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March 28, 2024

College of DuPage – Candidate Dunne claims of being Adjunct Professor not accurate

By Kirk Allen & John Kraft

On March 28, 2019

DuPage Co. (ECWd) –

We recently reported on the College of DuPage Candidate Maureen Dunne and her statement of economic interest in this article.

According to Candidate Maureen Dunne’s LinkedIn page, she is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Illinois.  This same disclosure was found in the Daily Herald Candidate Profile on Dunne.

After our first article, the COD Faculty member Bob Hazard spoke to the Board of trustees regarding this candidate and shared matters regarding claimed attacks against her. A comment applicable to our story on this candidate was troubling.

“She also was the subject of an attack in the Edgar County Watchdogs blog recently which reported information that has been proven to be completely false. This is utterly unacceptable.”

The comment is utterly unacceptable based on the actual records we have. 

Our article was not an attack.  To date, no one has produced anything that has proven our article false, let alone completely false.  More importantly, ongoing investigations actually strengthened our original article and even identified inconsistencies in the public record vs the published information by the candidate.

According to the University of Illinois, Maureen Dunne is NOT an Adjunct Professor as claimed on her Linkedin page and response to the Daily Herald.  The appointment she received is considered employment according to the U of I and was effective November of 2018, which would indicate she was in fact employed by a unit of government in the prior year, which is what we reported about on the SEI document.  The position also requires an annual faculty performance report to be used as part of the annual review. The record reflects her employment class as “unpaid” and is subject to the State Official and Employee Ethics Act.

Ms. Dunne informed us that her appointment was a “courtesy appointment in 2018 as an Adjunct Professor in anticipation of some exciting technology projects that will be externally funded starting in 2019.”

All records provided by the U of I make no mention of her appointment being in anticipation of some exciting technology projects to be externally funded in 2019, nor do they indicate she is being appointed as an Adjunct Professor.  In fact, the letter of recommendation makes no mention of any future 2019 funded projects and is actually only a recommendation to a position as an Adjunct ASSISTANT Professor.

The U of I Board of Trustee appointment document confirms, Candidate Dunne is NOT an Adjunct Professor.  She was appointed to the position of Adjunct Assistant Professor, which clearly is NOT the same as an Adjunct Professor.

As the records prove, she does not hold the title she claimed to hold nor was she ever appointed to that position. There is a difference between an actual Adjunct Professor and an Adjunct Assistant Professor.  While we have no doubt that Candidate Dunne may have the abilities to one day be an Adjunct Professor, the fact remains she is not at this time according to the U of I, contrary to her claims she is.

Ms. Dunne is 1 of 4 candidates running for the position of College of DuPage Trustee in the upcoming April election.

You can download a copy of all the records provided by the U of I on this matter at this link or view below.

Maureen Dunne ADJ ASSISTANCE Proffessor

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8 Comments
  • Sherry Brianza
    Posted at 10:39h, 28 March

    So if I am an assistant to the President of the College of Dupage can I put on my record & promote myself as President of Dupage College. Don’t think so. I do not live in College of Dupage voting area but I would NOT vote for candidate Maureen Dunne. She should not be misrepresenting her positions. She is trying to be on a college board, not good.

  • Ron
    Posted at 11:07h, 28 March

    It is very interesting that a faculty member would feel compelled to speak to the board of trustees on behalf of a candidate.

  • Charles
    Posted at 18:14h, 29 March

    You write “There is a difference between an actual Adjunct Professor and an Adjunct Assistant Professor.” Please explain the differences between an adjunct professor and an adjunct assistant professor. Does U of I have ranks of adjunct faculty? If so, what are the ranks, and what are the differences in responsibilities between the ranks? As commonly understood, an adjunct faculty member teaches class, performs no research, and performs no committee work. The position is temporary, with no possibility of tenure. Is the distinction between an adjunct assistant professor and an adjunct professor one of salary? From the documents, it appears that Dr Dunne’s position is unpaid. So is this a debate over the official university title versus the commonsense title that people use? One commenter’s claim that this is equivalent to saying you’re the president of the college when you’re really just the assistant to the president is a poor analogy. Since you’re alleging a difference between the ranks of adjunct faculty, please explain that difference to show that your claims represent something significant.

    • Kirk Allen
      Posted at 18:33h, 29 March

      Charles, there was no allegation that there was a difference between the ranks of adjunct faculty. The candidate claimed to have been appointed as an Adjunct Professor and the College records said otherwise. The candidate also claimed other matters regarding this appointment and how it was tied to possible outside funding for 2019 yet the records do not support any of that. All that aside, the candidate did not disclose the employment with the U of I on her SEI. You reference a common sense title. Common sense would indicate you use the title provided by the University, not one they did not.

      • Charles
        Posted at 11:44h, 30 March

        Kirk, I’m confused by your reply. You originally wrote “There is a difference between an actual Adjunct Professor and an Adjunct Assistant Professor.” Your reply states “there was no allegation that there was a difference between the ranks of adjunct faculty.” These two statements seem contradictory.

        • Kirk Allen
          Posted at 12:36h, 30 March

          Not contradictory at all. I use specific words and did not use the word faculty. While you may wish to apply your terminology to the discussion, it is not the terminology I used in the article. If you any facts that disprove the article, please share them. If your goal is to sparse words and try to imply they mean something different, I have not interest in such a trivial debate. If you truly don’t know the difference between an actual adjunct professor and an assistant professor I would suggest you ask Adjunct Professor’s to explain for you as some have for me. That way you get it from the horses mouth, not mine.

          • Charles
            Posted at 18:02h, 31 March

            I’m surprised that our miscommunication occurred over the word “faculty,” a term that I’d assumed was part of common speech referring to people in the teaching profession. I apologize if my language was unclear. Please allow me to rephrase my question avoiding that term.

            Your original post indicated that “there is a difference between an actual Adjunct Professor and an Adjunct Assistant Professor.” Perhaps thrown off by the word “faculty,” your reply seemed to indicate that you were not alleging a difference between adjunct professors and adjunct assistant professors. Hence my reply that those two statements seemed contradictory.

            Your remark about whether I know the difference between adjunct professors and assistant professors seems to miss the mark. (To my knowledge, Dr Dunne has not claimed to be an assistant professor.) Perhaps you’d intended to write “adjunct assistant professor” in your reply, saying that if I don’t know the difference between the two adjunct job titles I should go ask an adjunct professor. However, as you wrote an article stating that an adjunct assistant professor “clearly is NOT the same as an Adjunct Professor,” asking for clarification from you seemed appropriate and not a “trivial debate” or parsing words.

            It seems ironic to ask if I’m parsing words when your original post was over the words Dr Dunne used in her official documentation.

  • Paul
    Posted at 22:35h, 29 March

    The title for this article is legal slander. An adjunct assistant professor is an adjunct professor. Adjunct is a type of relationship. And the legal definition of an employee is “A person who is hired for a wage, salary, fee or payment to perform work for an employer.” So, she filed it correctly. Also, she was awarded grant money to save taxpayers already. Every single point made in this article is misleading and/or completely false. You guys have really slid into the gutter to put this kind of garbage out right in front of an election. Sad to see.

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