With usual removal of some sigs, e-mail addresses, formatting changes, etc.
From: "Hobson, Janell C"
Subject: RE: Women's Studies Department could help, possibly?
Date: July 11, 2012 8:50:11 AM EDT
To: Christopher Philippo
Hi Chris,
First, congratulations on graduating this year! Second, thanks for making us aware of this sad ordeal you've been dealing with (which department is responsible?).
All I can say, considering the different avenues you took to address this issue, is: let it go and move on.
One thing I've learned in this life: pick your battles.
And another thing: the best revenge is doing well. (Now that you've graduated, be the bigger person)
Unfortunately, it's hard to fight an established person of authority - you literally need an army to do so (i.e. a huge group of students who filed similar complaints - other wise, it gets reduced to a "your word against his" scenario).
Think: Jerry Sandusky (no way would he have ever gotten a conviction if he didn't have 10 victims come forward with the same story of sexual assault).
If there is a lesson learned: know that, next time, when a professor behaves badly, confront that instructor in class head on, in front of everyone, and make them aware of their offense. If that professor takes it out on you, or you feel some kind of retaliation, then drop the class and report the incident to his department chair.
At any rate, there's always RATE YOUR PROFESSOR. You as students always have the power of "word of mouth" to warn other students about potentially troubling instructors.
The thing is: Academic Freedom is hugely enforced in higher education, and we as professors do need to feel we are free to express ourselves without fear. So, unless you have an army of students telling a professor what he/she is doing is offensive, it's hard to challenge someone on their bad behavior.
In other words, when you pick your next battle (as I'm sure there will be battles), either get corroboration from others or let it go and move on.
I'm sorry this experience has marred your perspectives on UAlbany, but I still say Congratulations! And be the bigger person. Be everything your professor was not - ethical, fair minded, and respectful to women and minorities.
If this professor is so horrible, enough students WILL talk about it and learn to avoid him. Everything at this university is now about enrollments, so if his class suffers from low enrollments as a result, the administration will start looking into what problems he might be having.
That's all you can do.
Thanks again for alerting us of this. And SPREAD THE WORD! "Rate Your Professor" is there for a reason!
Best,
Professor Hobson
Graduate Director
Department of Women's Studies
http://www.albany.edu/faculty/jhobson
From: Christopher Philippo
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2012 1:09 AM
To: Eubanks, Virginia; Hobson, Janell C; Ng, Vivien W; Sutton, Barbara
Subject: Women's Studies Department could help, possibly?
I'd been a Film Studies/Women's Studies double minor at UA, but out of practical considerations regarding time and money, I dropped my double major and minor, and thus dropped Women's Studies. Nevertheless, I'd enjoyed the WSS courses I'd taken greatly, and in retrospect wish I'd taken Janell Hobson's suggestion to switch my major to Women's Studies with a concentration in Art, Media, and Justice. I graduated this year, finally. I didn't attend commencement, expressing myself in poetry instead: http://blog.timesunion.com/asp/2458/2458/
My reason for writing is perhaps an odd one:
Have you received a copy of, or been notified of, a December 9, 2011 cease and desist order with no expiration date; mentioning no hearing, trial, or conviction; and affording no opportunity to appeal, prohibiting me from entering the entire Social Sciences building?
I'd reported a professor for permitting students to commit academic dishonesty, for requiring teaching assistants to commit academic dishonesty (e.g. writing his lectures and lecture notes for him which he would then present as his own work, not acknowledging their authorship or even their assistance), for committing faculty ethics violations, for engaging in sexual harassment - joking about sexual penetration, about "the Playboy show," about voyeuristic stalking with a camera, and worst of all his joke or bizarre hypothetical about how "we" (the class) "could hook up [one of his TAs whom he named] to electrodes and shock her until she screams" - a TA who is a young, petite Asian female foreign national who knows English as a second language, and for engaging in retaliation for my having reported those things.
