One professor has resigned and three professors are on mandatory leave in the College of Business amid accusations of research misconduct, including plagiarism.
University officials have not released the names of the professors, but local newspapers have reported that Dr. Shailendra Verma, Chair of the Department of Finance has resigned and Dr. Anju Ramjee, Dr. Balasubramani Ramjee, who are married and professors of finance, and Dr. Richard Snyder, an assistant professor of economics, are on mandatory leave.
The accusations stem from a complaint concerning research misconduct filed close to a year ago with Mike Carrell, the dean of the college of business.
A committee of three full time tenured professors conducted an investigation, spending months interviewing people, examining documents and gathering other information related to the accusations.
The findings were reported to Rogers Redding, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Provost, whose post the college of business reports to.
All four professors were given an opportunity to appeal the findings, but Redding found the appeals to be groundless.
The three professors have the option of filing an official grievance with the faculty senate.
Redding now has to decide on an appropriate response to the findings.
“I’m not able to go any further than [the statement] the university put out right now,” Redding said Monday morning.
The statement was released Friday and outlines the actions taken against the professors up to this point.
In the statement Redding said classes taught by the professors would continue without disruption.
According to short biographies on NKU’s Web site Dr. Verma served as advisor for students majoring in Finance and has published articles in the areas of security issues, investments and international finance.
Dr. Anju Ramjee has published articles in the International Journal of Finance and the Journal of Futures Markets.
Dr. Balasubramani Ramjee has published articles in “leading national and international financial journals” concerning security issues, liquidity management and banking issues.
Dr. Snyder’s research focuses on economic outlook analysis. He has done work for the State of Kentucky and the City of Cincinnati.