COLUMBUS ' Ohio University's provost answered questions yesterday about her role in the production and release of a report that a professor's lawyer said gave his client's career the kiss of death.
Bhavin Mehta, a former non-tenure track faculty member in the mechanical engineering program, sued Ohio University for defamation in 2006 after then-Provost Kathy Krendl released a report that alleged rampant and flagrant plagiarism has occurred in the Department of Mechanical Engineering for over twenty years.
Krendl was promoted to executive vice president and provost last Spring.
The report's authors alleged that Mehta supervised 11 graduate students who plagiarized parts of their master's theses. He was suspended from advising graduate students and his contract was not renewed.
Mehta's attorney, Fred Gittes, attempted to discredit the two-page report and questioned the qualifications of its authors in his withering cross-examination.
The report's working definitions, sources of information and methodology were not explained to her, Krendl said.
Though the report did not identify Mehta by name, it did recommend punishment for a non-tenure track faculty member in the department. Mehta was the only non-tenure track faculty member in the department at the time, said Gittes.
In response to Gittes' questions, Krendl said she was not satisfied with the report and her recommendations for its revision ' including removal of emotional language and references to individuals 'were ignored.
Sometimes when you commission a report
you don't get everything you expect Krendl said, adding that a report of similar quality submitted by a student would have been unacceptable.
When Krendl distributed the report at a news conference, she did not mention her problems with the report or that one of its recommendations ' the suspension of three graduate students ' violated OU policy.
Gittes also questioned Krendl's motives for releasing the report at the news conference, a move he indicated was unnecessary. The need to explain the school's actions and a pending records request resulted in the public announcement, Krendl said.
Mehta was not at fault for his graduate students' plagiarism, Gittes argued, adding that the news conference defamed Mehta and ruined his career.
University lawyers called Carlo Montemagno, dean of engineering at the University of Cincinnati and editor of an engineering journal, as an expert witness. After examining select portions of many master's theses provided by OU, he determined that many contained plagiarized material.
The level of plagiarism on these theses was quite extraordinary Montemagno said. We're talking entire chapters.
One student allegedly copied from a textbook, another allegedly copied 25 pages from another student's thesis and four others allegedly did not properly cite an unpublished journal article they wrote together in their theses.
In my opinion
most of (the plagiarism) was readily detectable
Montemagno said.
In response to Gittes' questions during cross-examination, Montemagno said he would not call himself an expert on plagiarism and did not agree with an international engineering association's definition of plagiarism. Both responses showed Montemagno's lack of expertise and overly strict definition of plagiarism, Gittes said.
Attorneys for both the defense and plaintiffs agreed that testimony in the case could end as early as today and would not run into next week. A verdict could take as long as six months, said John Burns, former director of legal affairs who will continue working on several on-going university cases in retirement.
Regardless of the judge's decision, the case could be appealed to federal court, potentially delaying a final decision for years.
OU President Roderick McDavis, originally on the witness list, will not be called to testify, Gittes said.
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