Sexual Harassment: "Trust us!"

[FYI: There has been a long, heated debate over SIUC's sexual harassment policies and procedures. For a list of blog entries, click here ]

"Report Everything!" "Trust Us!" "Ignore the Procedures!"

Those three phrases sum up a sexual harassment workshop I attended in the College of Liberal Arts. Linda McCabe-Smith (Associate Chancellor of Diversity) and Deborah Nelson (Associate General Counsel) did most of the talking.

Disclosure: I have worked with Linda (on the Chancellor's Affirmative Action Advisory Committee); she is a professional with more common sense than most diversity officials. (Her office has also funded my travel to give presentations on black business history). However, the existing procedures place her (and us) "between a rock and a hard place." She acknowledged that the current procedures are "awful" and things would change under her watch. However, the procedures are still binding. The unions are bargaining and I would urge them to bargain hard for equitable procedures.

In short, we received the following counsel:

*"Report everything" (even if you think it is nothing): the presenters could have spent more time on threshold levels. True, it is up to them to decide cases based on legal standards (thresholds): sexual harassment must be "severe, persistent or pervasive" AND "substantially interferes" with the complainant's ability to work or learn. But the "report everything" mantra may backfire if people do not know (or appreciate) those standards. Individuals may be less likely to report if they think the threshold is so low that trivial things will end up destroying someone's career.

*Don't take the present procedures seriously because they will change (although they are still in effect!). Meanwhile . . .

*Trust us!

While I respect Smith's judgment, we need sensible procedures in place that "balance the rights" of the accuser and the accused. We cannot rely on the judgment of one person. Nelson used the term "balancing rights" throughout but her presentation was laden with "defensive lawyering": we must be firm to protect the University from lawsuits. The law requires policies and procedures but it doesn't require the kind that have caused so much trouble at SIUC.

The current procedures reflect a prosecutorial attitude: 98% of the relevant text is devoted to complainants: how to maintain the privacy (anonymity?) of complainants, advice to supervisors on using prosecutorial "tricks" to entrap the accused, and vague passing references to the rights of the accused (two murky sentences repeated throughout the "Resource Guides"!).

Does the respondent have the right to know the identity of the accuser, the specific charges, etc.? Past experience is rife with complaints by anonymous individuals, redacted reports, and a general policy of "keep the accused in the dark." Nelson stated that she would give "dates, times, names" to the accused. The question I will ask of her (and report back here): when? In a previous presentation before the Faculty Senate, Associate General Counsel Phylecia Cole presented her office's practice on divulging information to the accused. I summarized it in this passage (available in the above link):

Professors were a bit taken aback by the Powerpoint slide indicating that Legal Counsel would hand over documents to the accused IF A COURT ORDERED THEM TO DO SO. Otherwise, everything is secret. Look up "Star Chamber".

In other words, you have the right to know your accuser if you have the resources to sue us. On this point, see the following post by SIU law professor Leonard Gross: "The Right to Know Your Accuser."

There is a big difference between firm statements against sexual harassment and the present procedures which flagrantly ignore any rights of the accused. The 80 pages of procedures, available here offer 7 avenues for complainants to take against respondents. At all levels, those taking complaints should "express sympathy in a neutral manner." That is all to the good. But when it comes to the accused: "be prepared for anger, denials and defensiveness." The guide then offers ways to prosecute the accused in the initial interview:

“Be very specific about any admissions of certain behaviors . . .”

"If applicable, state that disciplinary action may include the employee’s discharge or student’s expulsion from the university” [squeezing respondent]

“Often discussing the behavior with the respondent, without labeling it as harassment will result in him/her admitting to it.” Gotcha! “Then, if appropriate, sexual harassment can be used to label the behavior and you can explain how it violates the University’s policy.” (BEFORE decision is rendered?!)

The charges may be "insufficient" to take action against the accused but fear not: you may find that "the behavior violated another policy, so disciplinary action is warranted.” This passage reminds me of the ever-shifting "extrajudicial reprisals" described by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in Gulag Archipelago (see his chapters on the perversion of the law).

and on it goes.

