Another twist for VCU

Willie B. Fuller became Virginia Commonwealth University's police chief with a bachelor's degree of questionable quality.

For VCU, which has endured nearly a year of negative publicity for improperly awarding a degree to Richmond's former police chief, Fuller's arrest Wednesday on charges of using a computer to solicit sex from an underage girl is a setback in efforts to repair its reputation.

Fuller, 50, was released at 3 p.m. yesterday on $10,000 bond on the condition that he not use the Internet or send e-mails, said Chesterfield County Sheriff Dennis Proffitt.

A bachelor's degree was not a requirement for the VCU police chief job when Fuller was hired nearly nine years ago, and it still is not required. But the situation did play into the controversy that roiled the campus during the investigation into the degree awarded to Rodney Monroe while he was Richmond's police chief.

Fuller holds a bachelor's degree in police science from St. John's University in Springfield, La., according to St. John's director of permanent records. St. John's in Louisiana is not affiliated with the prestigious Catholic university with the same name in New York, or with St. John's College, which has campuses in Annapolis, Md., and Santa Fe, N.M.

Robert D. Holsworth, former dean of the College of Humanities and Sciences at VCU, said yesterday that he discovered St. John's University was not an officially accredited institution while researching the case of a VCU employee who did not have a legitimate undergraduate degree.

Holsworth, who retired as a political science professor in January, would not say whether that employee was Fuller.

However, he cited the case in a well-publicized e-mail last summer to the VCU auditor investigating the bachelor's degree that had been awarded improperly to Monroe, now police chief in Charlotte, N.C.

"In this instance, I personally made the unhappy discovery that the degree not only came from an unaccredited institution, but that the Web site of the institution was now a conduit to pornographic sites," he wrote June 26 to Richard O. Bunce, VCU's director of assurance services.

Holsworth made the discovery around 2006, the year VCU awarded an undergraduate degree to Fuller, who had attended VCU in the 1970s. When Holsworth discovered it, "I brought that to the attention of the appropriate individuals at VCU," he said.

Fuller was awarded a VCU bachelor of interdisciplinary studies degree, university spokeswoman Pam Lepley said. He also has a post-graduate certificate in public management from VCU, Lepley said. VCU officials did not say who approved Fuller's undergraduate degree.

The St. John's degree apparently raised no red flags until Fuller began work on a master's degree at VCU.

Citing federal and state student and personnel privacy provisions, Lepley said she could not release further information about his academic record.

However, she said graduate credits can be applied to undergraduate degrees. If graduate credits are applied to an undergraduate degree, the same credits cannot apply to a VCU master's or doctoral degree, although they can be applied toward a post-graduate certificate.

Pamela Winkler, director of permanent records for St. John's, said yesterday that Fuller earned a bachelor of science degree in police science in 1995. She said Fuller graduated with honors.

Winkler said the university is accredited with the Accrediting Commission International, whose Web site says it is a nonprofit corporation in Arkansas that primarily accredits religious and small, specialized schools.

"Due to the views of most of our schools concerning the separation of church and state, we have never applied to the U.S. Department of Education for any affiliation with the government," the site says.

Winkler said St. John's University has offered distance-learning degree programs since 1969. During the time when Fuller was enrolled, St. John's University had about 650 degree students, she said.

However, the university is not accredited in Louisiana, said Cheryl Michelet, director of communications for the state Board of Regents.

Nor is it accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, which covers Virginia and Louisiana. Tom E. Benberg, the commission's chief of staff, said the university is "totally unfamiliar to me."

Contact Karin Kapsidelis at (804) 649-6119 or kkapsidelis@timesdispatch.com.

Contact Michael Martz at (804) 649-6964 or mmartz@timesdispatch.com.

Staff writer Mark Bowes contributed to this report.