The Board of Regents of Northern Kentucky University last month accepted the resignation of two finance professors, fired an economics professor, and accepted the retirement of another economics professor, all of whom the university said were involved in a research-fraud scandal that it had investigated for 18 months. Another finance professor, Shailendra Verma, who was at the heart of the fraud charges, resigned last February.
The three finance professors who were involved in the scandal constituted the entire finance department, which the university has since merged with its economics department. Northern Kentucky had accused the five professors of fabricating data in scholarly papers, duplicating large chunks of their own work in several papers, plagiarizing, and listing as authors a number of professors at the university who did not contribute.
The university investigated 23 papers, on such topics as investment returns in foreign markets and international influence on American stock markets. Mr. Verma, who had been chairman of the finance department, was the lead author on most of the papers, which were written from 1995 to 2001. The university’s report says the same sets of data and results were used in multiple papers but were attributed to different studies. The report also cites passages duplicated in several papers.
The board accepted the resignations of Anju Ramjee and Balasubramani Ramjee, who are married and had been professors in the finance department since 1988. In most of the papers that the university examined, the Ramjees were listed as Mr. Verma’s co-authors.
The board also fired Richard S. Snyder, an assistant professor of economics since 1978, who was listed as an author on two papers. The regents accepted the retirement, effective next spring, of Louis E. Noyd, a professor of economics since 1972, who was a co-author on five papers.
Zach Gottesman, a lawyer for Balasubramani Ramjee, said the professor and his wife had known Mr. Verma since his undergraduate days at Northern Kentucky. When Mr. Verma returned as a professor, said the lawyer, the couple collaborated with him on scholarly papers, helping him frame his ideas, and were listed as co-authors. But the Ramjees, said Mr. Gottesman, did not write the papers or even carefully read them, and did not realize that Mr. Verma had falsified data or duplicated passages.
“They took for granted the integrity of the work, and that was a mistake,” said Mr. Gottesman.
Neither Mr. Verma nor his lawyer could be reached for comment. But the report released by the university quotes Mr. Verma as saying that he had felt pressed to produce too many research papers. “I was put under tremendous pressure to do 7, 8, 10" papers in a year, he told university investigators, “and there was no way I could do that.”
Mr. Snyder could not be reached for comment. Kenneth W. Scott, a lawyer for Mr. Noyd, said the professor had checked economic data used in some of the papers but was not guilty of research fraud. The university “said he should have known” about the fabrications, said Mr. Scott. “He was forced to retire.”
James C. Votruba, the university’s president, said in a statement that “the board has sent a clear message that they expect the faculty of this university to uphold the highest standards of professional conduct.”
http://chronicle.com Section: The Faculty Volume 50, Issue 4, Page A18