As for assembling a defense, the Resource Guides offer the following to the accused:

BEFORE A FINDING: two short sentences:

“Respondent may consult with an adviser to learn his/her available options”

Investigators “will afford the respondent a full opportunity to respond to the allegations.”

That's it! Contrast that with the detailed coaching complainants may receive: complaints may be oral (and thus change). The procedures state: "any oral complaint must later be put in writing.” But they allude to questioning the accused with only an oral complaint in hand. The accused, the procedures state, is likely to be emotional so why present anything in writing that might let him/her escape the prosecutors? Wink, wink, nod, nod.

AFTER THE SENTENCE:

”After a finding has been made and disciplinary action recommended, respondent may file a grievance in accordance with the applicable grievance procedure.”

While the advice and protection given to the complainant takes up many pages, the respondent may file a grievance. Where? Against whom? How?

These questions are for Associate Chancellor Smith and Counselor Nelson:

*Where does the "learning environment" begin and end?

*What information will be given to the accused? Will it be redacted? If so, what information will be redacted and why?

*Does the accused have a right to cross examine the accuser and other witnesses?

*What is the appeal process? The grievance procedure discusses faculty filing against the "administrative officer who made the initial decision"--what does that mean in the context of sexual harassment?

*SIU issues reports to state agencies on the number and type of sexual harassment cases. Are those available to the public at large?

*"False and malicious" complaints: is this the unicorn of sexual harassment cases? This threshold is almost impossible to prove. "False and malicious" is far harder to prove than frivolous -- frivolous is allowed! If this unicorn does appear on campus, the procedures state that “any complaint made falsely and/or maliciously will result in discipline to the complainant.” What is the process?

PLEASE BE SPECIFIC WITH REGARD TO ANSWERING THESE QUESTIONS IN THE FINAL PROCEDURES!

This blog is not taking the side of the accused or the accuser. It is trying to "balance rights" (Nelson's phrase). We do not need to ask these questions on behalf of complainants because the procedures already answer them in great detail.

Trust is important. But it is not enough. As Ronald Reagan said: "trust but verify."

I urge the Faculty Senate and the unions to remain vigilant.

Update on Windmill Turbine: Taxpayer Money at Stake

Ryan Klopf, Green Fund Committee Chairman, responded to my request for information on funding. Where was the Green Fund/SIU going to get millions of dollars if not from the government? His response suggests that the project is funded by the state and federal government. He emailed me:

[I'd] like to let you know that in addition to support from the green fund, the project has also obtained funding from the Illinois Clean Energy Foundation and the IL DCEO / US DOE / Recovery Act.

A few million dollars added to state and federal deficits will seem like pocket change to politicians accustomed to billions and trillions. It is time to remember, paraphrasing a quote attributed to the late Senator Everett Dirksen (R-IL), "a million here, a million there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."

News item from Klopf:

"The Wind Turbine Forum I mentioned in my previous email is on Tuesday, September 28 from 7PM - 9PM in the Student Center auditorium."

Wind Turbine: Blowing $ at the Wind?

In a recent Daily Egyptian story, the "Green Fund" on campus, funded by a $10 student fee, boasted of a wind turbine that would cost $6 million and save $9 million for the university.

This story didn't pass the smell test on several counts:

First, the student fee raises $200,000 (approx.) per year. At that rate, it would take 30 years to accrue $6 million dollars.

Second, the "Green Fund" web site has no link that I could find to its "feasibility study." I emailed for more information but have yet to hear back from the Fund or the reporter who did the story.

I did find the following:

"Wind Power

In 2007 PSO began a study to determine the feasibility of constructing a wind power generation facility on campus. Preliminary performance estimates support a 2.5 megawatt turbine, which could reduce our main campus electric purchases from AmerenCIPS by 4%. This reduction amounts to an annual purchase offset of 3,547,800 kWh, saving nearly $225,000 per year in electrical cost at our current rates. Assuming that electric rates track inflation, the present value of the energy savings over the 30-year projected life of the turbine would be approximately $6,750,000."

