stated that “we were aware of the allegations of 11 years ago, which he denied, and was cleared for assignment.”
The Hawk will be updating its story, the editor notes. [Here’s the link: Goodheart explains.]
Wheeling Jesuit trustee leaving national post
[Drastically corrected version] Fr. Charles Currie, [not] the sole Wheeling Jesuit U. trustee [this was Fr. Edward Glynn] who did not collaborate in the firing of fellow Jesuit Fr. Julio Giulietti from the WJU presidency a year ago, is stepping down as president of the Assn. of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. Colleagues heap praise on him in comments at The Chronicle of Higher Ed’s “The Ticker” blog.
Tom Ingram, president-emeritus, Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB):
The 28 Jesuit colleges and universities will be losing an extraordinary leader next year, and so will the rest of higher education. Father Charlie Currie has inspired his colleague presidents to be sure, but he has also shepherded his Church and Catholic higher education across the board through some very very, very challenging issues ranging from threats to academic freedom in classrooms and institutional self-determination, as well as to their adequately preparing for their inevitable transition to lay Catholic leadership.
I’m certain that what he has done to help Catholic colleges and universities to begin addressing their futures while honoring the values, traditions, and teachings of the various religious communities that founded each of them will prove to be one of his true legacies.
David Baime, American Association of Community Colleges:
I know Father Currie less as a professional colleague than as a fellow tenant of the fourth floor of 1 Dupont Circle [DC]. To put it succinctly, to know him is to love him, and to chuckle with him as well. Father Currie’s moral authority within the higher education community, stemming as it does from a unique combination of intelligence, geniality, and learning, will be missed. But I will miss him more as a friend.
And an otherwise anonymous “raslowski”:
Charlie has served the Society of Jesus and the Jesuit Colleges and Universities with distinction. His has been a clear and consistent voice for an education in which the promotion of justice is a critical component. His efforts have shaped the world of higher education for the better.
Currie had the job 14 years. His stepping down is set for next June. He previously served as president of Wheeling (WV) Jesuit and Xavier University, in Ohio. Succeeding him will be the Rev. Greg Lucey, a former president of Spring Hill College, in Alabama.
In the course of post-firing controversy, [not] his email exchanges [but Fr. Ed Glynn’s] with the WJU board of directors chairman and the Jesuit president of the all-Jesuit trustees, appearing on a pro-Giulietti web site, shed much light on the firing itself, which happened after Giulietti, now at Loyola U.-Chicago, had been president two years. Glynn and Giulietti were trustees. The three others held a brief telephone meeting on Aug. 5, 2009, without either, agreeing to fire Giulietti after the directors had come close to doing so but failed to muster the required 2/3 vote. The trustees required a unanimous vote for the decision, from which Glynn was absent.
[Indeed, Currie from the start papered over the unexplained aspects of Giulietti’s firing, and indeed the firing itself, apparently going along with the whole business.]
Wheeling Jesuit hard-pressed
Hard times at Wheeling Jesuit — one of 321 privately operated colleges (for and not for profit) that failed the U.S. Department of Education’s 2009 financial responsibility test. That means more hoops to jump through to keep aid going to the 97% of WJU students who receive it.
[Interim Pres. Sister Francis] Thrailkill said this is the first time WJU failed the test. . . . [C]olleges who score a 1 to 1.4 on the test are considered to have failed, but can still participate in federal financial aid programs, but there are a few restrictions. If a school scores in the negative, they are subject to extra requirements. WJU scored a 1.1.
Thrailkill wants to point out that WJU was notified about this issue several months ago, and said they have taken steps to improve their financial situation.
It may be standard to keep this quiet, but The Chronicle of Higher Education apparently operates under no such compulsion.
More details:
All private colleges that award federal student aid must participate in the Department of Education’s financial-responsibility test, which is based on information from their audited financial statements. The department develops a composite score on a scale of 3.0 to minus 1.0, based on financial ratios that measure factors such as net worth, operating losses, and the relationship of assets to liabilities.
Yet more, from a separate Chronicle story:
A total of 150 private nonprofit colleges failed the . . . test, [which is] based on their condition in the 2009 fiscal year . . . That’s 23 more than the 127 that failed the test in the 2008 fiscal year, and an increase of about 70 percent over the number of degree-granting institutions that failed two years ago.
WJU has company.
Blithe Spirit 