College president who apologized for plagiarism accused again
DOVER, Del. --The president of Wesley College, who apologized for a plagiarism incident several years ago, barely survived a no-confidence vote by faculty members this week amid new allegations of plagiarism.
A Wednesday vote by faculty members expressing no confidence in Wesley president Scott D. Miller and asking for his immediate resignation ended in a 25-25 tie, with one abstention.
Miller did not return several telephone messages Thursday, but the school issued a statement saying the board of trustees would commission an independent review.
"The allegations that have been made against me are entirely without merit and I encourage the Wesley College board of trustees to commission an immediate investigation into such allegations," Miller said in a prepared statement. "I am confident that an investigation will demonstrate unequivocally that I did not engage in and never have engaged in any such acts and will permit the college's administration and faculty to return to serving the institution and its students without delay or distraction."
Miller, who has served as president of the small, private college in Dover since 1997, apologized in 2000 after The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that he apparently had lifted a speech on multiculturalism directly from an essay written years earlier by the president of Connecticut College. The similarities were discovered by a Duke University student doing research on the Internet.
The new allegations of plagiarism involve Wesley's "statement of management philosophy," and an essay on solving the "practicality gap" in liberal arts education.
Jeffrey Mask, a professor of religion and philosophy at Wesley, said he first stumbled upon the apparent plagiarism last week while reviewing the management philosophy statement -- described on the school's Web site as being "prepared" by Miller -- as part of an effort to develop a questionnaire for faculty members to evaluate the school president.
"I don't know why I did this, but I Googled a phrase from the statement of management philosophy and found a phrase from Samford University," Mask said Thursday. "... They were identical."
Mask, who routinely uses the Internet to research questionable phrases in student essays to find whether plagiarism might be involved, said he thought it strange that the Wesley president would think it necessary to publicly state that the school would "pay bills, honor commitments."
After finding the identical phrase in Samford's management philosophy statement, Mask contacted retiring Samford president Thomas Corts, who told him he had written it for the Birmingham, Ala., school about 25 years ago.
Most of the Wesley management statement mirrors the Samford document, while omitting Samford's Baptist references. Wesley is affiliated with the United Methodist church.
Corts, who has been president at Samford for 23 years, said he developed the management philosophy statement while serving as president of Wingate College in North Carolina.
"I used it at Wingate and adapted it for use here at Samford," said Corts, adding that he was not interested in causing any trouble for Wesley.
"I don't know Wesley's statement and I'm not trying to draw any conclusions or make any comparisons," he said. "If anybody had said to me, 'That's a good statement, can I use that?' I would have said 'sure.'"
After seeking the advice of senior faculty colleagues, Mask scheduled an appointment with Miller, and he and another faculty member met last Thursday with Wesley executive vice president Bette Coplan.
"She was shocked, and asked us to keep it confidential," said Mask, adding that the management statement was removed from the school's Web site that same day.
Mask and political science professor Anthony Armstrong met later that day with Miller, who asked to meet with the small group of faculty members with whom Mask had conferred and requested that they not tell anyone else.
Mask said Miller also asked for faculty members to give him a year to find another position, a suggestion Mask rejected.
"He insisted it wasn't plagiarism. We just disagree on that point," Mask said. "Dr. Miller apparently has a different definition."
Mask met with Miller a second time on Friday and again on Monday, when he and English department chair Linda DeRoche told Miller that faculty members were not interested in a group meeting.
"I again said, 'I believe you need to resign,'" said Mask, who offered not to present his findings at Wednesday's emergency faculty meeting if Miller publicly announced his resignation.
"That was not acceptable to him," Mask said.
Late Tuesday night, Mask found what appears to be another incident of plagiarism while researching past writings attributed to Miller on Wesley's Web site.
Using an Internet archive tool, Mask found a Miller essay posted on the Wesley Web site in May 1999 that appears to be taken almost verbatim from a 1997 survey and analysis of public perceptions of liberal arts schools by Richard H. Hersh, then-president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York.
Hersh's paper, "Intentions and perceptions: a national survey of public attitudes toward liberal arts education," includes an analysis entitled "Solving the "Practicality Gap.'"
Miller's essay is entitled "The Liberal Arts: Solving the 'Practicality Gap.'"
According to documents provided by Mask, Hersh wrote: "Not only are parents and students focused on employment as a goal -- part of a response to the last decade's obsession with getting tangible value for every nickel spent -- but employers, too are preoccupied with value. They see college education as a necessary and valuable long-term investment that enhances one's creativity, communication skills, values, and ethics -- all attributes for a lifetime."
Miller wrote: "The past decade has witnessed a national obsession with getting value and making every nickel count in tangible ways. This helps explain parents' and students' emphases on getting a job. But employers, too, are preoccupied with value, and they see college education as a necessary and valuable long-term investment that enhances one's imagination, communication skills, values, and ethics -- all attributes for a lifetime."
Mask handed out copies of the two documents to faculty members at Wednesday's meeting and showed them the similarities he highlighted with a marker.
"It's pretty much two yellow pieces of paper after you highlight them," he said.
At the faculty meeting, Miller presented documents suggesting that the management philosophy statement attributed to him was simply a revision of one handed down by his Wesley predecessor, Reed Stewart.
"Apparently, the revision consisted of removing 'prepared by Reed Stewart,' and replacing it with 'prepared by Scott D. Miller,'" Mask said.
Mask said he then confronted Miller with the Hersh document, which Miller denied knowing anything about it while accusing Mask of "being belligerent and out to get him."
"I believe that given access and time and the desire to do so, anyone could find more examples of plagiarism by Miller," said Mask, adding "the ball is in the trustees' court at this point."
The board of trustees is scheduled to meet Friday.
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