The result was that nothing was done about the professor, but I was given a cease and desist order prohibiting me, strangely, from entering the entire Social Sciences building but leaving me free to go anywhere else on campus, even to stand just outside the Social Sciences building. On the face of it, that just doesn't make a lick of sense. If the cease and desist order is real, I'd have to presume everybody who works in the Social Sciences building was sent a copy of the order and a photo of me, so that they'd know to call UPD if they saw me in the building or trying to enter it. I doubt if any of you know anything about any of this, but I thought I'd ask.
I'd filed a US Freedom of Information Act/NY Freedom of Information Law/NY Personal Privacy Protection Law request with UPD. They told me they had no December 9, 2011 document. I told them I doubted the order was valid; they did not contradict me in any way, which if they really had the order, really were enforcing it, and wanted me to comply with it, they presumably would have contradicted me at that point.
As they presumably would not wish to violate those state and federal laws, one might presume UPD told me the truth, and the person who sent me the cease and desist order lied about having informed UPD, lied about how UPD would "respond accordingly" if I violated it, and lied about having CC'd the order to Chief Wiley. There were two other CC's on the order: one to my Student File, and one to the professor I'd reported. Since the order contained my mother's home address on it, which I share, and did not have my e-mail address on it, yet the order was never actually sent to my home address but only to my e-mail (and, oddly, the e-mail and attachment were cc'd to my retired mother despite me being thirty-eight), the only reason, seemingly, for having put our address on the order was to show that it had been provided to the professor I'd reported.
I've subsequently been told second-hand that the man who wrote the order is now claiming not to have actually CC'd the order to the professor (despite having quite clearly written on the order that he did) but only that he *informed* the professor *about* it. I have my doubts still, and in any event my mother and I (and the rest of my family and friends) had been left believing from December 2011 to July 2012 that the professor I'd reported had intentionally been provided our home address.
To make things worse, when I made that FOIA/FOIL/PPPL request with UPD, they did send something else: a false police report the professor filed the day after he'd learned I'd reported him outside the department beyond his boss who'd been permitting him to continue everything he was doing and that I was reporting all semester long. He claimed I was "unstable," perhaps wanted to become a "martyr" (he was quoting out of context something I'd written in a private e-mail to my department adviser; I've no idea how he'd accessed it) and he had a "fear" for his "personal safety" and the safety of the 150 or so students in his class, whereby he was presumably implying to the armed UPD that I was armed.
How would a single thirty-eight year old, technically obese, student with disabilities (depression and anxiety), polycythemia vera, sleep apnea, chronic kidney stones, gallstone, enlarged aorta, low testosterone, high triglycerides, etc. pose a threat to 150 people, mostly teenagers, mostly healthy, many of them athletes? He (I) wouldn't, couldn't even. Especially when I also hold Green and secular humanist values.
The professor made the false report at 1:10 PM, when class was ordinarily due to start at 1:15 PM. He'd cancelled class at about 12:45 PM, something not mentioned in the police report though it seems quite relevant because he also claimed he was afraid I was going to come to the class despite having supposedly been told not to attend. In fact, he knew I'd chosen not to attend because I didn't wish to be around him one more day. I was at home in Glenmont when he cancelled class (ordinarily, I'd have left by then and thus if I'd planned to go, he'd timed the cancellation so that I'd likely miss the announcement), at home in Glenmont when he made that false police report, and at home in Glenmont for the entire class period.
The police, to their credit, told him I'd committed no crime. However, they also assured him they would document his police report and that he should avoid me, and call them if he came into contact with me and he felt threatened. He may have felt validated by that. Since they knew he was claiming to feel threatened when he was not in contact with me, what they said amounted to saying: contact us if you come into contact with him at all. Did they contact me to tell me to avoid him? No, of course not. That report was dated December 6, 2011 and I only found out about it on May 3, 2012. They closed the report without investigating, closed it as no crime, and filed it. I informed them there are falsehoods in it I'd like to correct, but despite Chief Wiley promising me he'd have someone contact me about that, more than a month has gone by and nothing has been done.
