Oh brother.
Does new CMPD chief Rodney Monroe have an earned degree from Virginia Commonwealth University or not? That is the question. Or should be.
Sounds like VCU is investigating itself on whether it should have awarded a degree to Monroe. Or not. From WTVR in Richmond:
CBS-6 news has learned that the bachelor’s degree awarded by Virginia Commonwealth University to Richmond police Chief Rodney Monroe is being investigated by a VCU Board and a multistate accreditation organization.
Monroe, who previously was not a college graduate, was awarded a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies in May, 2007.
The issue is whether Monroe completed 30 credit hours of study at VCU as required of transfer students, according the university’s own guidelines and those set forth by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges, the regional accrediting body for Virginia and 10 other Southern states.
Monroe’s own statements to the Richmond Times-Dispatch around the time he received the degree, along with documents obtained by CBS-6, indicate the chief took just six hours worth of classes at VCU prior to getting the diploma.
The investigation was triggered recently by an anonymous source who contacted CBS-6 along with a VCU oversight board, the SACS accreditation body and others. That source, who has since had several conversations with CBS-6, sent detailed e-mails alleging that high-level officials at VCU and the city pushed through the diploma for Richmond’s popular police chief.
The potential seed of the problem can be found in a Richmond Times-Dispatch story from last year which mentions that Monroe began work on his BA degree at the University of Phoenix. The online school’s credits generally to not transfer to other schools. College credit transfers are a notoriously dicey thing, with hard and fast rules often rare. Fight hard enough — or have someone on the inside fighting for you — and previously denied credits can be approved.
This would seemingly also apply to the 30-hour guideline. I would hazard to guess the there are other people walking around with VCU degrees who put in less than the 30 hours at the school. Perhaps not six hours, but maybe so. This is the crucial area that needs to be examined before we can declare that Monroe received special treatment.
As posted, the CMPD job requires a BA. I suppose the city of Charlotte could elect to do what NC State did with basketball coach Sidney Lowe when it was discovered that he did not have the BA required by the university for the job. Lowe took some correspondence classes and finished up.
Of course, we’ve yet to hear from Chief Monroe on this either. It matters if he in any way falsified his academic record at any point or if he simply did what he was told he had to do to get his degree. Still, this is a distraction we do not need right now.
Bonus Observation: The WBTV Web site says, “WBTV Anchor Molly Grantham broke the story Friday night at 11 p.m. with assistance from our CBS affiliate in Richmond, WTVR.” It looks more like the other way around. Richmond reporter Mark Holmberg appears to have done all the heavy lifting so far — and it is wrong for WBTV to imply otherwise.
Update: The city is “confident” in its hiring process, but Chief Monroe has not responded to requests for comment.
