NYS Code of Ethics for Educators

The Code of Ethics for Educators might be pretty good... if it weren't for the fact that it had taken them about four years to create and approve it (from 1998 to July 2002) and for the disclaimer at the end indicating that the entire thing can essentially be disregarded - which, in practice, it is.

"This Code shall not be used as a basis for discipline by any employer and shall not be used by the State Education Department as a basis for a proceeding under Part 83 of Commissioner's Regulations, nor shall it serve as a basis for decisions pertaining to certification or employment in New York State. Conversely, this Code shall not be interpreted or used to diminish the authority of any public school employer to evaluate or discipline any employee under provisions of law, regulation, or collective bargaining agreement."

http://www.highered.nysed.gov/tcert/resteachers/codeofethics.html

Whether SUNY ever evaluates or disciplines employees is an open question. UAlbany Lecturer Michael W. Barberich, for example, is permitted to (among his many other misdeeds and crimes) present his teaching assistants' work as his own, to joke about hooking up one of his teaching assistants to electrodes and shocking her until she screams (the only TA who might not have been writing his lectures and lecture notes for him which he'd then present in class and online as his own work) after the department chair had claimed she'd warn him about not engaging in further acts of sexual harassment, to get tip-offs from administrators when he's reported, and to file a false police report about any person who dares to report him.

I'm surprised, in a way, that Michael W. Barberich hasn't been made chair of the department yet with such a record! However, he has for many years been the faculty contact for the National Communication Association's honor society's chapter at UAlbany. The NCA and the Association of College Honor Societies take no issue with his behavior, sadly, perhaps proving that it's not just the keg party variety of Greek letter societies that lack academic and ethical standards.

Michael W. Barberich twice sent me (probably automated) invitations to join the honor society, but I'd neglected to respond each time because I had trouble deciding in time whether to join given who it was sending the invitation - a reticence I shared with my department advisor. He didn't send me a third invitation after I'd reported his faculty ethics violations, academic dishonesty, sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. He did give me an A in his course that I don't seem to have earned, however.

As to my grades within the course, I had to file a FOIL request for those because he didn't provide them, my department advisor wouldn't help me obtain them, nor would the Registrar help, nor would assistant Dean Brian E. Gabriel help, nor would Dean Sue Faerman help, etc. When I complained about having to make a FOIL request for my own grades and how long it would take to get grades well after the course had ended, the Records Access Officer Lisa Taylor cc'd the supposed Senior Counsel John Reilly (Consigliere, more like) when informing me she'd take her time in sending the grades. She didn't even fully comply with the FOIL request, and then UAlbany never cashed the check and never explained why they didn't cash it. If it would have been a crime for them to cash it, it would certainly have been a crime for them to have charged for the records in the first place and to have received the check, surely?

Ms. Taylor also failed to respond to other FOIL requests entirely - causing at least one to be inappropriately, if not outright illegally, brought to the attention Clarence L. McNeill. Clarence "Incompetent" McNeill promptly e-mailed a threat to me never to communicate with anyone at UAlbany other than himself: coercive prior restraint on freedom of speech, association, inquiry, etc. without due process. He then sent the threat Certified Mail via the United States Postal Service.

Ms. Taylor, as seems apt to happen to any unethical SUNY employee over time (see e.g. http://minervawept.blogspot.com/2012/10/galling-memorial-disservice.html and http://minervawept.blogspot.com/2013/06/you-get-award-and-you-get-award-and-you.html , had not so long ago received an award for "excellence" http://www.albany.edu/president/awards/2010/excellence_awards_bios.shtml - presumably for her lack of respect for laws and constitutional rights and her willingness to violate them and to help others at UAlbany do the same? UAlbany's definition of excellence seemingly involves obstruction of justice and criminal facilitation?