CSU Will Investigate Campus President’s Employment of Friend : Education: Cal Poly Pomona chief Bob Suzuki asked for an inquiry in the wake of reports that a couple he hired to recruit in Asia were unqualified and unproductive.

The chancellor of the California State University system is sending a fact-finding team to Cal Poly Pomona today to investigate the hiring of a friend of campus President Bob Suzuki to promote the university in Asia.

Chancellor Barry Munitz said Suzuki requested the inquiry to “get at the facts” after a Times article revealed that Henry and Jennifer Whang were paid $175,000 in salaries and expenses to raise funds and recruit students in Asia at a time when Cal Poly was laying off faculty and canceling academic classes.

Suzuki wanted the Whangs to raise money, attract Asian executives for lucrative seminars at Cal Poly, set up partnerships with influential firms and recruit students for classes in English as a second language.

After one year on the job, Whang had raised $20,000, arranged one campus seminar and recruited about 15 students for the ESL program, which charges foreign students a tuition of $2,750 per quarter. Cal Poly was also smarting from a poorly attended South Korean conference that even Whang, its organizer, called disappointing.

The Times reported in May that Henry Whang’s main work experience consisted of 15 years as a public school truant officer and that he was hired without a formal search. Whang was put on administrative leave in October, 1992, but received his salary for five more months until his contract expired.

Munitz said a Cal State system lawyer and an auditor would probably be included on the “fact-finding / clarification” team he has sent to Cal Poly, but he stopped short of calling the inquiry a formal investigation.

“It’s a small group that will work with (Suzuki) and with me to sort out where we are and to get at the facts,” Munitz said. “Accusations have been made and I want the answers. If there is a problem, we need to identify it and straighten it out.”

Munitz added that he has great confidence in Suzuki and “absolutely no question about his integrity.” A Cal Poly spokesman said Suzuki requested the inquiry to clear the air.

“Suzuki feels that things have pretty much been blown out of proportion, that there is very little substantive to the controversy and it’s taking time away from more important issues, like solving the budget problems,” said spokesman Norm Schneider.

Cal Poly’s president has also come under fire from a former chairman of the Academic Senate who recently asked the chancellor to launch an investigation of Suzuki’s hiring practices.

Anthropology professor David Lord, who is a member of the Academic Senate and was its chairman from 1981 to 1984, alleged that the president failed to conduct adequate searches before appointing three high-level administrators.

Neither of the Whangs was hired through a formal search. Henry Whang was brought on as a consultant in September, 1991, two months after Suzuki took office, and was named acting director of Asian development in March, 1992. Jennifer Whang, who worked under Suzuki on overseas recruiting when he was a vice president at Cal State Northridge, became a Cal Poly consultant in April, 1992, and was later hired as an overseas specialist to recruit Asian students.

Henry Whang was paid an annual salary of $60,960. Cal Poly officials would not say how much Jennifer Whang earned, but records show her position paid $34,108 to $41,160. She also earned a commission on each student she recruited.

Four top Cal Poly administrators who have since left for other jobs say Suzuki ordered that Henry Whang be hired despite their objections that he was unqualified.

“I’m not sure we knew exactly what Whang was going to do,” Ruben Arminana, a former Cal Poly vice president who is president of Cal State Sonoma, said. Whang “was hired because the president had an idea what he wanted to do and had someone he believed could do it.”

Suzuki has denied that he ordered Whang’s hiring, saying that he merely introduced Whang to his top lieutenants as someone who should be tried out for a job. Suzuki says the Whangs were hired by Van Garner, dean of continuing education, and only after Suzuki insisted that the university launch a national search for the permanent position of director of Asian development.

But Cal Poly’s records indicate that no search was launched until more than a year after Whang was hired and only after the former truant officer had been placed on paid leave.

Whang did not meet Cal Poly’s minimum job qualifications for the post, which called for a candidate with at least three years international work and success in developing international workshops, seminars, joint research projects and faculty/student exchanges with the Pacific Rim.

When questioned about Whang’s background, Garner said he was a high-ranking administrator for the Los Angeles Unified School District. But district records indicate that Whang, 51, was a truant officer with the Los Angeles district from 1977 to 1992.

He also served part time as provost of a 60-student theological seminary in Koreatown in 1990-91 and taught education classes part time at Cal State L.A. from 1986 to 1988. Whang earned a doctorate in educational administration from the University of Wisconsin in 1971 and is an ordained Presbyterian minister.

Whang told The Times that he also worked for two years in the 1970s as a coordinator for the United Nations Fund for Population Education, which took him to Third World countries.

According to Whang, he warned Cal Poly officials that it would take three to five years to establish a reputation for the university in Asia and that the costs could be high, especially if he was expected to entertain potential donors over dinner. At the same time, the Korean-American, whose father was vice chairman of the Korean National Assembly, said he believed that his contacts and friendships in Korea qualified him to be a liaison in Asia, where family connections can be very important.

Whang and his wife spent $60,000 on seven trips to Asia over 11 months. At the same time, Cal Poly Pomona has laid off or failed to rehire 82 lecturers and six faculty members, which has forced the elimination of 630 classes, or 10% of the university’s total academic offerings, according to Richard Santillan, president of the Cal Poly Pomona chapter of the California Teachers Assn.