As someone said yesterday, he started a Chronicle forum thread about this to explain himself. Here's one of my favorite lines:
"I'm angry about this as a student, but as a Michigan taxpayer, I'm livid. I own this joker. I'm paying President Russi north of 350K a year and he can't make his staff play by their own rules. It may be time for some changes at the top."
Did you hear what he said? He's hired FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education); they're a first amendment student rights group AND THEY WIN. A LOT. We may mock Corlett, but might wind up running their English department when this is over.
FIRE is trying to make this about "Student suspended for writing in journal," but if you read the reporting, especially in the university paper, the story is actually "student suspended for being a harassy jerk". The journal business is part of a pattern of behaviour including following the prof and another student around, and other skeevy behaviour.
I know the whole thing is about Mr. Creepo being creepy, stalky, and generally resembling Jethro Tull's Aqualung (in action but not appearance), but FIRE has that singlemindedness that only fanatics can produce. If they lose, the school will be placed on their online database of "universities that restrict free speech"; if they win, the college is still on the list, but FIRE will send out a press release crowing about their success. It's like what De Niro says in "Casino": "The house always wins."
I'm no mental health expert, and I've only sampled the links posted here, but it seems to me this guy is feeding on the attention he's getting. I'm thinking Narcissist, and/or maybe the manic phase of bipolar? It also makes me think that telling him to stop -- which yes, needed to be part of the process of dealing with him, and apparently was -- wasn't going to do much good; after all, negative attention is still attention.
Good thing we're pseudonymous here, or he'd probably be suing me next.
I wonder what was on the 3 pages that were ripped out of his notes? Am hoping this case will get thrown out. I also hope his instructors are TT or tenured and that the university is supporting them.
I think the fact that he's arguing stuff like "the Head of Department didn't meet with me" when he met with people senior to said Head of Department is an indicator that the actual case doesn't have merits. "The Chair didn't meet with me" is not an excuse for writing a sexual essay about the prof. I would love to know if the prof is younger than the douche. I am betting she is, and that his grades weren't that good before this incident.
He seems to have been skeeving at more than one female instructor and at least one of them was younger than he was. As (who was it? F&T?) pointed out in another thread about this creep, this is the standard older male who can't stand to see authority held by younger females and responds sexually in order to diminish their authority by pointing out that HE has the DICK, AFTER ALL. So they're only receptacles, even if they think they're, you know, profs.
I think the university would not respond as strongly as it did (a year's suspension? that is actually a lot) if they didn't think there was considerable merit in the prof's position.
Update on Armond the A-hole: He attempted to petition for a grade change, ignoring the fact that he had earned his failing grade.
So he then doubled back and filed a formal grade appeal. He wrote a touching account of how the university was a total crock. No one he had encountered was worth a bucket of warm spit. And now he was thinking of withdrawing -- mere moments from graduating -- because a "belligerent, self-important, incompetent instructor failed him" (moi!) who has (single-handedly apparently) prevented him from graduating.
Um. I agree that I don't like Comic Sans, but I hope, WhatLadder that your comment does not imply that you feel that Comic Sans = flirtatious use of girly font = she was BEGGING for it, BEGGING to be skeeved at by some disgusting scumbag who took a writing exercise as an excuse to wave his pathetic excuse for a dick at his young female prof.
In fact, I don't think that use of Comic Sans = deserved to be the object of this pathetic creep's dick-waving.
For the record I don't think that wearing a short skirt = begging to be sexually assaulted, either.
But likely I'm making connections you never ever intended.
You're kidding, right? Comic Sans?! Corlett clearly has poor taste and a bad upbringing if he feels that a person who uses Comic Sans is in any way attractive.
No, I didn't mean she was asking for it at all, but looking at those instructions, she also didn't have what most of us have in our assignments, which are those kinds of Homer Simpson type warnings. There's a lot of "write whatever you feel" and no "remember this is for assessment, so maybe keep your penis and your racism to yourself".
The instructions make her seem a bit green/naive, because those of us who have been teaching long enough to encounter creative student stupidity would probably have some clear references to appropriateness.
The comic sans, heinous and beloved of elementary school teachers as it is, adds to the impression that she is not ready for prime time. I don't let my students hand stuff in in that font.
None of that excuses his behaviour if there was any more sexual stuff after she told him to stop, but I do think the instructions give a loophole for a FIRST INSTANCE of sexual writing.
You can always tell those early, trusting syllabi; the ones that assume that your students are adults and will show some common sense. And most of them will; it's the ones like Skeeve, here, that cause us, by the time we've been teaching for a few years, to have 5 page syllabi in 9 point font ...
Alright, I am going to wade into this, because I had written a comment several posts ago that got eaten. And I will probably get some smackdown.
