Feds Investigate Wheeling Jesuit Research Programs

By Vicki Smith
Sheboygan Press
February 29, 2012

www.sheboyganpress.com/usatoday/article/38690731?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cs

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WTW) — Wheeling Jesuit University acknowledged Wednesday it's cooperating with federal investigators who seized records from the offices of J. Davitt McAteer, the school's vice president for federally sponsored research programs and a prominent critic of the coal mining industry.

The files were removed Feb. 15, but spokeswoman Michelle Rejonis said she didn't know which federal agency was involved.

Wheeling Jesuit has many federally sponsored programs, including collaborations with NASA and a center that helps commercialize new technologies, Rejonis said, so it works with several agencies. Many of those agencies have an Office of Inspector General, an entity that investigates fraud, waste and abuse.

Chris Zumpetta, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Wheeling, also declined to identify the agency involved but acknowledged there is "an ongoing investigation."

Rejonis would not discuss the investigation further except to say that it does not affect Pell Grants or other federal assistance to the school's 1,500 students.

McAteer's secretary said he would not comment, either, and referred calls to the university.

McAteer, a graduate of Wheeling Jesuit, has been a vice president of the Northern Panhandle school since 2005. He's also director of its National Technology Transfer Center and its Erma Ora Byrd Center for Education Technologies.

The NTTC does work on mine safety and health, missile defense, health technology and small business partnerships. The Center for Educational Technologies has housed the NASA-sponsored "Classroom of the Future" program since 1990.

From 1992 to 2000, McAteer was head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, and he has been a vocal critic of the coal mining industry since leaving.

He has also led independent investigations into three West Virginia mine disasters: the 2006 Sago Mine explosion that trapped and killed 12 men; the 2006 Alma No. 1 mine fire that killed two men; and the 2010 Upper Big Branch explosion, which killed 29.

A Shepherdstown attorney, McAteer has also authored a book on the Monongah mine explosion, which killed hundreds of men and boys in north-central West Virginia in 1907.

Earlier in his career, he teamed with Ralph Nader to push mine-safety reform, and he helped the United Mine Workers revitalize its health and safety department.