Perhaps you've heard of Stacy Snyder. She was a 25 year old student pursuing a degree in education at Millersville University in Millersville Pennsylvania. Ms. Snyder has a MySpace page, and on it she had posted a picture of herself attending a Halloween costume party. She was wearing a T-shirt and a tiny pirate hat on her head, and drinking from a plastic cup. The caption under the picture said “Drunken Pirate.” As inappropriate pictures go, this one was pretty tame. I've seen it myself, and if the caption hadn't said “Drunken” you wouldn't have any idea at all what she was drinking, since she didn't look drunk.
Nonetheless she was reprimanded by the Dean of Education at Millersville University based on this picture, and was informed that it was unprofessional and encouraged underage drinking (note that she was not under age at the time the picture was taken.) She apologized. But apparently that wasn't good enough. On the evening before her graduation, she was informed that she would not be receiving a degree in education, and instead received a degree in English.
Just so we're clear, this bright young woman had a perfectly innocent picture of herself drinking from a cup on her MySpace page, with the caption “Drunken Pirate” underneath it, and because of this, her years and expense in college are for nothing and she cannot teach, which is all she ever wanted to do. Sounds a little harsh to me. It's not like she was falling down drunk and flashing herself at the camera while a guy poured beer on her.
So now Ms. Snyder is suing the university for $75,000 and her degree in education. I find myself thinking she deserves both. Now.
Unless this is specifically addressed in university policy or there's something we don't know, it's outrageous. I hope that her university comes to their senses, or that another university accepts her as a transfer and grants her a degree.
That is just insane. I hope she gets the money, her degree, and a job out of all of this. I agree with you 100%, that picture was tame by anyone's standards. And what are universities doing spending all their time on MySpace trying to bust their students anyway? Don't they have more pressing issues?
I love it. We've got universities employing professors that are teaching students that 9/11 was a government conspiracy and that George Bush actually detonated the towers himself, and here we have some woman screwed out of her degree because she posed as a “drunken pirate”. Yup, that's priorities for you.
Tom
These are both extreme examples (I've not heard of your first, I confess it sounds like a cliche but I'll reserve judgement until you post a reference). Most university faculty are far too intelligent and knowledgeable to be appreciated or even understood halfway by most university students. The insights that the history faculty post about current events on the faculty forum at UMD are fascinating. But I find most of my students are on a plane of ignorance and stupidity about fifty stories below, unable to string together two coherent English sentences, writing about Oprah Winfrey's “contribution to society,” or one girl who wrote about Condoleeza Rice's “honesty and integrity.” *snort*
Professor William Woodward of the University of New Hampshire is an unabashed member of the 9/11 conspiracy group. Here is a sample of the questionnaire he gives his students:
1. Why were warnings of the 9/11 attack ignored?
2. Who warned SF mayor Willie Brown not to fly to NYC on the morning of 9/11?
3. Who purchased record numbers of put options against United and American Airlines during the week preceding 9/11?
4. Why have only a few frames of video footage—none showing a jetliner—been released of the impact at the Pentagon? And why did the FBI confiscate gas station and hotel footage minutes after impact?
5. Why was no wreckage from a Boeing 757 found at the Pentagon?
6. Why wasn't the President removed from the classroom by the Secret Service when they knew the U.S. was under attack?
7. Why did the 9/11 report say the WTC core was hollow when it actually had 47 massive steel columns in the core of each tower?
8. Why do videos show people looking out of gaping holes in the WTC towers where it was supposedly hot enough to destroy structural steel?
9. Why was no one fired after 9/11—and why were the most “incompetent” people promoted?
10. How does a hijacker's passport survive a plane crash, a jet fuel inferno, and the collapse of a 110-story building, while the planes’ black boxes do not?
11. Why was the debris of the crashed 4th plane spread over miles?
12. Why was the Air Force intercept protocol made more difficult just prior to 9/11?
13. Why wasn't Ground Zero treated like any other crime scene?
14. Why was the World Trade Center steel debris sent to China unexamined?
15. Was the hijacked Pennsylvania plane shot down?
16. Why did Bush say he saw the 1st plane hit the World Trade Center on TV on 9/11 — when the video was not available until 9/12?
17. What hit the Pentagon?
18. Why did the pilot make a difficult 270 degree turn in the midst of an extremely steep and rapid descent to hit the least occupied side of the Pentagon instead of diving straight in?
19. How can at least 6 of the supposed 9/11 “suicide” hijackers be alive and living in Saudi Arabia?
20. Why did the Air Force make 67 intercepts in 2001 prior to 9/11, and 0 on 9/11?
21. Why did President Bush try to prevent a 9/11 investigation?
22. Why won't the FBI show us the surveillance tapes of what hit the Pentagon?
23. Why did the 47-story WTC Bldg 7 — not hit by a plane — collapse?
24. Why doesn't the 9/11 Report even mention WTC Bldg 7's collapse?
He's gone one many talk shows (radio and tv) and professed his belief that the US Government is the one responsible for bringing the towers down, not terrorists.