I think touchy-feely reading journals are exploitative. I also think this guy is a douche, but that's neither here nor there. I think it is problematic to encourage students to explore their feelings or personal life as if this were a valid analytic method. In my own classes I require blog-type entries in a public forum, and I require students to read one another's entries and comments, precisely because I do not want to encourage confessions or personal disclosures aimed at me, and I want students to be accountable to what they say. I'm not saying that this instructor deserved what she got, but as WhatLadder says, assuming that students will not see a reading journal as a green light for eroticized "exchange" is naive. I'll even go one more and say that it's a misuse of power to demand that students get personal in an assessed,non-confidential format.
Alrighty then. As we were.
I say this, by the way, as a veteran of women's studies classes, where students were routinely solicited to get personal and then punished if the feelings offended the professor (and no, I am not a reactionary; I teach in that area myself now).
Having taken both women's studies and creative writing classes myself, I can honestly say the only place I was asked to write every day and share all my feelings was in the creative writing class taught by a man who was anything but feminist.
If anything, the problem here might well be a younger female professor trying to use techniques first developed by "dudes" to use in their classes with an older male student who just happens to be a power hungry douche.
No doubt this same assignment has worked just fine in the past, and she probably didn't want to change it based upon one person's enrollment.
Also, it's not fair to blame her for the administration's reaction. She did what she was supposed to, which is report behavior that is inappropriate. They took it far beyond that and into the next level. The student lays a lot of blame on her for his mistreatment (if such occurred)--let's not do the same thing.
I'm not blaming her per se; I'm blaming the "journal" at the college level. Let us analyze, not emote. Perhaps, though, we're of different generations of enforced feelings-sharing. Mine came from women.
The prof is said to be 49 years old. If that's right, she's not that much younger than him.
As others have pointed it, from the college's reaction this may not be his first instance of skeeving at female profs. Like MLP says, she did what she was supposed to do.
F&T, may I steal "analyze, not emote"? That is excellent!
@F&T - fully agree with you. Teaching Foreign Languages, I sometimes have to tell beginning students to talk about themselves -- the language learning sequence starts from self-experience and moves on. I make very clear that I don't care about truth, and that they are very welcome to make up a persona for self-description writing. And that, if the topic of the composition is "What did I do during the Summer" I don't care to learn neither about their sex life nor they bowel movements.
What was the term used yesterday for him? Douchebag. Yup.
ReplyDeleteNow it's a free speech issue? Okay.
As someone said yesterday, he started a Chronicle forum thread about this to explain himself. Here's one of my favorite lines:
ReplyDelete"I'm angry about this as a student, but as a Michigan taxpayer, I'm livid. I own this joker. I'm paying President Russi north of 350K a year and he can't make his staff play by their own rules. It may be time for some changes at the top."
Does the Fox network have an education channel?
ReplyDeleteGive him his own TV show (co-host: Sarah Grunfeld).
He's dirty.
ReplyDeleteDid you hear what he said? He's hired FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education); they're a first amendment student rights group AND THEY WIN. A LOT. We may mock Corlett, but might wind up running their English department when this is over.
ReplyDeleteFIRE is trying to make this about "Student suspended for writing in journal," but if you read the reporting, especially in the university paper, the story is actually "student suspended for being a harassy jerk". The journal business is part of a pattern of behaviour including following the prof and another student around, and other skeevy behaviour.
DeleteI know the whole thing is about Mr. Creepo being creepy, stalky, and generally resembling Jethro Tull's Aqualung (in action but not appearance), but FIRE has that singlemindedness that only fanatics can produce. If they lose, the school will be placed on their online database of "universities that restrict free speech"; if they win, the college is still on the list, but FIRE will send out a press release crowing about their success. It's like what De Niro says in "Casino": "The house always wins."
DeleteI'm no mental health expert, and I've only sampled the links posted here, but it seems to me this guy is feeding on the attention he's getting. I'm thinking Narcissist, and/or maybe the manic phase of bipolar? It also makes me think that telling him to stop -- which yes, needed to be part of the process of dealing with him, and apparently was -- wasn't going to do much good; after all, negative attention is still attention.
ReplyDeleteGood thing we're pseudonymous here, or he'd probably be suing me next.
I need to wash after seeing this.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what was on the 3 pages that were ripped out of his notes? Am hoping this case will get thrown out. I also hope his instructors are TT or tenured and that the university is supporting them.
ReplyDeleteI think the fact that he's arguing stuff like "the Head of Department didn't meet with me" when he met with people senior to said Head of Department is an indicator that the actual case doesn't have merits. "The Chair didn't meet with me" is not an excuse for writing a sexual essay about the prof. I would love to know if the prof is younger than the douche. I am betting she is, and that his grades weren't that good before this incident.
ReplyDeleteHe seems to have been skeeving at more than one female instructor and at least one of them was younger than he was. As (who was it? F&T?) pointed out in another thread about this creep, this is the standard older male who can't stand to see authority held by younger females and responds sexually in order to diminish their authority by pointing out that HE has the DICK, AFTER ALL. So they're only receptacles, even if they think they're, you know, profs.
DeleteI think the university would not respond as strongly as it did (a year's suspension? that is actually a lot) if they didn't think there was considerable merit in the prof's position.