I did try reporting the professor to the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (the director of which is the Title IX Compliance Officer also), but they did not reply at all the first time I e-mailed them. They replied the second time, not explaining their failure to respond the first time, and lamely suggesting we could meet sometime, etc. I had told them I had reported sexual harassment and I was already being retaliated against and wanted help, but they saw no urgency in it. I might have tried pushing them more, but as I'd been sent a "warning" that I "need to forget" that professor, warned I could be sued civilly and criminally for disparagement, etc. it didn't seem safe to try.
The Office of Conflict Resolution and Civic Responsibility was no help: Mr. McNeill denied that it is his job to receive reports of retaliation for having reported sexual harassment, something he denied to me in writing when replying to my having quoted to him from his office's own booklet the policy that says it *is* his job. Besides, he's the one who sent me the "warning," who told me that by reporting a professor and seeking help that I was discrediting/disparaging the professor, who sent the cease and desist order, etc.
Mr. Murphy the Clery Act Compliance Officer told me the order is valid and that it is being enforced by UPD, but UPD still have not told me that themselves. I asked Mr. Murphy to send his evidence and the order to my home address, but despite twice promising me in writing he'd send it, he changed his mind when I asked him to send it via USPS. He will only give it to me if I come on campus and meet with him, which would be private and off the record, and I think would be a very dumb and unsafe thing for me to do. Ms. Bouchard told me she knew of the order. I can send you plenty of documentation, if it would help.
Something's quite amiss here! Sadly, it doesn't surprise me. One of my student counselors at the downtown Psychological Services and Career Counseling Center had confided in me that she'd had a class where the professor bullied students and she (a counselor at that center!) had been afraid to do anything about it. An activist friend on campus told me a professor sexually harassed her, but she was afraid to report it - an activist, afraid. A sad state of affairs. : (
From: "Hobson, Janell C"
Subject: RE: Women's Studies Department could help, possibly?
Date: July 15, 2012 4:08:50 PM EDT
To: "Christopher K. Philippo"
Good luck with taking this on (and no, I'm not sure which professor you're talking about). [I was referring to "professor" Michael W. Barberich, of course, the husband of CSEA Capitol District spokeswoman Therese Assalian - CP, July 13, 2013]
Best,
Prof. Hobson
Graduate Director
Department of Women's Studies
http://www.albany.edu/faculty/jhobson
From: Christopher K. Philippo
Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2012 1:23 PM
To: Hobson, Janell C
Subject: Re: Women's Studies Department could help, possibly?
On Jul 11, 2012, at 8:50 AM, Hobson, Janell C wrote:
All I can say, considering the different avenues you took to address this issue, is: let it go and move on.
Different avenues in the same neighborhood. State and federal roads had been left untravelled. "let it go and move on" applies to some things, but not as big a problem as this. Perhaps you know, or think you know, who I reported. I don't think you'd advise letting it go if you knew everything, saw all the e-mails back and forth, etc.
One thing I've learned in this life: pick your battles.
Indeed, I did: I picked this one.
And another thing: the best revenge is doing well.
It's not about "revenge."
(Now that you've graduated, be the bigger person)
Bigger?
Being the better person here, doing well, is to do good, is to do justice, I think.
I'm in a better place to speak up than teenaged undergraduates or adult learners with spouses and children, who might be less likely to speak up against all obstacles. Younger people afraid their word might not be taken against adults', who may be swamped with work and school and relationships, who may not be familiar with policies, laws, and court rulings, etc.
The only person intimidated in this case other than myself (that I know of for sure) is my mother, who lives with me. Some intimidating, retaliatory things were cc'd to her when they were e-mailed to me. I really didn't appreciate that having been done: bad enough that they were sent to me.
I do feel vulnerable too, but I guess I just have less to lose relative to other (younger/married/etc.) students by my trying to work within the system for justice. Not much to gain for myself beyond a clear conscience for having tried, but potentially a lot to gain for others by my trying. How often can one say that?
