Unfair Park from p10 lead to professors who are stressed out and stretched thin, which may further ding the integrity of instruction. Some faculty may also teach several automated online courses, which are the better choice for certain stu- dents. “But it runs the risk of becoming a de- gree mill,” Macauley said. “A way to just crank out classes, crank out units, crank out students with less effort and less quality to achieve the same goals.” Online education is becoming increas- ingly common, but Dallas College may be on the forefront of a new trend. Jeff Blodgett, president of the AAUP Texas Conference, said he’d never heard of NDAs in academia until now. Suddenly facing unemployment amid a pandemic, the 446 professors who signed the non-disclosure agreement were effectively vowing to never criticize their former employer on social media or even job sites like Glassdoor and Indeed. They also agreed to never privately sue the school, even in cases with claims of discrimination based on sex, age and race. Blodgett believes it’s wrong for public in- stitutions funded partly by taxpayer money “to hide behind NDAs” and that the practice should be illegal. He added: “These univer- sities are taking advantage of people who are in vulnerable situations to get around being held accountable for any past actions.” M eanwhile, some Dallas College pro- fessors allege that the school pres- sured them to improve a grade when the student didn’t deserve it. In fall 2016, Albert Menchaca (no relation to Rich- ard) joined as a full-time instructor and the coordinator for El Centro’s physics pro- gram. The following year, a student who consistently turned in late work disputed her grade, but Menchaca stood by his deci- sion. It was a matter of integrity for him. He refused to hand out good grades for those who didn’t earn them. Then, the student complained to the higher-ups. Menchaca said he was sum- moned into a dean’s office to discuss the dis- pute and was told to boost the grade from a C to a B. He declined. Regardless, Menchaca said, the grade change was submitted, and he requested a copy of the form. It shows his printed name and underneath it, someone appears to have written “see email” where Menchaca’s sig- nature was supposed to go. Menchaca said he learned from others at the school that this wasn’t the administra- tion’s first time overruling on a grade change absent the professor’s consent. After Menchaca contacted a lawyer, the school at- tached a memorandum to the student’s grade change notation acknowledging Menchaca’s disapproval. Next, Menchaca said, the administration incrementally light- ened his workload before he was informed in February 2020 that his contract would not be renewed. Menchaca wants his name unattached 12 from the grade change form. He fears the di- lution of course content. At academic con- ferences, the talk sometimes turns to the performance of students feeding into four- year schools, he said. Menchaca has heard of some community college students who go on to major in physics or engineering at in- stitutions like the University of Texas, just to fall flat because they weren’t fully prepared. Not everyone can hold a career in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), Menchaca said. If professors aren’t honest with students while they’re going through the process, they’ll wind up being disappointed in the end. Some students are the first in their families to attend college, or they may come from low-income house- holds. It’s wrong to sink them into debt if they’re not being taught properly, Menchaca argued. Blodgett, Texas’ AAUP president, be- lieves such alleged backchannel grade- change incidents could get Dallas College in trouble with its accreditor. Anything related to the classroom, from teaching to grading, is supposed to solely fall under the faculty’s purview. Anytime a student gains a degree based on false pretenses, it works against the public’s interest, too. Changing a grade is a line where there’s no gray area, he said: “If they can get away with doing that, they can get away with doing anything.” R ichard Menchaca had a sizable break following his first class and before the next. In years past, his schedule pro- vided for back-to-back courses, all at El Centro in downtown Dallas, but now they were spaced further apart. Another veteran professor told the Observer that he has to be on campus by 7:15 a.m., ahead of his 8 a.m. class. Then, he waits all day to go back to work for his courses that begin at 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Sometimes during the pauses between lectures, Menchaca sticks around and an- swers emails. Other times, he lunches with old friends. After his second course came and went that February day, Menchaca left Cedar Valley to stop by El Centro. The schools once had vibrant and unique cul- tures, but Menchaca fears that campus iden- tities are eroding under the “one school” umbrella. Regardless, Menchaca said