I've always tried to go a step past wherever people expected me to end up.
Beverly Sills
"Memories...Like the Corners of My Mind"
How often is it that one of my former employers makes the national media? We have the following student, Robyn Foster, arrested for disorderly conduct, removed from an anthropology class (see embedded video below); the kerfuffle seemed to have been in response to the wording of an exam question, and Ms. Foster reportedly rejected the professor's invitation to discuss the matter out of class. Ms. Foster allegedly escalated the situation, throwing a water bottle at one of the other students in class, apparently backing up the professor's request. (Discussion continued below.)
I had never, in my own experience as a college student, seen or even heard of disruptive student behavior. I'm not going to write a sensational post here, but I've had an occasional sexually aggressive coed student (I've never dated a current or former student). As a single white male in politically correct institutions, I was always mindful of my vulnerability to spurious allegations, I always tried to make sure I was never alone or, at minimum, my office door was open when meeting with a coed. [But to give an example, while I was teaching a COBOL class in Houston, a student with her friend came in during my office hours, requesting help with her computer program assignment. While I was poring over her program printout, I suddenly felt a bare foot digging its way up inside my left pant leg. I decided to ignore it, but after the students left my office, I overheard the coed laughingly tell her friend, "Did you see me turn on the teacher?"]
During my second year at UWM, I had assigned a COBOL textbook which came bundled with vendor PC software supporting a new COBOL standard (which supported structured programming constructs). The business college was unhappy with me because they wanted me to require use of the Microsoft COBOL compilers licensed in the computer labs. I verified that Microsoft hadn't yet upgraded their compiler consistent with the new standard. There was a lot of resistance, in part due to the fact that computer lab assistants were not familiar with the new constructs (although I had posted office hours and was flexible about scheduling outside of office hours).
One day, about 2 weeks before the first assignment was due, a group of 5 or 6 students came to my office hours and demanded an extension for the initial due date. I really didn't want to start a precedent; I had basically spaced out 4 assignments with roughly 3-week intervals. I noted that the due date was still days away, they could raise assignment issues in lecture or during office hours until then. If I felt there was a general problem with the assignment on the due date, I would address a request for an extension at that time. The students weren't satisfied with my response and bluntly threatened me that if I did not back off the initial due date, there would be (unspecified) consequences. I stood by my decision.
The first assignment came and went, with no notable problems (everyone submitted their assignment on schedule), and for the most part, I had forgotten about the incident. I won't go into specifics here, but the malcontents bided their time and then launched a surprise multi-front attack against me, their abusing university procedures, no due process, and the business school and the senior faculty dishonorably failing to support me. I left the next academic year--and the reason I'm mentioning this is what happened the last night as I finished clearing out of my university office. One of the MIS doctoral students took the COBOL classes that year, and as I stepped into the elevator with the last of my boxes, the floor of the elevator was covered with student computer assignment printouts, apparently the result of some malcontent student expressing his displeasure with the lecturer and/or the class--a signature memory summarizing my years at UWM.
But perhaps the incident I experienced of a similar nature to Ms. Foster occurred at UTEP. I had a clearly defined academic honesty requirement in my database class syllabus. Homework assignments made up about 10% of the final grade (and there were multiple assignments). On one of the assignments I discovered that two of the students had clearly copied from each other; the evidence was compelling. (I had been tipped off by a highly unusual solution to one of the problems.) I started the next lecture by reminding the students of the academic honesty policy and noting that I had been grading their assignments and there was a violation. I did not identify the parties in question or give any more specifics. Even Perry Mason never managed to do what I did in that class: the coed in question raised up her hand and demanded to know, "Is it me?" I told the class that I would not identify the parties in class but would discuss the matter outside of class. The young woman ignored what I was saying and continued, "You can't do anything to me. I'm a straight-A student. I don't need to cheat. They won't believe you. They won't let you do anything to me." This was rapidly escalating out of control; a professor is then caught in a tough situation: students will naturally empathize with one of their own, but will also blame you for losing control of the class. I responded, "I think we need to discuss this after class." She, visibly shaking with rage, screamed, "NO! I WANT TO DISCUSS IT RIGHT NOW!" I had never previously experienced an outright temper tantrum in class before. I was trying to decide whether I should dismiss the class or call in campus security. (So I do empathize with the UWM anthropology professor here...) While I was pondering my next move, one of the students near her mentioned that the student should discuss it after class; one or 2 other students subsequently repeated the same. The peer pressure seemed to work; initially she started arguing with them, finally shutting up, arms folded, glaring angrily at me for the remainder of the lecture.
I won't discuss the aftermath. I ended up abandoning my office when she started shrieking at me, with a voice that could break glass, that she was not a cheater; she had slammed my office door behind her and refused to open it. I asked her to leave; she refused to leave. My colleagues were coming out of their offices, and I was afraid the young woman might make some sexual misconduct allegation.
She followed up by filing a grievance with the Student Affairs office against me. All you need to know about the corrupt nature of the Student Affairs office is I never had a single face-to-face meeting with the dean during my stay at the university. He never interviewed me or asked me for a statement; he never asked to look at the evidence; he never asked to see a copy of the syllabus; he never asked for a response to any allegation made by the young woman. (Ask me what I think of President Natalicio or her corrupt administration...)
