HIRING PROBE YSU to bolster screening of applicants

The school will begin investigating the background of instructor candidates.
By NORMAN LEIGH
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Buffeted for weeks by criticism about its questionable hiring practices regarding instructors, Youngstown State University is taking aim at improving its appointment process.
YSU Provost Tony Atwater said today that the university will begin requiring background probes and increased reference-checking for full-time instructor candidates. Job hopefuls also must submit disclosure statements, and those documents will be part of their employment contract if they are hired.
The changes also include having faculty search committees -- once a job finalist is picked -- to conduct at least two oral reference checks beyond the references supplied by the candidate.
Also being implemented are rules requiring candidates for part-time teaching jobs to submit disclosure statements and to have their credentials checked by the chair of the department that's hiring them.
The changes will "strengthen our screening process," Atwater said through a news release.
YSU President Dr. David Sweet has instructed that the recommendations be immediately enacted.
Serowik case
The changes are the results of a review Sweet ordered weeks ago after news reports disclosed that, in early August, YSU hired a forensics instructor whose past work in Cleveland was being challenged.
The instructor, Joseph Serowik, is accused of helping send an innocent Cleveland man to jail for rape for 13 years.
At the time of the 1988 trial of Michael Green, Serowik was an examiner in the Cleveland Police Department crime lab.
Serowik testified regarding evidence in the rape trial that led to Green's conviction. Green was later freed after DNA testing proved he was innocent.
Green later filed a federal lawsuit in which experts criticized Serowik's work and accused him of professional misconduct.
Cleveland settled the lawsuit for $1.6 million. It also agreed to review dozens of cases in which Serowik an examiner.
Serowik was fired by the city July 28 and hired by YSU Aug. 9, though key YSU administrators -- including criminal justice department chairwoman Tammy King and Dean John Yemma -- knew of the challenges to Serowik's work in Cleveland.
There's nothing in the recommendations regarding Serowik's future status with YSU. When hired in August, he was given a one-year contract at a salary of $48,000.
Drug course
As YSU officials finished their probe of Serowik's hiring last week, it was disclosed that, in spring, YSU's health professions department had a drug felon who had been stripped of his pharmacy license teaching a prescription drug class.
During the same period Kevin Chakos, the part-time instructor, was teaching the drug course, he is said to have committed additional drug offenses involving illegal prescriptions. Chakos, who no longer teaches at YSU, is under indictment in Mahoning County. There's no indication he committed the drug crimes on the YSU campus, an investigator has said.
YSU officials have offered no explanation how Chakos came to be hired.
But the matter was incorporated into the Serowik review and helped produce the recommendations regarding part-time hiring.
The changes mention no explicit ban on the university hiring a felon again.
The hiring recommendations were accompanied by a YSU report that detailed the inquiry into Serowik's hiring.
Conclusions
The report included these conclusions:
UThat King and Yemma were aware of allegations regarding Serowik before he was hired, but the "information was not thought to be unusual in the forensics field."
UThough Serowik was suspended from his Cleveland job when interviewed by YSU July 27, school officials didn't learn he was fired the very next day, July 28, until Aug. 25.
UKing said he checked two references for Serowik -- his former supervisor at the Cleveland crime lab and the one-time Cleveland prosecutor who prosecuted the Green case.
UThe faculty search committee discussed the allegations against Serowik but felt it was unfair to exclude him as a candidate for the instructor's job "based upon unproved allegations."
Though the report refers repeatedly to Yemma's being aware of the allegations, it gives no indication the information was passed on to Atwater, who actually offered Serowik the job.
Atwater has maintained he never knew about the allegations until after Serowik was hired.
The hiring recommendations announced today address that.
Included is a provision stating "academic deans are required to inform and consult with the provost in any ... cases in which a finalist ... has questionable background that may adversely affect the university."