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David Kulas dropped out of the race Tuesday for the District 4 seat held by Kelly Herold, citing medical problems, five days after being questioned about the degrees by the Winona Daily News.
Kulas, who has taught classes at Winona State University, has publicly referred to himself as “Dr. David Kulas,” for years, including on recent campaign filing forms and a campaign Web site. He says he obtained a doctorate and master’s degree from Hamner University in Wales in 1998 and 2000, respectively.
But British and Welsh government agencies, Welsh higher education officials and people in the town where the university supposedly existed repeatedly have said they’ve never heard of Hamner, despite Kulas’ claims it was open from 1877 to 2000.
In fact, the Daily News could find no people, documents or Web sites that confirm the existence of Hamner University, other than a Web site claiming to be for Hamner University alumni and Kulas’ own resume.
Kulas said he won’t accept the school board seat, even if he wins in the primary on Tuesday. But his name will still be on the ballot because he missed the deadline to withdraw from the race.
No records of Hamner
Representatives at the United Kingdom’s Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills — the British
agency responsible for higher education — have no records of a Hamner University existing. Neither does a representative in the Welsh Assembly’s Department of Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills, an agency in Wales similar to the DIUS.
The Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, which disburses funds from the Welsh government to higher education institutions, also has no record of Hamner.
“I can confirm that Hamner University was not an accredited higher education institution in Wales which was either funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales or offered degrees recognized by HEFCW,” said Emma Raczka, a communications manager for the council. “We are not familiar with it operating as an accredited institution in Wales, either.”
A Hamner Web site states the school was affiliated with the Universities and Colleges Admission Service, the institution through which almost all students entering British universities and colleges must apply. Raczka said in an e-mail message that she inquired with the UCAS about Hamner, and found it has no record of the school.
Townsfolk are puzzled
Kulas had no explanation when told that British and Welsh officials have no records of Hamner.
He said he learned of the university in either 1992 or 1993 in Egypt from a man who claimed to be the dean of Hamner in Wales. Kulas said he took classes online from the school between 1995 and 1998, receiving a doctorate in International Business Administration in 1998. The courses, he said, consisted of lectures online and question-and-answer sessions on message boards using a format he compared to a “Yahoo Group,” or a listserv.
The only online reference to Hamner University, aside from various incarnations of Kulas’ resume, is the alumni Web page. The site — which Kulas references as a contact source on a resume — lists the former location of Hamner in the village of Penley in the county borough of Wrexham in Wales.
When initially questioned by the Daily News on Aug. 29, Kulas said the university was in a town of about 15,000 to 20,000 residents, and that the campus likely had between 900 and 1,000 people on it at any one time.
Kulas said he went to the university several times. He said he was required to undergo a four-hour oral exam in place of a traditional dissertation to obtain his doctorate.
“Essentially, I walked into this room and I got grilled for about four hours by a bunch of professors,” Kulas said. “After four hours, they knew that I knew what I was talking about.”
He also described the building where he took his exams, comparing it to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.
Areal maps of Penley depict a small collection of buildings in a rural area, none of which match Kulas’ description.
People in Penley and the surrounding area also have no recollection of such a building — or of a Hamner University.
Paul Breach at Maelor School, a secondary school in Penley, said he could not remember any universities ever existing there. He said the village of Penley is “quite small” and was sure he’d be aware of a college there if one existed.
Wrexham County Borough, an area of about 500 square kilometers, has about 130,000 inhabitants, more than half of whom live in the city of Wrexham, a community about 10 miles north of Penley that is by far the largest town in the borough.
Wrexham County Borough does have an accredited university, Glyndwr University. A spokeswoman for the school, Claire Huxley, has never heard of a university called Hamner.
Several miles east of Penley is a village called Hanmer. A community council member there said she has no recollection of a university ever being in Hanmer. She echoed Breach’s comment that Hanmer was “quite small,” and also said she didn’t know of a university ever being in Penley, either.
Questioned again
Kulas can’t produce documents proving he attended the school and earned the degrees or remember any names of his professors or classmates that can be confirmed.
“They are scattered to the seven winds,” Kulas said of the Hamner faculty and students.
Over the course of two interviews, he revised statements about the school and the town where he said it existed.
When interviewed Wednesday, Kulas revised his initial description of Penley and other details about his enrollment. He said he has poor judgment about the size of towns, saying he isn’t sure how many people live in his current community.
“I honestly don’t know how big it is,” Kulas said of Penley.
He originally said the Hamner building he visited is one matching a photo on the Hamner Web site. Wednesday, he wasn’t sure if it was the same building.
“I went to a building,” he said.
The Web site
Kulas said the Hamner alumni Web site’s history page, which describes the school and its course offerings, is an accurate representation of the school. The site’s text is nearly identical to an information page for Drury University, a school in Springfield, Mo., which Kulas happened to attend for several classes. Other text describing the area surrounding Penley is nearly identical to a text from an online version of Frommer’s, a travel guidebook company.
Records show the Web site is registered to a server in California, and the only way to contact the university is through an e-mail address regarding transcript requests.
The transcripts
Besides the Hamner Web site, the only source of evidence that Hamner University existed may be held by Winona State University.
From 1996 until 2000, Kulas was a professor in the Computer Science and the Business Administration departments at WSU. Originally an adjunct and then an instructor, Kulas was hired as a fixed-term assistant professor during his last year. That position does not require a graduate degree, but Kulas submitted to WSU transcripts stating he had received a doctorate, WSU director of public information Andrea Mikkelsen said.
WSU won’t disclose from where it obtained Kulas’ transcripts, citing confidentiality. Kulas said he provided his transcripts to WSU, though he said he had no other copies to provide to the Daily News as proof the school existed.
Kulas was chosen for the assistant professorship at WSU through a search committee, but Mikkelsen said candidates are not required to submit official transcripts until they are selected for the position. Mikkelsen did not know if Kulas’ doctorate influenced the decision to hire him as an assistant professor.
Lisa Zibert, a personnel aide in the WSU human resources department, said that a transcript is determined to be official if it has a seal of a university on it or it is addressed from a school’s registrar’s office. She could not say how WSU determines if a seal or address is valid.
In his final interview with the Daily News at his home Wednesday, Kulas suggested for the first time that he may have been duped.
“I met the guy and he said he could give me a degree,” he said. “So, I paid him some money. This guy said it was (legitimate), and I jumped through the hoops,” Kulas said. “I did it in good faith from this guy.”
Kulas said he doesn’t know where the man is or how to reach him.
Nolan Rosenkrans may be reached at (507) 453-3519 or at nolan.rosenkrans@lee.net.
