Forward
As a man who was held up and shot in the head at point blank range in 1984, as a man who lives with a brain injury and the bullet still lodged in his brain, I do not think it is too much to ask that those whose job it is to help us are who they say they are. In other words, be honest. We, our loved ones, our many elected officials who truly do give a damn, along with all members of the American Family deserve honesty from those who provide health care.
In all likelihood I will soon issue a press release and publicly calling on all groups involved with brain injury as well as out elected officials and other appropriate state and federal agencies to investigate the matter I am about to discuss with you here because at this point, I am beginning to wonder if the Feeney Saga is, rather than a standalone issue, a systemic issue.
For some background, the blog essay breaking this story on February 10 will be republished here after the conclusion of this essay.
I think it was Dante who said something along the lines of, and I paraphrase, The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who stay silent in times of crisis. So I would urge all the aforementioned parties to step up to the plate and take or demand action.
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In looking into the matter of Timothy J. Feeney, a contract employee with the New York State Department of Health who continues to tell the world he has a PhD and a Masters Degree when he has neither, I find myself thinking of the Richard Pryor line, “You gonna believe me or your lying eyes?”
Here’s the situation as it stands now. Feeney is still a contract employee with
New York State itself is now dragging its feet in honoring a FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) request I filed back in January seeking copies of any and all contracts and other documents Feeney has been a party to with the State. As a former journalist, I've filed FOIL requests before but never have I encountered so many delays with amorphous excuses for them at best.
However, there is always humor to be found in life. I have offered to sit down with Feeney to hear his side of things and interview him. Awhile back he left me a voice mail saying he might be willing to meet but wanted to know what the agenda for the meeting might be. A close friend of mine quipped, “Maybe if he’d gone to an real college he’d know what the agenda was.”
By the way, I did send Feeney an agenda including some questions that I wanted to ask and told him I would record the conversation so neither of us would inadvertently have our words misprespresented. Feeney backed away from the idea of meeting with a speed that would make Olympic sprinters proud.
Some sources tell me that the contracts Feeney has with the state do not require him to have either a masters or a doctorate. If this is true, it is pretty unsettling for a few reasons.
First, why would New York State, in this case the Department of Health, give a contract which affords Feeney enormous say and power over survivors of brain injury on the Traumatic Brain Injury Waiver, not to mention enormous power over the companies who provide services to survivors on the waiver? I know he has put blocks on admissions for some companies, been the driving force behind sending some survivors out of the state into long term facilities and stopped other survivors from returning to the state.
This is not to say his judgment is always wrong, though there are times it is; but just imagine how the survivor, the family member or the providers who had their admissions closed down would feel when they found out Feeney was willfully misrepresenting himself and that, according to Feeney himself, the DOH knew he was doing this. Feeney says the Department of Health was aware all along that his degrees were not recognized anywhere in this country as being valid, but they hired him anyway.
Second, if the contracts do not require him to have the degrees he says he has and doesn’t have, did those designing the contracts with him know this? Were they in it together? Given Feeney's own statements, I suspect they were.
Third, and also deeply troubling and wounding, is this observation: where on earth is the respect for the survivors of brain injuries and their loved ones? Where is the respect for the providers of services themselves.
Feeney’s colleague, Mark Ylvisaker, who apparently does have the PhD he says he has, appears to be another rather despicable character in all this. It is fairly clear, based on past conversations and e-mail I received from Ylvisaker, that he has known all along that Feeney’s degrees were and are bogus, and yet he continues to work with him, support him and defend him.
Anyway, the investigation moves on
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
TO DEGREE OR NOT TO DEGREE, THAT IS THE QUESTION
To his credit, Timothy J. Feeney, a contract employee with the New York State Department of Health for nearly 15 years, recently acknowledged that his PhD was issued by a college that is not accredited in the United States.
