MU CINO (Catholic in name only)?

[Coleman]

What a crock.

First of all, the Fox host mislabels her as a "professor."  Second, McAdams calls her an "instructor," which is true but doesn't correct the initial mistake.  Third, the Fox guy said that the Catholic Church "runs" the University.  That isn't accurate.

Why I hate the media and its slanted views (on either side.)

Jay Weber was tearing into this STUDENT today on am 1130, reading through her CV and mocking her point-by-point, claiming these aren't even real areas of study. It was just blatant ad-hominen attacks that didn't even have anything to do with the incident in question. Again, here is my biggest problem with McAdams in this situation. This is a STUDENT, and he publicly shamed her on his blog and is now taking to national media playing the victim. Under no circumstances should a STUDENT who admittedly made a mistake in the way she answered another student's question be submitted to this sort of public harassment. This should have been handled in-house. In this situation, the way McAdams and the media have acted is despicable.

[warriorchick]

People need to get it out of their heads that he is being investigated for being a conservative.  He is being investigated for being a terrible colleague and an a$$. 

He is not being investigated for being a terrible colleague.  He is being investigated for being terrible to a student.  That's the point that is being missed.

[GGGG]

He is not being investigated for being a terrible colleague.  He is being investigated for being terrible to a student.  That's the point that is being missed.

Ahhh....good catch.  Thanks.

[GGGG]

Jay Weber was tearing into this STUDENT today on am 1130, reading through her CV online and making fun of her point-by-point, claiming these aren't even real areas of study. It was just blatant ad-hominen attacks that didn't even have anything to do with the incident in question. Again, here is my biggest problem with McAdams in this situation. This is a STUDENT, and he publicly shamed her on his blog and is now taking to national media. Under no circumstances should a STUDENT who admittedly made a mistake in the way she answered another student's question be submitted to this sort of public harassment. This should have been handled in-house. In this situation, the way McAdams and the media have acted is despicable.

Ugh.  That's simply shameful.

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

And there in lies the problem....everyone is playing to a crowd these days

Having said that, while I don't defend the media lets not act like this isn't out of no where, I mean the term Yellow journalism is a thing and was created over a 100 years ago....they've been spinning for centuries.  I bet the very first reporter misreported the size of the wooly mammoth that was taken down on Tuesday to sell more tablets.

I always thought the modern press was over-opinionated and bad, but one thing I learned from reading tons of books on our founding fathers was that the press was pretty ruthless in the late 1700's and early 1800's.

During Washington's presidency some of the things being said about him were pretty shocking.  Jefferson (as Adams vice-president) sending things "anonymously" to Ben Franklin's grandson to put in his newspaper about Adam's.  Alexander Hamilton founding the New York Post to defend The Federalists and to say mean things about Jefferson  & Madison (& Alexander Burr).  The very biased press was alive and well.

[jsglow]

I've read this thread with great interest but I have avoided direct comment because I know a number of people who are directly involved.  I will agree with 03eng from a few pages ago that many (all?) could have taken steps to deescalate the situation but I understand that I don't have enough facts to form a final judgement.  This reminds me of the openly gay prospective Arts & Sciences Dean controversy from 2010.  I hated that episode too.  I'm now appalled that folks outside our community are now using this to further their own political agenda, whatever that may be.

For fun, I'll tell a quick John McAdams story from 34 years ago.  At 8a the morning after John Lennon was assassinated, I walked into McAdams class Final.  I was a political science minor and had a young McAdams as a professor probably 3 times during my MU stay.  Anyway, McAdams believed that the Lennon assassination deserved an extended conversation so that's exactly what we did for the first 30 minutes of the exam period.  We then proceeded with the original exam during the time remaining with John indicating that students could choose a subset of the required essays (maybe 3 out of the original 5?) because of obvious time constraints.  

[drewm88]

He is being investigated for being terrible to a student.  

This needs to be repeated until it's pounded into everyone's head. At this point, it's not about gay marriage, classroom management, secret recordings, or academic freedom. It's about harassment of a graduate student by a faculty member.

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

This needs to be repeated until it's pounded into everyone's head. At this point, it's not about gay marriage, classroom management, secret recordings, or academic freedom. It's about harassment of a graduate student by a faculty member.

Bingo.

It's not political.

Step back and look at how a senior professor treated another colleague/student.

Not appropriate.

[mu-rara]

This needs to be repeated until it's pounded into everyone's head. At this point, it's not about gay marriage, classroom management, secret recordings, or academic freedom. It's about harassment of a graduate student by a faculty member.