OMG! It's Armond the Author.
ReplyDeleteUpdate on Armond the A-hole: He attempted to petition for a grade change, ignoring the fact that he had earned his failing grade.
So he then doubled back and filed a formal grade appeal. He wrote a touching account of how the university was a total crock. No one he had encountered was worth a bucket of warm spit. And now he was thinking of withdrawing -- mere moments from graduating -- because a "belligerent, self-important, incompetent instructor failed him" (moi!) who has (single-handedly apparently) prevented him from graduating.
Didn't know he transferred already!
Wait, did anyone notice of Corlett included a business named copyright notice on the pages of his notebook?
DeleteI just noticed the prof's instructions were in comic sans, which SEVERELY reduced my sympathy for her.
DeleteUm. I agree that I don't like Comic Sans, but I hope, WhatLadder that your comment does not imply that you feel that Comic Sans = flirtatious use of girly font = she was BEGGING for it, BEGGING to be skeeved at by some disgusting scumbag who took a writing exercise as an excuse to wave his pathetic excuse for a dick at his young female prof.
DeleteIn fact, I don't think that use of Comic Sans = deserved to be the object of this pathetic creep's dick-waving.
For the record I don't think that wearing a short skirt = begging to be sexually assaulted, either.
But likely I'm making connections you never ever intended.
You're kidding, right? Comic Sans?! Corlett clearly has poor taste and a bad upbringing if he feels that a person who uses Comic Sans is in any way attractive.
DeleteNo, I didn't mean she was asking for it at all, but looking at those instructions, she also didn't have what most of us have in our assignments, which are those kinds of Homer Simpson type warnings. There's a lot of "write whatever you feel" and no "remember this is for assessment, so maybe keep your penis and your racism to yourself".
ReplyDeleteThe instructions make her seem a bit green/naive, because those of us who have been teaching long enough to encounter creative student stupidity would probably have some clear references to appropriateness.
The comic sans, heinous and beloved of elementary school teachers as it is, adds to the impression that she is not ready for prime time. I don't let my students hand stuff in in that font.
None of that excuses his behaviour if there was any more sexual stuff after she told him to stop, but I do think the instructions give a loophole for a FIRST INSTANCE of sexual writing.
You can always tell those early, trusting syllabi; the ones that assume that your students are adults and will show some common sense. And most of them will; it's the ones like Skeeve, here, that cause us, by the time we've been teaching for a few years, to have 5 page syllabi in 9 point font ...
DeleteAlright, I am going to wade into this, because I had written a comment several posts ago that got eaten. And I will probably get some smackdown.
ReplyDeleteI think touchy-feely reading journals are exploitative. I also think this guy is a douche, but that's neither here nor there. I think it is problematic to encourage students to explore their feelings or personal life as if this were a valid analytic method. In my own classes I require blog-type entries in a public forum, and I require students to read one another's entries and comments, precisely because I do not want to encourage confessions or personal disclosures aimed at me, and I want students to be accountable to what they say. I'm not saying that this instructor deserved what she got, but as WhatLadder says, assuming that students will not see a reading journal as a green light for eroticized "exchange" is naive. I'll even go one more and say that it's a misuse of power to demand that students get personal in an assessed,non-confidential format.
Alrighty then. As we were.
I say this, by the way, as a veteran of women's studies classes, where students were routinely solicited to get personal and then punished if the feelings offended the professor (and no, I am not a reactionary; I teach in that area myself now).
Having taken both women's studies and creative writing classes myself, I can honestly say the only place I was asked to write every day and share all my feelings was in the creative writing class taught by a man who was anything but feminist.
ReplyDeleteIf anything, the problem here might well be a younger female professor trying to use techniques first developed by "dudes" to use in their classes with an older male student who just happens to be a power hungry douche.
No doubt this same assignment has worked just fine in the past, and she probably didn't want to change it based upon one person's enrollment.
Also, it's not fair to blame her for the administration's reaction. She did what she was supposed to, which is report behavior that is inappropriate. They took it far beyond that and into the next level. The student lays a lot of blame on her for his mistreatment (if such occurred)--let's not do the same thing.
I'm not blaming her per se; I'm blaming the "journal" at the college level. Let us analyze, not emote. Perhaps, though, we're of different generations of enforced feelings-sharing. Mine came from women.
ReplyDeleteThe prof is said to be 49 years old. If that's right, she's not that much younger than him.
ReplyDeleteAs others have pointed it, from the college's reaction this may not be his first instance of skeeving at female profs. Like MLP says, she did what she was supposed to do.
F&T, may I steal "analyze, not emote"? That is excellent!
@F&T - fully agree with you. Teaching Foreign Languages, I sometimes have to tell beginning students to talk about themselves -- the language learning sequence starts from self-experience and moves on. I make very clear that I don't care about truth, and that they are very welcome to make up a persona for self-description writing. And that, if the topic of the composition is "What did I do during the Summer" I don't care to learn neither about their sex life nor they bowel movements.
ReplyDelete