MU to check prospective faculty members' criminal backgrounds
Published Sept. 25, 2007
Beginning Oct. 1, applicants for new faculty positions at MU will be required to pass a criminal background check before the university will employ them.
Karen Touzeau, assistant vice chancellor of Human Resource Services, said success with the implementation of mandatory criminal background checks for applicants of staff positions nearly 10 years ago and a general "concern for security" has generated support for background checks in faculty hiring policies.
"We said, 'Let's just do everyone,'" Touzeau said.
Applicants scrutinized under the background checks will include all benefit and non-benefit eligible faculty positions, temporary positions and returning hires. Background checks will not be applied to faculty members who are promoted within their department or whose positions are reclassified.
Background checks will not be applied to student employees under the new policy, but Touzeau said there has been "some interest" in expanding the policy to include student employees.
MU contracted Validity Screening Solutions, a private company that provides background checks for employers nationwide, to conduct the background checks. The results of background checks will be sent to Provost Brian Foster's office for faculty hires and Human Resource Services for staff hires.
Human Resource Services Director Jatha Sadowski said in an information session on Sept. 24 that applicants will be given a summary of rights before the background check. She said they will be required to provide personal information, certain demographical information and a signed disclosure.
Sadowski said a "vast majority" of the background checks for staff applicants resulted in no convictions that disqualified applicants from employment. She said any convictions discovered in the background checks would be assessed by the nature of the offense as it relates to the desired position. For example, she said an applicant seeking a faculty position requiring the operation of a motor vehicle may be disqualified for a driving while intoxicated offense.
"In order to use this information, it must be related to the job," Sadowski said.
Sadowski said the cost of the new policy for the initial year will be absorbed by the UM system, but MU will pay the bill in the second year. She said cost projections are pending.
Faculty Council chairman Frank Schmidt said preliminary estimates have found that running the background checks might cost nearly $150,000. He said that is roughly the cost of hiring two UM system professors.
Schmidt said faculty members have also questioned the reliability of the background checks on the grounds that instances of similar names might wrongfully attach a disqualifying conviction to an applicant.
"The concern is that these things are notoriously unreliable," Schmidt said.
Schmidt said faculty members have also expressed concerns regarding the weight of certain convictions, such as civil disobedience and drug possession, and how such information might play a role in disqualifying applicants for employment and even jeopardize academic freedom.
"You know that (background checks) could be used as a tool to take out people with certain political beliefs," Schmidt said.
Touzeau said Validity, based in Overland Park, Kan., was selected from a competitive bidding process, and that the company is "pretty reliable."
Validity spokeswoman Katie Hartley said the company has recently developed a division specializing in academic institutions as clients.
"In the last few years, there's been a growing number of schools adding us," she said.
Hartley said her experience in the industry leads her to believe that the increasing number of academic institutions requiring background checks is in part due to a heightened consciousness of security resulting from national tragedies such as the Sept. 11 terror attacks and the shootings at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in April.