In an unsolicited February 8 e-mail to readers of this blog, Mr. Feeney said he received his PhD from Greenwich University which, he writes, “functioned as an unaccredited institution in the US, moved it’s physical location to Australia, received legal accreditation in Australia for a two year period – period of time that my doctorate was conferred - and then lost that accreditation and closed) and no longer exists.”
Mr. Feeney appears to be partly correct. The Greenwich University Act of 1998 allowed Greenwich to function on Norfolk Island as a recognized university. However, according to a web-alert issued by the Australian Government, degrees issued by Greenwich were never recognized as valid on the Australian mainland and they have never been accredited anywhere in the United States.
According to an e-mail from Douglass Capogrossi, past president of Greenwich University and current president of Hawaii-based Akamai University (also non-accredited), Mr. Feeney is correct that his doctorate was issued when the Greenwich University Act of 1998 was in effect.
According to Mr. Capogrossi, Mr. Feeney's doctorate was issued on June 14, 1999 and his masters degree, also from Greenwich, was issued on August 27, 1993, before Greenwich moved to Australia and five years before the Greenwich University Act when, according to Mr. Feeney's e-mail, Greenwich was operating as a non-accredited school in the United States.
Greenwich University was located in California and Hawaii in the 1990s before relocating to Norfolk Island off the coast of Australia. It closed in 2003.
In his e-mail Mr. Feeney expressed concern that this writer was or is about to call him a fraud or accuse him of fraud. As I said to him in a subsequent e-mail, I have no intention of doing either.
In his e-mail Mr. Feeney further says I have drawn a conclusion about the academic integrity of degrees issued by Greenwich and “based (my) opinion on the fact that (his) Masters and Doctorate have been conferred by Greenwich University, which he has, in separate emails to myself and others, characterized as a Diploma Mill.”
Rightly or wrongly, Greenwich University is on numerous diploma mill/non-accredited schools lists on the web. The State of Oregon has compiled a comprehensive list of non-accredited schools and Greenwich is listed. It is also present on a non-accredited school lists that can be located by visiting the website for the U.S. Department of Education.
http://www.ed.gov/students/prep/college/diplomamills/index.html
As one who lives with a brain injury and one who advocates for all people with disabilities, it is true that I wrote Mr. Feeney e-mails asking him to clarify his education. He never responded to any of my requests. In fact, his e-mail to the readers of this blog represents the first time I have heard him acknowledge his doctorate was issued by Greenwich University.
Moreover, in his unsolicited e-mail to readers of this blog, Mr. Feeney says he is "very careful never to refer to myself as a psychologist." However, his profile in his company website says (italics are mine) "Tim has worked in a variety of capacities in human services including: special education teacher, program director of a state program for individuals with autism, coordinator of educational services, coordinator of behavioral services, staff psychologist, consulting behavior specialist, and an Assistant Professor of Special Education."
The issue for me is whether or not someone who has worked in the field of brain injury in New York State and a wide array of other localities has degrees that are recognize as valid by accrediting and regulating agencies.
However, according to Mr. Feeney, the New York State Department of Health is satisfied with his degrees and the NYDOH is fully aware that they were issued by a school that is not accredited in the United States.
In his February 8 e-mail he writes (italics are mine), “I have been the Project Director for the NY State Neurobehavioral Resource Project for nearly 15 years, representing 3 distinct 5 year award periods. I have this job as the result of responding to a Request for Applications on three separate occasions. Each application required that I present my credentials for review. In each project award period I have been identified as the “key person” as a result of the DOH’s recognition of my experience and success as a clinician supporting individuals with brain injury and challenging behaviors. The Department of Health, the state office responsible for the Neurobehavioral Resource Project, is well aware of my educational history, the source of my degrees, and knew that I was undertaking graduate studies while working as the Project Director.”
I have offered more than once to sit down with Mr. Feeney and when he forwarded me the e-mail he sent to readers of this blog I again offered to sit down and talk with him. There has been no response.
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