he’s essen- tially being forced to retire soon because Dallas College plans to end the developmen- tal reading and writing program. Its loss could also mean that students who already struggle with reading comprehension will have an even harder time in English class. El Centro is home to a robust security presence. In July 2016, a mass shooting aimed at Dallas law enforcement sent shockwaves through the school. A man named Micah Xavier Johnson fatally shot four Dallas Police Department officers and one DART officer and barricaded himself inside an El Centro building. Johnson died when police deployed a bomb-carrying ro- bot and set off an explosion that also dam- aged computer servers in the school. On that February day some five-and-a- half years later, El Centro looked like a ghost town. Security and administrators appeared to outnumber students. Some 10 people sat sprinkled in the school’s lobby, the largest gathering Menchaca recalls seeing since 2020. He misses when the hallways were still packed with energetic young adults hungry to im- prove their lots in life. Things are different now. “It just breaks my heart,” Menchaca Jericho/Wikimedia Steven Berglund and four others have been sentenced over a scheme involving fraudulent lab reports and kickbacks. said, looking up and down a deserted corri- dor. “It used to be bumper to bumper.” Still, Menchaca believes that Dallas College can emerge as a vibrant, bustling institution. It’ll just take a seismic shift in mindset and pos- sibly new board members to get there. Menchaca listlessly roamed El Centro’s halls for several minutes, thinking of how things once were. He saw students’ specters in the muted library and vacant classrooms. He hopes for a return to the golden age of education, but it’s unlikely that Dallas Col- lege will ever go back to how things once were. When he’d had his fill of memories, Menchaca shuffled back outside, into the sun and onto the gray asphalt of downtown. Then, the professor hopped in the red Chevy with the eagle statue in the back and drove away. ▼ CRIME LINING THEIR POCKETS healthcare company owner was sentenced to prison over fraud charges, according to a press release issued by the U.S. Department of Justice in North Texas. U.S. Senior District Judge Terry Means A handed down two years to Steven Berglund, who owns Elite Healthcare, for a conspiracy in which he and others pocketed proceeds and facilitated financial kickbacks. Berglund and the others, who were pre- viously sentenced, had organized what prosecutors called a “pass-through billing” scheme. They then had the Palo Pinto Gen- eral Hospital foot the bill for lab tests that were, in fact, conducted by out-of-network labs. Palo Pinto General is located in Min- eral Wells, about 80 miles west of Dallas. According to prosecutors, Berglund, Elite Healthcare co-owner Aaron Cerpanya, for- mer Palo Pinto CEO Harris Brooks, Med- IN RECENT YEARS, HEALTHCARE FRAUD WAS THE “LARGEST SOURCE OF ILLICIT FUNDS IN THE U.S.,” TOPPING MORE THAN $110 BILLION IN 2018. BY PATRICK STRICKLAND nother day, another healthcare grifter bites the dust. Last Tuesday, a North Texas Health Solutions cofounder Adam Gardner and MedHealth Solutions cofounder Cody Waddell “submitted more than $54 million in laboratory services claims,” which led in- surers to pay Palo Pinto upward of $8 mil- lion. On top of kickbacks, Berglund and the others divided the left-over proceeds, fed- eral authorities say. (Kickbacks are when healthcare providers or physicians ex- change compensation for referrals from other medical providers or entice patients via compensation or payment.) Cerpanya and Gardner will each serve a year and a day in prison, Waddell 18 months, and Brooks will serve five years of proba- tion. Altogether, they have to pay $2.4 mil- lion in restitution. Berglund had pleaded guilty in Novem- ber 2021, although he later tried to reverse his plea by claiming that the trial had been so stressful that he suffered from “dimin- ished mental capacity,” according to the DOJ. In recent years, healthcare fraud was the “largest source of illicit funds in the U.S.,” topping more than $110 billion in 2018, ac- cording to the National Money Laundering Risk Assessment. In late March, 10 Texas doctors and a healthcare executive agreed to pay more than $1.68 million to settle kickback allega- tions, the DOJ in East Texas said at the time. category Dallas Has $6 Million It Wants to Spend on Housing Homeless LGBTQ Youth ▼ HOUSING HOME AT LAST R A NEW REAL ESTATE PROJECT TO BE FUNDED BY THE CITY COULD PROVIDE HOUSING FOR LGBTQIA+ YOUTHS. BY JACOB VAUGHN egina Levine, chief program officer at local nonprofit The Promise House, said they used to have a fed- erally funded place with beds specifically for homeless LGBTQ individuals. But even- tually, the house lost its funding. Now, they only have four beds dedicated to homeless LGBTQ youths. APRIL 21-27, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.com
