Dawood Farahi is an Afghan-American academic administrator who served as president of Kean University from July 1, 2003 to May 2020.
He relocated to the United States to with limited English skills to earn his PhD, studying at the University of Kansas as a Fulbright Scholar.
Faculty members at Kean have stated that Farahi's resumes have included "erroneous claims of publication and other misleading statements.
In July 2012, the university was placed on probation by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education for failing to meet academic standards.
In August 2018, it was announced that the public administration master's program would lose its accreditation at the start of the fall semester.