College hires ex-FBI agent to investigate critical tract

Eileen Brown said the school is on solid footing.

Cambridge College has hired a former FBI agent to find the authors of an anonymous, widely circulated mock newspaper that condemned the chancellor and suggested the college is on the verge of closing.

The newspaper, called the "Cambridge College Chronicle," featured a sharply worded critique of college leadership and personal attacks against Chancellor Eileen Brown, who has led the college since its former president was fired in January after college officials found evidence of alleged financial misdeeds.

The tract, which broadly depicted an institution in deep turmoil and financial distress, was sent late last month in official college envelopes to some faculty and trustees, donors, the college's accrediting group, and media outlets.

The Board of Trustees chairman, Jonathan Z. Larsen, expressed strong support for Brown and rebutted the bulk of the publication's charges, in a letter sent Thursday to the college community. Larsen accused those who wrote the tract of believing that their "petty grievances, revenge fantasies and character assassinations take precedence over the mission and well-being of the college."

"Their aim seems to be nothing less than shutting down the institution they profess to love. There have been anonymous letters in the past; they have always been wildly inaccurate, ad hominem and cowardly, but this letter has gone too far, and the board must respond," Larsen wrote.

Larsen said the college would seek to identify the authors "with forensic certainty," and has hired a former FBI agent who began working on an investigation last week. Larsen also said the board was preparing a "point-by-point refutation" of the tract's assertions.

In a phone interview, Larsen said the tract - the latest in a long line of anonymous broadsides - was so inflammatory it demanded a response. "They are trying to close down the college," he said. "We as a board can't stand by and let that happen."

But some faculty members said the college was overreacting and accused officials of using scare tactics to target critics.

"The college is being run on the basis of fear and intimidation by Brown and Larsen," said humanities professor John Bremer, who has clashed with Brown over which of them founded the college in the early 1970s. "It is not possible for an academic enterprise to be conducted in this way."

On Friday, Brown announced that the school's vice president for finance and administration, Jennifer Tonneson, was no longer with the university. Brown said Tonneson's departure was a mutual decision. She said the college had declined to grant her the severance package she requested.

Tonneson, who could not be reached for comment yesterday, helped oversee the finances under ousted president Mahesh Sharma, who school officials allege tried to use college funds for his nephew's college tuition and rugs for his home. Sharma, who had worked at the college for 30 years, was fired in January. At the time, he denied any wrongdoing through his Framingham-based lawyer, Jack Merrill.

Brown denied most of the publication's accusations, saying that the college is on solid footing and is not in debt. The college has 4,300 students, about half on sites in Cambridge, Springfield, and Lawrence.

"The college is financially stable and has absolutely no plans to close," she said. Brown said the college is one of the rare institutions that helps older students resume their studies in hopes of launching better careers.