Separate from this situation, Academia is a competitive and sometimes brutal world. There are only so many tenured positions available.   Maybe a graduate TA should not be treated this way, but as she moves up the ranks she will need to deal with worse.  Most of it will not be out in the open for all to see either.

[Aughnanure]

While you're going to your dictionary don't forget that marriage was defined forever as exclusively the union between a man and a woman. That definition is evolving and I think that's a good thing - but it hasn't evolved completely yet, and you can look that up.

No, no it was not. Marriage was also originally defined as polygamy too.

[cj111]

Ah a Ph.D. The act of learning more and more about less and less until eventually you know everything there is to know about nothing at all. Academia is so useful.

Yeah, not like law school, which, as we all know, produces nothing but useful members of society.

[Benny B]

Jay Weber was tearing into this STUDENT today on am 1130, reading through her CV and mocking her point-by-point, claiming these aren't even real areas of study. It was just blatant ad-hominen attacks that didn't even have anything to do with the incident in question. Again, here is my biggest problem with McAdams in this situation. This is a STUDENT, and he publicly shamed her on his blog and is now taking to national media playing the victim. Under no circumstances should a STUDENT who admittedly made a mistake in the way she answered another student's question be submitted to this sort of public harassment. This should have been handled in-house. In this situation, the way McAdams and the media have acted is despicable.

#1) Why are you listening to 1130?  Don't you remember the Simpsons halloween episode where the mascots started attacking the city?  If you don't stop listening and/or talking about it, it won't go away.

#2) The "student" is an adult.  And part of being a responsible adult is understanding that everything you say and do in public is subject to spin, scrutiny, & shame.  She made a mistake, but even mistakes have consequences.  Is it fair?  Absolutely not, but unfortunately, it's a cost of our society.  If you don't like it, then start a petition to repeal the 1st Amendment or move to a country where they filter the Internet.

#3) The "student" has a right to take a position on a subject.  McAdams has a right to take a position on someone else's words/actions, whether it's a Marquette student or a UW-Madison student.  The media has a right to report on the matter.  Freedom of speech is a two-way street... actually, it's more like the Marquette interchange: a cluster of lanes going in every direction you could possibly want... and like the Marquette interchange, every once in a while someone gets on going the wrong way (whether drunk, ignorant or lost) and ends up unintentionally making life a whole lot more difficult for everyone around him/her than he/she could ever have anticipated.

Moral of the story: Who the fu@k knows.

For the record: Benny is a fiscally conservative socially liberal utilitarian non-evangelizing practicing Catholic whose personal dictum is suum cuique.

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

Most of it will not be out in the open for all to see either.

That's the difference.

If McAdam's wants to be an a-hole behind closed doors, then whatever, he's just the office a-hole. It happens.

Can't take this stuff public.

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

#1) Why are you listening to 1130?  Don't you remember the Simpsons halloween episode where the mascots started attacking the city?  If you don't stop listening and/or talking about it, it won't go away.

#2) The "student" is an adult.  And part of being a responsible adult is understanding that everything you say and do in public is subject to spin, scrutiny, & shame.  She made a mistake, but even mistakes have consequences.  Is it fair?  Absolutely not, but unfortunately, it's a cost of our society.  If you don't like it, then start a petition to repeal the 1st Amendment or move to a country where they filter the Internet.

#3) The "student" has a right to take a position on a subject.  McAdams has a right to take a position on someone else's words/actions, whether it's a Marquette student or a UW-Madison student.  The media has a right to report on the matter.  Freedom of speech is a two-way street... actually, it's more like the Marquette interchange: a cluster of lanes going in every direction you could possibly want... and like the Marquette interchange, every once in a while someone gets on going the wrong way (whether drunk, ignorant or lost) and ends up unintentionally making life a whole lot more difficult for everyone around him/her than he/she could ever have anticipated.

Moral of the story: Who the fu@k knows.

For the record: Benny is a fiscally conservative socially liberal utilitarian non-evangelizing practicing Catholic whose personal dictum is suum cuique.

This topic has nothing to do with freedom of speech.

It has everything to do with the professional conduct of a professor.

[Coleman]

#1) Why are you listening to 1130?  Don't you remember the Simpsons halloween episode where the mascots started attacking the city?  If you don't stop listening and/or talking about it, it won't go away.

#2) The "student" is an adult.  And part of being a responsible adult is understanding that everything you say and do in public is subject to spin, scrutiny, & shame.  She made a mistake, but even mistakes have consequences.  Is it fair?  Absolutely not, but unfortunately, it's a cost of our society.  If you don't like it, then start a petition to repeal the 1st Amendment or move to a country where they filter the Internet.

