MSU officials are looking at ways to check criminal history before hiring faculty, an MSU official said Monday.
If MSU adapts its policy from asking candidates for their criminal history to professionally screening backgrounds, it would join Pennsylvania State University, the only school in the Big Ten using this process. In January, Penn State enlisted the services of HireRight, a California pre-employment screening company, to check the backgrounds of incoming professors - at $39 a head.
Bob Banks, assistant provost and vice president for academic human resources, said discussions have occurred about MSU and other Big Ten schools using the service.
"I think there's interest in seeing what the Penn State experience has been," Banks said. "I don't think there's been any widespread agreement."
Several years ago, MSU added an attachment to written offers of employment asking applicants to provide their criminal history.
"There were a couple of cases that emerged that we in fact had to take steps to pull back from employment," Banks said, adding that MSU already asks potential professors to provide a copy of their diplomas to help prevent fraud.
In addition, criminal checks already are done for a number of senior administrative positions, including deans and vice presidents, Banks said. "There's a much broader impact in terms of financial matters and the like."
Penn State doesn't know the effectiveness of the background checks and the search company yet, spokesman Tysen Kendig said.
"I haven't heard any anecdotal evidence," he said. "It certainly is a good insurance measure for us to have in place."
Last summer, Penn State discovered one of its professors had been convicted of three murders near Corpus Christi, Texas. The Penn State application hadn't asked about criminal history.
"It brought the issue to the forefront more quickly," Kendig said, adding with HireRight, records are now screened for felonies, sexual assaults and crimes, and misappropriation of funds.
Background checks only are done for people who have been selected for a position, and results are back within 24 hours, he said.
Legislators in Pennsylvania are considering a bill requiring colleges to screen faculty candidates, but that isn't likely in Michigan, said State Sen. Alan Cropsey, R-DeWitt.
"We have a provisional statement in our state constitution giving the university board autonomy in the functioning of the university," he said. "If they want to hire a convicted felon, I doubt that the Legislature could stop them."
Penn State's Kendig said the university hired 1,928 people in 2002-03 and that if they hire about the same number in the future using HireRight, it will cost the university about $75,000.
The cost would be worth it to some MSU students.
"They screen for others jobs, why shouldn't they for professors?" civil engineering junior Tierra Allen said. "I don't think they should have double standards just because they're professors."
Interdiscplinary studies in social science senior Stephen Hart said a professor with a criminal record wouldn't bother him.
"I would not mind learning from some one who had been arrested several times and settled down in their later years," he said. "If they're competent enough to be hired by Michigan State as a full-fledged professor, that's what they should be judged by, not their personal background."
But Hart said he would not approve of having a sexual offender teach classes at MSU.
English Professor Sheila Teahan said she thinks faculty would negatively react to a screening process for applicants.
"It doesn't sound to me like a healthy thing, the degree of scrutiny," she said. "I think a lot of people would see it part of an anti-faculty attitude.
Eddie Moore, a professor of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies, said MSU attracts high-quality applicants without checking criminal history.
"I think (screening) would create more paperwork than necessary," he said. "I think the faculty members are outstanding researchers, teachers, scholars and committed to the international agenda."
