Category Archives: Faculty

Des Moines Register: Missing U of I professor is dead, kin think

Iowa City, Ia. – The family of a University of Iowa professor who disappeared earlier this week amid charges he accepted bribes of sexual favors from students for better grades believes he is dead.

Police for two days scoured a 185-acre wooded park for Arthur H. Miller, 66, who was believed to be suicidal and possibly to have a rifle. They found no clues. A park employee saw Miller, a political science professor, walk into the park with a blanket Tuesday morning, and his BMW was found at a park entrance with a cell phone, wallet and ammunition inside.

Follow

The Chronicle: Proportion of Professors Hired as Couples Rises, Study Finds

Thirty-six percent of professors at the nation’s leading universities have partners who are also professors, and the proportion of faculty members who are hired as couples is on the rise. But even the nation’s top research universities usually hire academic couples without written guidelines, raising questions about fairness and academic standards.

Follow

Kansas City Star: UMKC professors discuss resignations, deny harassment allegations

Two UMKC professors accused of sexual harassment said they resigned this week to protect their families and because they could no longer afford to defend themselves against the university.

Psychology professors S. Carlos Poston II and C. Keith Haddock talked publicly for the first time about the case after the University of Missouri-Kansas City announced on Monday that they had agreed to resign rather than face tenure-revocation and dismissal proceedings against them.

Follow

The Chronicle: A Professor Is in the Hot Seat After Mooning Debate Judges

A debate coach for Fort Hays State University, in Kansas, is under review by the institution after he swore at officials and mooned judges at a tournament earlier this year, in an incident that was recorded and uploaded to YouTube.

The coach, William Shanahan III, a professor of communication, got into a shouting match with a judge—and at one point briefly dropped his pants—during the national tournament of the Cross Examination Debate Association, which was held in Kansas this spring. A video recording of the incident was posted to YouTube last week, drawing thousands of views, attention from the national news media, and calls to the university from alumni and others demanding that it fire the professor for his behavior.

Inside Higher Ed: A Debate Performance Laid Bare

It’s a performance that gives new meaning to the word “cross-examination.”

An argument between two debate coaches escalates into a war of words, each showering the other with a string of obscenities before an audience of seemingly unfazed students. Before long, one coach has mooned the other, and the video — posted to YouTube — continues recording the spectacle of two communication professors stomping their feet, flailing their arms and shouting at the top of their lungs.

Follow

Las Cruces Sun-News: NMSU, fired professors in another fight

LAS CRUCES — In the ongoing dispute between two dismissed professors and New Mexico State University, John Moraros and Yelena Bird now say they are being threatened with revocation of their graduate degrees.

The university claims the two never submitted proof that they were awarded Doctor of Medicine degrees from the Universidad Aut-noma de Ciudad Juárez in 2002. The discovery was part of “a routine audit,” according to almost identical July
Advertisement
14 letters to Moraros and Bird from Valerie Pickett, director of the Office of Enrollment Management. Pickett was not available Wednesday for comment.

“Our records indicate that we do have a transcript listing the majority of your previous course work, however we do not have a final transcript indicating a Doctor of Medicine degree was awarded to you,” both the letters read.

Follow

Globe and Mail: York profs say they weren’t told about threats for three days

A man claiming to be a student expelled from York University made threatening phone calls to Toronto police this week, saying he’d “blow up the school” and shoot people on campus, citing a professor he blamed for his expulsion, officers say.

But yesterday, three days after the first threat, the York University Faculty Association, representing professors, hadn’t been told that one of its members was directly threatened.

“We weren’t informed as to the exact details of the threat,” Arthur Hilliker, YUFA’s president, said in a statement to The Globe and Mail.

Follow

The Chronicle: Firebombs Hit House and Car of 2 Santa Cruz Researchers in Separate Attacks

The home of a molecular biologist at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a car parked in the driveway at the home of another of the university’s researchers were damaged by intentionally set fires early Saturday in separate incidents that the university said appeared to be “criminal acts of anti-science violence.”

Santa Cruz police investigators have classified the house fire, which was set by a firebomb on the porch, as an act of domestic terrorism and are treating it as an attempted homicide.

Follow

Santa Cruz Sentinel: Firebombed UCSC researcher speaks out

SANTA CRUZ — The FBI today is expected to take over the investigation of the Saturday morning firebombings of a car and of a Westside home belonging to two UC Santa Cruz biomedical researchers who conduct experiments on animals.

Santa Cruz police officials said Sunday the case will be handed to the FBI to investigate as domestic terrorism while local authorities explore additional security measures for the 13 UCSC researchers listed in a threatening animal-rights pamphlet found in a downtown coffee shop last week.

Follow

Santa Cruz Sentinel: Two firebombings target UCSC researchers

SANTA CRUZ — Firebombs were intentionally set on a porch and in a car belonging to two UC Santa Cruz researchers in separate incidents early Saturday in what police have classified as acts of domestic terrorism.

Police are calling one of the bombings an attempted homicide.

Follow

Santa Cruz Sentinel: Pamphlets targeting UCSC researchers found at coffee shop

SANTA CRUZ – Threatening pamphlets publishing the personal information of UC Santa Cruz biomedical researchers were found at a downtown coffee shop late Tuesday night, police disclosed Wednesday.

Police spokesman Zach Friend said a customer at Caffe Pergolesi, 418 Cedar St., gave police the stack of about a dozen pamphlets, saying the papers had been left by an unknown person. The flyers, which police are investigating as threats of a possible attack following a string of incidents this winter, target scientists who use mice, fruit flies and other animals in their work.

Follow

Daily Herald: College won’t reinstate teacher who was wrongly accused of crime

A former College of Lake County instructor who was falsely accused of sexually assaulting a student will not be reinstated, school officials confirmed Friday.

During a closed-door meeting this week, the school board opted not to reverse its March ruling to end the teacher’s employment at the Grayslake-based college.

The decision not to reinstate the teacher, who has not been publicly identified, was unrelated to the false allegations against him or to his job performance, CLC officials said.

Follow

The Chronicle News Blog: Bible Professor Will Leave Seminary Instead of Facing Hearing

A tenured professor at Westminster Theological Seminary who faced a hearing next month to determine if he would be dismissed is leaving on August 1 under what the Pennsylvania seminary called “mutually agreeable terms,” according to a statement on its Web site. The professor, Peter Enns, who taught the Old Testament at the seminary, wrote a book expressing the view that human beings shaped the Bible. The institution’s Board of Trustees suggested that the idea was contrary to the conservative seminary’s faculty oath.

Follow

Boston Globe: Money woes close Antioch; faculty still teaching

DAYTON, Ohio—Former faculty at Antioch College, which is temporarily closing amid financial problems, plan to teach in coffee shops, bookstores and parks to keep alive the spirit of the private school known for its pioneering academic programs.

Follow

San Antonio Express-News: E-mails detail UTSA professor’s fantasies

After a day of teaching, Ronald Ayers would shut the door to his office at the University of Texas at San Antonio — packed with newspapers, books and rotting food — and surf the Internet for pornography.

Follow