"Professor" Dan Seals About to Start Night Class, But Is Northwestern University Hiding His Politics?

Well, the long-awaited start of 10th Congressional Democratic candidate Dan Seals' night class in Federal Policymaking (MPPA 490-0) at Northwestern University is coming up (appropriately) on April 1, at 7:00 p.m. NU may now be embarrassed, however, that it hired a current congressional candidate to teach such a course, as explained below.

The class itself is at Wieboldt Hall at NU, Room 417. I'd encourage everyone to show up, but I'm assuming that NU would not appreciate those who have not signed up for the class (and, more importantly, not paid) attending just for kicks. TA regulars know that we have been following this escapade with extreme interest since last December, when we noticed that Seals was claiming to be a professor at NU, but had never actually taught a class.

Seals apologists (and there were many) tried to explain that, in the 'academic world,' one supposedly is deemed a professor as soon as one signs a teaching contract, and, hey, he was planning on teaching in April 2008, so what's the big deal? But, the majority of commentors here didn't buy it, mostly for the simple fact that it was clear that Seals was campaigning heavily on a credential (teaching experience at NU) that he didn't actually have, and he never pointed out the caveat in his literature or on the stump.

In fact, a few real professors even chimed in when the Daily Herald ran a story exposing the misleading claim (dare we say lie?) of Seals that he was "currently" an adjunct professor, which was on his website as early as last October. Thanks to our pounding the snot of out this story (and we're not ashamed to say it), even his primary opponent Jay Footlik, the IL state GOP and Northwestern students picked up on it (the NU student blog is priceless). We also had quite a debate over whether Seals was qualified to call himself a "professor," as opposed to simply a "lecturer." Even Seals had to back off on that claim and changed at least some of literature to call himself a "lecturer" instead of a "professor," although he apparently never updated the claim on his website (though he's still yet to teach an NU student).

In any event, the long-awaited day for school to take in is coming right up, but something curious happened since we broke the story and started causing some very uncomfortable questions to be raised to Northwestern administrators. Seems that they have changed Seals' bio on the NU website to OMIT the fact that he is a candidate for Congress.

You can read Seals' original bio from the NU School of Continuing Studies page in the comments section from our post on December 15, 2007 (you have to scroll down through comments almost to the bottom). The critical first sentence is: "Former finance director of marketing at GE Capital, Wilmette, Illinois businessman Dan Seals is challenging Republican Congressman Mark Kirk to represent Illinois' Tenth District in the U.S. House of Representatives."

Here's the current bio, which I just checked on: Dan Seals is a former finance director of marketing at GE Capital, Wilmette, Illinois. Seals has spent time on Capitol Hill, serving as a fellow in the office of Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, where his primary focus was on economic development and policy. He is now self-employed as a consultant. Seals earned a master's in international relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and his MBA from the University of Chicago. You can view it by going to the NU School of Continuing Studies website, scroll down to the course description, and click on the "Instructor: D. Seals" link.

Notice the difference? Basically everything is the same except the reference to Seals' candidacy against Mark Kirk. Any guesses as to why Northwestern is all of a sudden so shy about copping to the fact they hired a current candidate for a federal political office to teach a course on federal policymaking? Perhaps they are concerned that Seals' bias is going to leak into his teaching or grading? But, it's a bit late to try to hide it now. Among other issues, what if you were an NU student that signed up for the class based only on the website description of the course and Seals' bio, and found out too late that it was being taught by someone with a certain strong VIEWPOINT on some of the issues? What if you were an active Republican student on campus--might you be worried about being treated fairly or expressing your views at all? And, as we've asked before, does Seals' teaching essentially amount to electioneering on university time? Or even NU endorsing his candidacy?

TA has a call in to Dean Shapiro at the School of Continuing Studies to find out why the bio was recently revised.

This whole thing continues to stink to high heaven, and I hope the voters of the 10th District don't forget about Seals' resume padding escapade come November.

INTERN vs. FELLOW: By the way, I almost forgot to mention that the NU website got it wrong as to Seals' experience for Joe Lieberman (a credential that Seals rarely acknowledges by name nowadays)--in fact, he was never a Presidential Management "Fellow"; he was an 'intern' under a now extinct program. See our previous notation here and the IL GOP discussion of the issue here. I suppose calling yourself an "intern" instead of a "fellow" just doesn't have the same cache that a school like NU is looking for, but what the heck? It's only words, and words to Seals, apparently don't matter.