[Discussion] President of Quincy U. Resigns After Trustees Question Accuracy of His Résumé Wednesday, Octo ber 30, 2002

[Paksoy, Hb]

President of Quincy U. Resigns After Trustees Question Accuracy of His
Résumé  Wednesday, October 30, 2002  	
Chronicle
	The president of Quincy University announced on Monday that he was
resigning after the university's Board of Trustees discovered some
"inaccuracies" in his academic credentials. The Rev. Eugene R. Kole had
listed two master's degrees on his résumé that he had never earned.  Ralph
M. Oakley, the board chairman at the Roman Catholic institution in Quincy,
Ill., insisted that the findings about Father Kole's background had not
prompted the resignation. Mr. Oakley said that the board had approved a set
of curricular changes this month that included phasing out unpopular or
costly majors, and that it made sense for a new president to carry out the
changes.  "We put a vision into place where the university has to go," Mr.
Oakley said. "Eugene was thinking perhaps a new leader should implement
these changes and told us of his resignation." Father Kole had been the
university's president since June 1997.  Mr. Oakley said the board had
received information -- he would not say from where -- that led it to
question claims by Father Kole that he had received a master-of-science
degree in counseling from Canisius College in 1979, and a master-of-arts
degree in psychology and counseling from La Salle University in 1985.
According to the The Quincy Herald-Whig newspaper, which first reported on
the situation, the registrar at Canisius, in Buffalo, said that Father Kole
had taken courses there during the summers of 1972 and 1973 but had not
received a degree. An official in the registrar's office at La Salle
University, in Philadelphia, said the university has no record that Father
Kole had been a student there.  According to the Herald-Whig, Father Kole
received a master's degree in psychology and counseling from a
distance-education university, LaSalle University, in Mandeville, La. But
that institution was never recognized by an accrediting agency, and in 1997,
its founder went to prison after admitting to fraud. The university changed
its name to Orion College, but has since closed.  Quincy's board was first
given information in May regarding questions about Father Kole's degree at
LaSalle, but the board determined that the president had not misled its
members about his qualifications, according to Mr. Oakley. He said that new
information that the board obtained in the past 10 days had led it to the
inconsistencies in Father Kole's credentials.  Father Kole did receive an
undergraduate degree in philosophy from Saint Hyacinth College and Seminary,
in Granby, Mass., in 1970; a master's degree in divinity from St.
Anthony-on-Hudson Theological Seminary, in Rensselaer, N.Y., in 1981; and a
doctorate in theology from Drew University, in Madison, N.J., in 1989. Both
Saint Hyacinth and St. Anthony-on-Hudson are now closed.