Unfortunately, it's hard to fight an established person of authority - you literally need an army to do so (i.e. a huge group of students who filed similar complaints - other wise, it gets reduced to a "your word against his" scenario).
No army necessary, no my word against theirs when there's so much in writing (and there are lots of witnesses too, they just weren't questioned). One person can make a difference, sometimes, eventually through resilience and other qualities (and perhaps a fair amount of luck).
Think: Jerry Sandusky (no way would he have ever gotten a conviction if he didn't have 10 victims come forward with the same story of sexual assault).
Maybe, but if true, that's tragic. It's not a case I followed much. If anything, it shows universities should not drag their feet when the first victim or first few victims come forward, and people perhaps should be leery about discouraging those first victims from coming forward when new ones may be created in the meantime.
If there is a lesson learned: know that, next time, when a professor behaves badly, confront that instructor in class head on
I did. Not every single time, but more than once. It would be hard for any student, but I felt it was particularly difficult for me.
in front of everyone,
I did, more than once.
and make them aware of their offense.
I did, more than once.
If that professor takes it out on you,
He did, repeatedly.
or you feel some kind of retaliation,
I more than experienced a mere feeling of some kind of retaliation, but actually experienced a number of acts of retaliation - which is ongoing, I should note.
then drop the class and report the incident to his department chair.
The chair [ Jeanette Altarriba, unfortunately! - CP July 13, 2013 ] wouldn't let me drop the course, instead requiring me to remain in the class subjected to the professor's outrageous offensive behavior as a condition of graduating. It's difficult to say what I'm more upset about down at the root of the problem: the professor or the chair. They're small potatoes, however. Chair mistakenly protects professor's job. Administrator mistakenly protects chair's job, even if they don't care about the professor, and so on up the chain. Nobody stops to question why, or where it stops.
At any rate, there's always RATE YOUR PROFESSOR.
Still not sure if you mean UA's end-of-semester evaluations, or the MTV Networks website?
Both are worthless. The former is easily ignored by administrators (and not visible to students), the latter quite unreliable.
You as students always have the power of "word of mouth" to warn other students about potentially troubling instructors.
Not true. Even less true for students who are off-campus, adult learners, shy, socially anxious/phobic, autistic, etc.
The thing is: Academic Freedom is hugely enforced in higher education, and we as professors do need to feel we are free to express ourselves without fear.
Yes, within the limits the university sets. There's written policies that one can't engage in sexual harassment, bring in irrelevant subjects, etc.
So, unless you have an army of students telling a professor what he/she is doing is offensive, it's hard to challenge someone on their bad behavior.
Clearly it's hard, but it shouldn't be. It's not merely matter of doing something offensive, but doing multiple things that are contrary to university polices, and state and federal laws.
In other words, when you pick your next battle (as I'm sure there will be battles), either get corroboration from others or let it go and move on.
I have corroboration from the perpetrators in writing. I hope there won't be any battles as big as with elements within UA (of which this is only one).
I'm sorry this experience has marred your perspectives on UAlbany, but I still say Congratulations!
Thanks. :-/ There were many good and great experiences at UA, but overall I'm quite disgusted and appalled.
And be the bigger person.
Bigger?
Be everything your professor was not - ethical, fair minded, and respectful to women and minorities.
Exactly: that's why I'm picking this battle.
If this professor is so horrible, enough students WILL talk about it and learn to avoid him.
They can't avoid him.
Everything at this university is now about enrollments, so if his class suffers from low enrollments as a result, the administration will start looking into what problems he might be having.
Since it's a required course and nobody else teaches it, there's no problem with low enrollments.
That's all you can do.
No, there's lots more that's been done already and can be done.
Thanks again for alerting us of this. And SPREAD THE WORD! "Rate Your Professor" is there for a reason!
Still not sure what you mean by "Rate Your Professor."
You can forward to the other Women's Studies professors I'd originally included, if you want.
Best,
Chris
---
"For those who stay curious, there are always new frontiers." — Jello Biafra
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