Here the cost savings are not $9 million but $6.75 million over thirty years! Factor in inflation and the ROI (return on investment) is probably negative -- assuming that these forecasts are accurate.

Third, no one has asked the Jerry Maguire question: "Show me the money!"

Where is SIUC going to get $6 million? A long-term bond? Add the interest to the cost of this project. "Free" money from the federal government? When the federal government has NO money other than that it borrows from the Chinese or effectively prints?

So far, the SIU Green Fund has stuck with conservation and avoided the radicalization of other "Sustainability" programs. All to the good.

However, before the SIU Board of Trustees signs off on six million bond or federal grant, let's ask some hard questions about this project.

I'm happy to post the comments of any one involved with the Green Fund. Fire away!

University Posts Course Syllabi Online

The Pope Center posts a column on how a North Carolina university is posting all course syllabi for students to review before choosing their courses.

Three years ago, I made the same recommendation in the Daily Egyptian and -whoa! -- the furious response: "Pandering to the peons" (students)! "This is one step closer to McCarthyism!" Sheesh. Posting syllabi online is proto-fascist? Get a grip.

Seems this common sense proposal is spreading -- and worth considering (again) here at Southern Illinois University. As a former academic adviser, this was one of those legitimate student complaints ("the course didn't match the catalog description!"). All I could recommend was trying to request syllabi (past or present) for a course. But you know if a professor (me) gets toasted for recommending it, imagine the fate of a freshman requesting "please, Professor, may I see the syllabus for the course?"

Post the syllabi with the proviso that it may be changed or updated at the discretion of the instructor. This isn't rocket science. It is good manners.

For professors, it is also a great rebuttal to unfounded student complaints that there is "too much reading" or "too much writing" (whine): "Hey, kid, you knew what you were signing up for when you read the syllabus. Now get to work!"

Billionaires Back Free Textbook Movement

In 2009, I blogged on the budding movement for open-source and free textbooks coming on the market. The latter (commercially free) often hope to make money by charging for the printing of online texts.

The movement has moved ahead sluggishly with little financial support.

Enter two tech billionaires: the founders of Sun Microsystems--Scott McNealy and Vinod Khosia. They are devoting their philanthropy to replacing the $200 textbook with free alternatives AND getting these texts accredited by California and Texas, the two "gatekeepers" of the textbook publishing market (K-12).

Look for rapid movement at the K-12 level and some progress in the college textbook market. Whether the textbook oligopoly can block competition with political influence is another matter.

For more, see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/technology/01ping.html?src=busln

and

http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome

Supreme Court: No Privacy on State Phones, Computers, Email

I blogged about a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision over at NASblog.org

Bringing a private laptop or wi-fi device to work (for private phone calls/emails) would be useless if your university (like mine) has a closed VPN -- software that allows you access to the institution's wireless.

Fortunately, most universities have some "Rule of Reason" but, as they used to say on Hill Street Blues:

"Hey, let's be careful out there!"

Race to the Bottom: SIU's "Historic" Dumbing Down of Education

Today I read an amazing column on the front page of the Daily Egyptian. The thumbnail translation: "Academic standards? Are you crazy?! We have a 'historic' commitment to keeping standards low. We cannot turn away any one."

This "Race to the Bottom" (an inversion of Obama's "Race to the Top") is achieving its aim: more special admits who will never graduate from SIU-C. The Center for Academic Success (CAS) serves (at no small cost) 3% of the student body. Yet 60% of our entering freshmen will never graduate (IPEDs six-year graduation data). How is this compassionate?

If lowering standards was the key to increased enrollment, our classrooms would be packed. Those interviewed concede that enrollment has declined for ten years while it has increased at other schools. Yet they remain committed to cheating the ill-prepared of their money and the well-prepared of a rigorous education.

It is an open secret -- and Interim Provost Don Rice alludes to it -- that a SIU degree is losing its value. We are getting a "reputation" for accepting everyone. Every incoming chancellor wraps this sad fact in maintaining our "historic mission." It is reminiscent of those Party apparatchiks in the late 1980s who maintained that East Germany must maintain its mission. That worked out well.

