MILWAUKEE, Wis. – Just over a week after announcing the nomination of Jean Darnell to be the newest director of the Milwaukee Public Library, Mayor Cavalier Johnson is rescinding the nomination after discovering that her degree does not meet accreditation requirements listed in the job description.
Darnell, who operates the webpage Awaken Librarian and recently led library services for the School District of Philadelphia, received her graduate degree in information science and school librarianship from the University of Houston–Clear Lake. While the degree is regionally accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges, the Schools Commission on Colleges, and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), it is not accredited by the American Libraries Association (ALA). That, the mayor’s spokesperson Jeff Fleming tells WTMJ, is what disqualifies Darnell from the job.
“That said, we should have caught this at an early stage, and we regret that this is the circumstance that we are in,” said Fleming. “She’s a very talented person, but she doesn’t meet the legal requirements, and we own that. It was our oversight not to have caught that in the initial application process.”…