Wild Justice Part 12

Esther persisted, "Have you seen the other evaluations? I mean the ones that are believed to be authentic student feedbacks?"

Here Dean Broadhurst intentionally contradicted Lyle's testimony.

"No. The student comments are summarized by the department secretaries and I see the summaries. There is also a summary of the positive and negative comments and a summary of the numerical evaluation."

Jane looked at Henry to see his reaction. She remembered that Lyle had testified that all the SmurFFs were given to, and reviewed by, the dean.

Perhaps, Sam Broadhurst thought to himself, it is all I can do for her.

The panel has the information, if they choose to hear it. If there was manipulation of the evaluation process, it wasn't a product of five 'suspicious' ones out of some two hundred that were considered valid.

Statistically, the evidence stunk and he knew it. He also knew a lot more. Two of his children had gone through the medical school when Diana taught in the radiology laboratory.

The dean remembered the many occasions he had seen fit to compliment Trenchant on her teaching, saying that he was giving her this critique first-hand from one or the other of his children.

Perhaps, thought the dean, if witchcraft was the real charge, the panel would insist that it be proven.

Or maybe not. The administration appeared to be out for blood and he was sure that Lyle was still licking the wounds of a few short months ago. . .

He had Lyle on the carpet. He had summarily called him down to his office to read him the riot act.

"Here are the letters I've received from three top publishers of medical texts. Each one of them protests the plagiarism that a medical student told them your people have committed in preparing course material.

"I went to the radiology lab after I received the first letter and talked to some students. Although no one wanted to admit to contacting the publishers, they did show me the areas in their manual and notes that had been copied directly from different texts without citation.

"They also showed me the notebooks filled with diagrams that had been copied from a published atlas. Again, nowhere in the book was there any mention of, or credit given, to the source.

h.e.l.l, your guys didn't even get permission to photograph the material!"

The dean continued telling Lyle that quite a sum of money would have to change hands with the publishers to keep this thing quiet.

"It must be her," Lyle whined when he could get a word in.

"She must have put the students up to writing the publishers."

The dean knew who he meant. Lyle was a chronic complainer.

"Did Trenchant put your boys up to plagiarism too?" ridiculed the dean. "I understood from you that she was no longer in the radiology course."

"She's not, but the students from previous years have told this year's students about her and they all go to her when they don't understand something.

"She's really a menace to Randy and Ian. One day she even got a cla.s.sroom and held a review just before an exam.

I got wind of it and sent Ann Biggot to audit. Ann said that most of the radiology cla.s.s showed up. The students told Ann afterwards that they had been the ones to ask for the review.

"Now you know how that must have hurt Ian's feelings. His reviews were only attended by a handful of the students and no one came to Randy's."

"You should be able to handle a situation like that.

Tell her to stop it if you think it undermines your faculty."

Lyle was not a happy camper. He left, enraged. As soon as he reached his office, he called for Ian.

"Ian, I know you've got a lecture in a few minutes so I'll be brief. After the lecture, I want you to tell the students that they must not consult Diana anymore because she is not involved in teaching radiology and is much too busy to be bothered.

Also, you lay it on the line about your job. You tell them that unless your critiques improve, you are out. Work on their feelings.

Most of the students like you and would hate to have you lose your job on account of them.

"After you finish that, you and Randy get in here. I want to talk to you both about that lab material you plagiarized."

When the panel had finished its brief examination of the dean, Diana simply said, "I have no questions." She understood the constraints he was under and appreciated how much he had tried, in spite of them, to help. He had given the panel some vital information. The question was, did they hear it?

Dean Broadhurst was excused and the next witness was called.

Chapter 13

Randy Fecesi sat in the witness chair and raised his hand for the oath with alacrity. He was going to enjoy this.

A wispy, rather nondescript person, his main aim in life apparently was to live up to his name. He sported a crew cut which bristled, much like his ever present bad temper, above bright beady eyes which were forever darting around undressing every female in sight.

Although he had some talent in research, having received a sizable grant, his conceit and arrogance got in the way of establis.h.i.+ng a rapport with students. It also prevented him from really understanding how very little he knew about radiology.

Henry had spent a great deal of time with Randy preparing him for today. It had been a harrowing ordeal. Perhaps the actual testifying would be more harrowing, Henry thought as he nervously reviewed to himself what he had learned about Randy from Lyle.

Randy had come to Belmont from a college in Ohio having sufficiently outstayed his welcome there. As is true in most college administrations, faculty s.e.xual misconduct was considered mere professorial peccadillo and was studiously overlooked. If a woman student appeared to be on the verge of making a fuss, administrators had a remedy called 'The Grievance Procedure'. Administrative personnel talked to the woman and were able to subtly or directly lead her to understand that problems would arise in her matriculation if she persisted with charges of s.e.xual hara.s.sment or rape.

If this didn't work, a brief investigation identified her friends and she was appraised of situations that might affect them should she remain recalcitrant. Most didn't.

This was all done under the aegis of Academic Freedom, mused Henry.

The principle of academic freedom evolved years ago. It sheltered serious scholars from the whims and avarice of the s.h.i.+fting politicians and their politics. Now it was made better use of. We administrators use it as a tool to circ.u.mvent trouble. Nearly all inst.i.tutions, battling the emergence of women and other minorities into the collegiate arena, use it to maintain the status quo and rightfully so, Henry decided.

Academic freedom was used to s.h.i.+eld the many ways we avoid compliance with both federal and state laws. If we opened ourself to public scrutiny, we'd never get anything done.

Universities are, were and should be a law unto themselves.

They can tolerate only those who are willing to make sometimes painful compromises. Those who could not, and were compelled to fight for so-called human rights and the original meaning of Academic Freedom, soon left or were not reappointed.

Randy Fecesi was, despite his foibles, a prime commodity.

He was funded. This made him much sought after since colleges were looking to capture research dollars. There was good reason for this, Henry noted. Because it paid better, colleges and universities had stopped putting the emphasis on teaching and instead, looked for research potential. This meant that candidates for a tenure-track position were not looked at for their teaching experience but for their ability to bring in research dollars.

Compet.i.tion was fierce among these inst.i.tutes of higher learning and much was done to attract suitable candidates.

Headhunting became a profitable business in academia.

For the last ten years, teaching had taken a back seat at Belmont.

Crowded cla.s.srooms attested to the lack of adequate teaching s.p.a.ce.

Much of the s.p.a.ce formerly a.s.signed as cla.s.srooms had been rebuilt into laboratories. At the medical school, prospective recruits were lured by promises of plenty of laboratory s.p.a.ce, unremitting stroking and very light teaching duties.

The reality was that once the entrant was hired, adulation ceased.

For Randy, this was a problem. In addition, he hadn't even tried to clean up his act and Lyle did nothing except encourage him to be pond sc.u.m, thought Henry. Randy expected the medical students to wors.h.i.+p him and instead they found him appalling because of his lack of expertise in the subject he taught and for his repeated, haughty demonstration of it.

Having his way with women took a beating too. Usually, he ignored any female who didn't fit his image of perfect enough for him to notice.

However, if he needed something, he would approach these females in a s.e.xual manner and was usually rebuffed.

Since Lyle had already established Trenchant as the whipping girl of the department, Randy readily fell in with this designation and laid all his problems at her door. When she refused to photograph the pictures in a radiology atlas, he was furious. He ran to Lyle and claimed that she was obstructing his efforts to modernize the course.

He neglected to tell Lyle that she had said she would be willing to do it if the publisher gave written permission.