The Faculty Senate Executive Committee decided yesterday not to recommend a policy requiring prospective faculty members to disclose previous criminal convictions.
The committee also said it does not support a self-disclosure policy elsewhere in the University, according to a statement.
The Senate has been debating the issue for the past year. Last May, the Senate Committee on Faculty and the Academic Mission submitted a report to the Provost outlining the reasons for and against self-disclosure.
Penn would have been the first Ivy League school to implement a self-disclosure policy for faculty.
Faculty Senate chairman Larry Gladney said the committee members decided not to support a self-disclosure policy, because they did not think it would increase Penn's safety.
"We don't believe disclosure actually helps improve campus safety," he said. "Criminals lie."
The Faculty Senate was considering the issue as part of the University's larger review of hiring and admissions practices. The review was spurred after the University discovered that at least three convicted sex felons had been employed by or were taking classes at Penn.
One, Economics graduate student Kurt Mitman, was commuting from a Bucks County prison.
Faculty misconduct became an issue after high-profile crimes committed by Penn professors Rafael Robb, Tracy McIntosh and Scott Ward.
Robb pleaded guilty last November to killing his wife. McIntosh was resentenced last month for a 2002 sexual assault. Ward is serving 15 years in prison for producing child pornography to import into the United States.
Gladney said self-disclosure would not have helped prevent these situations because none of the professors had criminal records prior to coming to Penn.
He added that the Executive Committee decided against supporting a self-disclosure policy because none of Penn's peer institutions have such policies.
The Provost's office - which is heading the hiring practices review - was unavailable for comment yesterday evening.