"SIUC Chancellor Rita Cheng said students who may need a little encouragement and help, such as supplemental instruction and tutoring, can succeed at SIUC."

A "little"?! Those of us in the trenches are trying to teach a mix of students: half who need a lot of "remediation." The other half are deprived of a solid education. It is demoralizing.

Let's face facts: we need a "remedial track" with courses for the half that need a "little" help. How can we teach a class that contains students with an ACT of 14 -- the cut off for the remedial CAS?

CAS is a one-year program that begins by reviewing a student’s class rank and ACT score.

“I usually don’t take a student that has anything below a 14 ACT score,” Williams said.

I went to the ACT web site and looked up a composite score of 14. It places a student in the bottom ten percent of all test takers! In math, it places a student in the bottom 6%.

Who are we kidding? We feel good about our "mission" but this mantra reminds me of a book subtitled "Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy." If your policy keeps failing your institution, your clientele, your staff then self-congratulation is a grotesque joke played on all parties.

I will end by quoting from the opening lines of FDR's first inaugural address.

"This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today."

Let's stop "shrinking" from reality. After all, "reality is not optional."

Profile in Cowardice: Allah is Great! Die South Park Die!

Crosspost from my Beacon blog:

http://www.independent.org/blog/?p=5924

Freedom from Bad Academic Writing

The following column on George Orwell's advice to free students from bad academic writing is worth reading:

http://chronicle.com/article/Bad-WritingBad-Thinking/65031/?sid=ja&utm_source=ja&utm_medium=en

In two decades of teaching, I have worked with exceptionally bright undergraduates. Once they enter graduate school, however, they conform to the "smelly little orthodoxies" of theory and the jargon-ridden writing of their discipline. I've always despised jargon that deadens prose and will be passé by the time these young conformists hit old age. Future generations will have to decipher why words and phrases such as "subaltern," "post-structuralist," "late capitalism" meant to the scribbling class of early 21st century academics.

The advice Orwell gives is similar to advice Winston Churchill gave on good writing. This passage says it best (from Orwell, "Politics and the English Language"):

"Orwell leaves us with a list of simple rules:

* Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

* Never use a long word where a short one will do.

* If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

* Never use the passive where you can use the active.

* Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

* Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

I am posting this for my own students and as a reminder to myself (fallen creature that I am).

"The Grades are In": ACTA on SIU-Carbondale

MODERATOR'S NOTE:

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has written a report card rating colleges, including SIU-C. The energetic head of ACTA, Anne Neal, will be on campus this Thursday to talk about college affordability. Given the timely nature of this report and Neal's appearance on campus, I asked David Azerrad, Program Officer for ACTA to write a guest blog:

"The grades are in"

Professor Bean has been kind enough to invite the American Council of Trustees and Alumni to write a guest blog post to highlight the findings of our recent report card on public higher education in Illinois.

In the report card, we evaluated 10 public four-year universities, including SIU-Carbondale, and concluded that, on the whole, they find themselves on an unsustainable course.

Tuition and fees are spiraling out of control—they increased by an average of 56 percent during the five year period we surveyed. Graduation rates remain woefully low. No university requires the crucial subjects of economics and American history. Most don’t require college-level math either (SIU-Carbondale, to its credit, does). And significant numbers of students report an intellectual climate that is not conducive to a robust exchange of ideas—almost a third of students at UIUC and SIU-Carbondale report perceived pressure to agree with a professor’s social or political views in order to get a good grade in certain classes. On the whole, the picture that emerges is one in which costs continue to rise with no attending increase in academic quality.

We did note a couple of bright spots. All universities ensure students graduate having taken a composition class and most, including SIU-Carbondale, also have a natural science requirement. The state’s public universities have also rightly made instructional spending take precedence over administrative spending in their budgets.

Much, however, remains to be done to promote affordability.

On this note, readers may also be interested to note that ACTA president Anne D. Neal will be in Carbondale on Thursday to speak at the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute conference on college affordability.

The event is free and open to the public.