Dean Weissenberger fired by DePaul University over ABA disclosures

Weissenberger fired by DePaul University :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Education

Weissenberger fired by DePaul University
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June 19, 2009

BY STEFANO ESPOSITO Staff Reporter

Glen Weissenberger, the popular dean of DePaul University’s College of Law, has been ousted — and he claims it was because he exposed “inaccurate’’ information given by the school to its accreditors.

Weissenberger, the school’s dean since 2002, said in an e-mail to law school staff that he was fired for alerting the American Bar Association that DePaul administrators had recently given the ABA “inaccurate” information on its funding.

But DePaul spokeswoman Denise Mattson on Friday disputed Weissenberger’s claims. She said he was terminated because the relationship between the dean and university administrators was “poor and it wasn’t improving.”

DePaul Provost Helmut Epp said in an e-mail to to faculty and staff this week that “the working relationship between the dean and the administration had deteriorated to the point where it had become difficult to accomplish the college’s work, hence my recommendation to the president for this action.”

Epp, who praised the Law School’s accomplishments under the dean’s tenure, didn’t offer any specific examples in his email of that deteriorating relationship.

Weissenberger couldn’t be reached for comment Friday. But in his e-mail to the law faculty and staff, he said “I want to assure you that I was not terminated for any wrongdoing of any kind.”

He said his firing was “based specifically” on a June 16 letter he sent to the ABA claiming the university gave wrong information about the distribution of law school tuition funds during its accreditation process. He claimed the university had violated an agreement to give 75 percent of tuition funds paid by law students back to the law school — a charge the university denies.

A group of mostly law school students — both past and present — is circulating a petition in support of Weissenberger’s reinstatement.

“It has upset many of us and has disheartened us that the university has made this decision,” wrote DePaul’s Student Bar Association President Patrick Tran. “Though the university’s reasoning has been vague, the university has always been resistant to Dean Weissenberger’s initiatives to improve our law school.”

Weissenberger was appointed to a second five-year term in 2007. Before coming to DePaul, he spent 27 years teaching at the University of Cincinnati Law School.

He remains a tenured member of the DePaul faculty.

An interim dean of the College of Law has been hired, and his name will be made public early next week, Mattson said.

Epp has scheduled a private meeting with the law school’s faculty and staff Monday to answer questions about the administration’s decision to fire Weissenberger and about the future of the law school.

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