Tom
Here's a link to a Boston Globe article about him:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/09/10/a_muted_response_from_unh/
Of course the man is entitled to his opinion, but in MY opinion, it calls into question his ability to teach students objectively.
Tom
Okay. This is a university employing a professor, not universities employing professors. Asking your students questions that will make them think is a good thing.
I believe that the answers to these questions is a combination of incompetence and coincidence (gee, Bush got something wrong, when did that ever happen?), but what is your answer? Why exactly is this man unfit to teach?
I don't know what happened to my post. Here's the text of my original answer. I'm not sure why it got truncated:
I note that the Student Handbook of Millersville University states:
Students must be free from University restrictions at off-campus activities except in those cases where violations of state, federal or local ordinances occur.
Hmmm.
Tom:
I'm sorry I offended you with my wording. If you're going to make sweeping generalizations about university faculty, I think you need to back them up. When your generalization is a cliche, then I am even more suspicious of it. If I make a sweeping generalization, I would expect somebody to call me on it.
If you're going to claim “professors” and “universities,” then yes, you need to provide more than one example. But don't run out and look for more. Just ask yourself where that idea came from, and why you want to believe it. I'm not being condescending — it's advice I try to take myself. We all believe things because we want to believe them. It's hard to break that urge. When we see something in the media that confirms our underlying belief, we say, “Ha! Look! I was right.” It builds on our belief. It gives us a good feeling. But it's not a good thing if we ultimately want to build our wisdom. I get a real sense of anger from your comment, which makes me think you have a deep emotional investment in your belief. That's not good, because it makes your beliefs harder to revise.
The media skews our view of reality. That's because the bottom line with news media is selling advertising. They freely admit that — it's no secret. So they need to present what sells. They therefore focus on the most extreme and negative examples of what's in the news. They're not trying to give us an accurate picture of the world we live in. They're trying to get us to tune in or turn pages, as the case may be.
Therefore you can't conclude, when you see a story about one individual, that it can be generalized. If that were the case then I would think every five-year-old has wandered into the snow and either died or been rescued by his dog, that everyone who walks into a gay bar is either going to be murdered or will murder everyone in the place before committing suicide — you get the idea. We see the worst, not the average. The average is boring. The best is boring. Show us the worst.
This story about the faculty member is also completely irrelevant to the woman who was denied her degree because of a sexist and conservative standard of how women should behave. (I didn't read any stories of them taking away any men's degrees, but I'll bet we can find some examples of men engaging in the very same behavior, if not worse.) What does that woman at Millersville University have to do with a professor at the University of New Hampshire who believes in conspiracy theories? Nothing. It seems you're throwing together some idea of “universities are crazy and unfair places,” or some such.
Finally, yes, this man can teach my children! I want the smartest people available to teach my children, whether I agree with their ideas or not. That way, either my children learn why the person's idea is better than theirs, or my children learn to refute the best possible example of an idea they disagree with. Are you afraid to have somebody who disagrees with you teach your child?
Teach your children TO THINK. Don't teach them dogma. That's not going to get them anywhere. If they learn to think, then hopefully some day they'll come home and teach you. That is a truly satisfying experience.
Why is Bush not a terrorist, by the way? If this UNH guy is out there and possibly reaching the ears of your children, you might want to formulate a credible answer. “Hello, anyone home” doesn't win me over, and neither does “Um, no.” I'm leaning toward, as I said before, incompetence and the assignment of meaning to coincidence, but maybe Bush is a terrorist.
The original response to this comment was completely inappropriate. I have stated before on this blog that I expect people to treat each other with a modicum of respect.
This blog is the equivalent of my home, and the people who comment here are my guests. I know none of you would walk into my house and berate my guests, please don't do it here.
Nobody is accusing ANYONE of lying here. Anyone who thinks so is overreacting.
It is perfectly reasonable to ask someone to provide some background for a claim they make, especially when that claim appears to be a generalization. And generalizing in general, is not a good idea when having a discussion with another person whom you don't know very well.
You might, for example, be implying that there is a serious problem with universities and university professors in general to someone who happens to be a university professor like my friend Maggie. Or, if I were to post an article about a race car driver who went nuts and burned down a building, and then someone came along and said “what the heck is wrong with race car drivers these days?” those people on my blog who might happen to BE race car drivers might have a problem with that.
Good advice for any online conversation–begin by assuming the nicest possible interpretation of whatever the other person said… not the worst.
Well it looks like I didn't manage to delete that comment before it was read and responded to. I apologize if this thread has become confusing as a result of my attempt to enforce Unbecoming Levity's posted Ground Rules.
Prudishness gone amok!
Oh wait. Now that I see the picture, I realize it was justified. It was the “Mr. Goodbar” cup that put it over the top.