The only reason I'm going into this part of the story is that the young woman slandered me in the Dean's office. The reason I know that is because the dean called me angrily one day, "You better not do it." I hadn't the foggiest idea what he was talking about. He continued, "Don't play innocent with me. You know exactly what you did." I felt like a clueless husband in the doghouse. It was like pulling teeth, but it turned out that the young woman had told the dean that I had threatened to blacklist her on the job market. (In fact, I was a first-semester professor with no local community contacts, I never earned a dime in outside income as a PhD student or a professor, and I had no industry contacts. I never had a conversation with any recruiter or manager about any student, and no student--INCLUDING THIS STUDENT--ever requested my serving as a job reference. There had been no discussion with this student beyond this particular assignment. It was a totally invented smear.)
What I eventually discovered after additional digging was this student had listed me as a reference in job applications. I have no idea why she did that; this was my first semester at UTEP, and this incident occurred fairly early in the semester. I barely knew her as a student on my class roster, and I had never had a prior personal conversation with her. It was clear now why she smeared me: she was afraid of what I might tell any recruiter whom contacted me about her. [In fact, I would have recused myself from a recommendation as a matter of professional ethics, simply because I didn't know her that well.] With respect to the academic honesty issue, I often give individuals the benefit of a doubt and a second chance (e.g., the original problem with her homework); however, her uncivil behavior in class and towards myself was fundamentally unacceptable. I have no doubt those characteristics would manifest themselves during a professional career, and employers have zero tolerance for these people skill problems.
Death Threats Over Votes on the
Democratic Party Health Care Law?
Fox News Shepard Smith, as he reported tonight's news, led off by disapprovingly mentioning allegations of death threats against last weekend's Democratic swing voters, including Bart Stupak (D-MI), whom end up voting for the corrupt Senate bill Obama signed into law yesterday. There is no equivocation in the pro-life community: acts of violence against preborn or born human beings are rejected on principle. However, I reject any attempt to make out Stupak and his holdouts, whom folded like cheap suits in the face of political pressure last weekend, to be "profiles in courage". I'm sure that politicians get personally threatened more occasions than we probably know about, and threats should be treated seriously and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I can't help but believe, though, the explicit revelation of these threats were motivated for political reasons, specifically to put opposition to the corrupt, unaffordable white elephant legislation on the defensive. I'm sure that the FBI could do its job without political talking points.
My posts have been clear about this: for example, yesterday I mentioned that conservatives and Republicans need to dial back the angry rhetoric. I'm clearly unhappy about the fact so-called pro-life Democrats caved into political pressure, making the difference in the bill carrying, but the fact is that over 30 Democrats joined in bipartisan opposition to this corrupt bill/law. There is only so much that conservatives and/or Republicans can do; they simply didn't have the votes to stop passage of a bad bill. Ultimately, the American voters are responsible; they elected the most liberal Democrat in American history and give him the strongest partisan majorities in years. I can't really explain why the ratings of Republicans in Congress in some polls are as bad as the Democrats. By any objective standard, virtually all significant Republican inputs have been repeatedly batted down on partisan grounds. The Republicans have been out of power in the Congress for over 3 years. This obstructionist label is absurd: the Republicans couldn't stop the Democrats from passing the stimulus bill, they couldn't stop the budget bills; they couldn't stop the raising of the federal debt limit. The problems the Democrats had dealt with an ideological split between progressives and centrists.
If I had to venture an explanation of why the Congressional Republicans are scoring low, I would focus on two points: (1) there is a general frustration with the Congress in general, and the Republicans are part of Congress (i.e., life isn't fair); (2) the Republicans are remarkably inept in getting out their message--and also incredibly unlucky: I never heard the Republicans address the Anthem Blue Cross of California issue of raising rates for self-employed individual coverage policies to up to 39% at a politically inopportune time. And yet the same White House and Congress that guaranteed health insurers customers through an unconstitutional mandate and cut deals with pharmaceuticals, medical device makers, etc. are making Republicans to be proxies of health sector businesses! The Republicans can't afford to be constantly playing defense: they needed to come out with government-lite reforms to address catastrophic expenses, high risk pool availability, and tax-advantaged, self-insured cross-state pools for small businesses and individual coverages, but at a far smaller price to the government. Let me quote from my last Dec. 17 post:
Note that the wider scope of eligibility, the higher the costs to the federal government; the study authors pointed out "universal" catastrophic coverage could cost the federal government almost 5 times as much as a more focused plan to high-risk individuals and small groups.It was only a matter of time that the liberal mass media would attempt to portray activist conservatives (e.g., the Tea Party movement) as potential "terrorists" (recalling last year's DHS kerfuffle identifying Iraq veterans, pro-life activists and right-wing activists). What the liberal media didn't focus on is the fact that Stupak and others were getting harassed (by progressives) while they were withholding support for the corrupt bill.
Remember this news item from last September?
The Detroit News reported this morning, "Harlan James Drake, 33, confessed to shooting 63-year-old activist James Pouillon because of the larger-than-life photographs of mutilated fetuses Pouillon was setting up to display Friday morning in front of Owosso High School, authorities said."There were comparative counts of citations on the murder of Pouillon versus that of late-term abortion specialist George Tiller: fewer than 1 to 30. [Follow-up: Drake was convicted earlier this month of first-degree murder.] Let's hope the liberal mass media will provide more proportionate attention to the crimes of pro-abortion choice activists, well-documented by the pro-life movement.
Political Cartoon
Chuck Asay points out the self-described pro-life Democrats whom sold out their principled stand against taxpayer funding for abortion in the corrupt Senate Democratic Party Health Care Bill for political cover from Barack Obama.
Musical Interlude: More Heaven Songs
Donna Summers, "Heaven Knows"
Belinda Carlisle, "Heaven is a Place on Earth"
Bee Gees, "Too Much Heaven"
Eric Clapton, "Tears in Heaven"
