The first year of an experimental program that brought South Korean students to the University was beset with complaints from participants, faced an audit and culminated with the cancellation of the program, the resignation of a former dean and a pending lawsuit against the University.
The Institute for Policy Research and Innovation’s Fellowship Program, inspired by programs at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Michigan, was the first of its kind at the University, giving its leaders no model to follow for structuring or billing procedures, IPRI Director Michael Hibbard said.
Yet three of the five international students enrolled in the program reported complaints and encountered resistance to their requests, which former Dean of the Planning, Public Policy and Management Department Jean Stockard has alleged might endanger the University’s reputation with the South Korean government.
Stockard, who resigned Feb. 9, said she plans to file a federal lawsuit against the University because she alleges the University retaliated against her for advocating on behalf of the students. Architecture and Allied Arts Dean Frances Bronet wrote in a letter dated Dec. 27 that Stockard would be removed as dean unless she resigned.
The University has refused to comment further on the personnel matter, but issued a statement that said the University had not retaliated against Stockard for reporting “a situation that could have affected the university’s relationship with South Korea,” and that she “acted appropriately in raising concerns.”
Stockard said it came to her attention in April that the students’ funds were being mishandled, and very little about the operations of IPRI followed standard University procedure.
The University has had other visiting scholars, but Hibbard said this is the first program that involves the scholars in training.
Hibbard said the Korean students can’t be considered “visiting scholars” because visiting scholars are usually professors who come here to do their own research or to give special lectures. The Korean students were not here to do either.
The students’ stays were funded by grants from the South Korean government and a South Korean bank, but expenses they didn’t cover needed to be reconciled.
Accordingly, the students needed an itemized receipt from the IPRI, Kim Sung hoon, deputy director of Division of Training and Education of the Republic of Korea Civil Service Commission in Seoul, stated in a June 4 letter to Hibbard. Stockard also received a copy.
The students, who arrived in December 2004, had been attempting to obtain an invoice receipt since at least January 2005. Sun Ho Lee, Hong Ju Yang and Song Rhie, filed repeated complaints to Hibbard and Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies Richard Linton about the lack of proper billing documentation, according to a Jan. 3, 2006 tort letter Stockard sent University officials. The students needed to supply the requested documentation to their governmental and corporate sponsors.
Over the next few months the students received draft invoices, which they said in an April 25, 2005 letter to Hibbard, “made little sense,” but they also were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with IPRI’s program and said they feared repercussions for their “whistleblowing.”
They described “Never-ending problems with our study as IPRI Fellows,” including the fact that they felt they had been misled about the nature of the program by Ik-Jung Chun, who the fellows said presented himself as “a visiting associate professor at the UO Department of Planning, Public Policy and Management” during two visits in Seoul. The University Web site lists Chun as a courtesy associate professor for the PPPM department, but Stockard and PPPM department secretary Susanne Giordano both said he was no longer employed by the University.
Chun said he would not comment for the article.
The students said that Chun told them IPRI could “offer us an ‘individually customized’ fellow program,” and said that despite “repeated demands” for more information, Chun only directed them to the IPRI Web site.
“We were very disappointed with Mr. Chun, because we had expected him to help us as a dependent facilitator during our IPRI fellowship,” they wrote in the letter. “Now we know that we were embarrassingly mistaken in believing at face value what he claimed to be in Seoul – a reliable IPRI representative and bona-fide UO professor.”
Once they arrived, Chun responded to their inquiries about the program and tuition, but directed them to Hibbard, who said the students may have misinterpreted the purpose of the program, they wrote in the letter.
“They expected a structured training program with a set of canned experiences,” Hibbard said. “We were offering an individualized program with a set of administration and professor supports. In the end, we expected that they would operate pretty much independently, and in retrospect I think they were not comfortable with that.”
Hong Ju Yang, one of the fellows involved in IPRI’s programs, said the Korean scholars were interested in the Fellows program because it aligned with their work in Korea.
Yang wrote in an e-mail to the Emerald that the student fellows were surprised at the response from IPRI about their comments.
“The response of IPRI on these demands, surprisingly, was to leave IPRI if we were not satisfied on IPRI present program,” he said.
Persistent requests by the students and the Korean government for documentation of expenditures eventually led Hibbard to issue an undated invoice on University letterhead that itemized “tuition and fees” charges for enrollment between December 2004 and December 2005 for up to $20,000.
Hibbard said he cannot comment on how the charges were itemized because of the pending litigation.
In May, 2005 Stockard filed a complaint to the Oregon Secretary of State’s Fraud and Abuse Division, which turned the matter over to the Oregon University System’s Internal Audit Division to investigate the charges. The audit found in October 2005 that “there was a lack of program documentation between the scholars and the institute, as was alleged,” but no criminal activity occurred, according to the University.
The University refunded the students’ money, according to the OUS audit. Stockard filed a tort document outlining her intent to sue the University in January 2006. The next tort is expected to be filed in the next few days, Stockard’s legal council told the Emerald Feb. 13.

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