#3) The "student" has a right to take a position on a subject.  McAdams has a right to take a position on someone else's words/actions, whether it's a Marquette student or a UW-Madison student.  The media has a right to report on the matter.  Freedom of speech is a two-way street... actually, it's more like the Marquette interchange: a cluster of lanes going in every direction you could possibly want... and like the Marquette interchange, every once in a while someone gets on going the wrong way (whether drunk, ignorant or lost) and ends up unintentionally making life a whole lot more difficult for everyone around him/her than he/she could ever have anticipated.

Moral of the story: Who the fu@k knows.

For the record: Benny is a fiscally conservative socially liberal utilitarian non-evangelizing practicing Catholic whose personal dictum is suum cuique.

1) I'm slightly masochistic. And I also like to try to at least hear where the other side is coming from. However, this is probably counter productive because 1130 presents the extreme wing of the other side, which probably isn't fair for me to take as representative as your typical conservative or Republican. Duly noted.

2) Of course she is an adult, but part of Marquette's mission is to provide a safe learning environment for its students. McAdams' actions fly directly in the face of that mission. Don't know why you are using quotes around student. She is a student and per Marquette's statement on the issue that is the reason this is being taken so seriously. For the record, almost every student at Marquette is an adult.

3) I'm not questioning anyone's constitutional rights here. Of course the student had a right to take a position. And of course McAdams has a right to act like an unprofessional jerk. And the media has a constitutional right to report on it honestly (lies are not constitutionally protected free speech, and calling the student a professor is not honest). I'm not saying anyone here has acted unlawfully. But McAdams doesn't have a constitutional right to keep his job for acting woefully unprofessional. A job which, by the way, he hasn't even lost. He is continuing to collect a paycheck, and calls this "being treated like a terrorist." Hard to take any of that seriously.

[cj111]

The "student" has a right to take a position on a subject.  McAdams has a right to take a position on someone else's words/actions, whether it's a Marquette student or a UW-Madison student.  The media has a right to report on the matter.  Freedom of speech is a two-way street... actually, it's more like the Marquette interchange: a cluster of lanes going in every direction you could possibly want... and like the Marquette interchange, every once in a while someone gets on going the wrong way (whether drunk, ignorant or lost) and ends up unintentionally making life a whole lot more difficult for everyone around him/her than he/she could ever have anticipated.

This isn't a first amendment issue at all.  This is an issue of professional ethics.  I would argue that the faculty member is probably violating the AAUP's guidelines on professional ethics:
As teachers, professors encourage the free pursuit of learning in their students. They hold before them the best scholarly and ethical standards of their discipline. Professors demonstrate respect for students as individuals and adhere to their proper roles as intellectual guides and counselors. Professors make every reasonable effort to foster honest academic conduct and to ensure that their evaluations of students reflect each student's true merit. They respect the confidential nature of the relationship between professor and student. They avoid any exploitation, harassment, or discriminatory treatment of students. They acknowledge significant academic or scholarly assistance from them. They protect their academic freedom.

This may or may not be a serious issue for the MU administration, and I honestly doubt any real punishment will come from it, but if the grad student was wrong (not saying she was--I do not permit certain things in my classes, and I will not allow students to take the discussion in unproductive directions), the faculty member should certainly know better.

[cj111]

This topic has nothing to do with freedom of speech.

It has everything to do with the professional conduct of a professor.

+1   you beat me to it.

[mikekinsellaMVP]

I'm loving this discussion.  A lot of people taking different routes to the same conclusions on both sides of the issue.  Do the ends justify the means?  Do the means justify the ends?

It's almost like we should have some sort of class for students to explore this stuff!

A lot of talk about the rules governing student and faculty conduct.  Does anyone know if there's a set of guidelines or a university conduct policy specific to student teaching?  From what we've discussed, Abbate looks kinda stuck in limbo between professor and pupil.

[Lennys Tap]

No, no it was not. Marriage was also originally defined as polygamy too.

You are correct. That said, the qualified inclusion of "same sex" is very much new to the definition.

[Coleman]

A lot of talk about the rules governing student and faculty conduct.  Does anyone know if there's a set of guidelines or a university conduct policy specific to student teaching?  From what we've discussed, Abbate looks kinda stuck in limbo between professor and pupil.

Abbate is a STUDENT who teaches a class. There probably are specific guidelines for TA conduct, and in all likelihood, she probably did not follow them in the original incident. She made a mistake.

But again, the bigger issue here is McAdams' unprofessional conduct towards a STUDENT. I'm going to continue capitalizing it until it is hammered into everyone's brain that Abbate is a STUDENT.

[brandx]

Jay Weber was tearing into this STUDENT today on am 1130, reading through her CV and mocking her point-by-point, claiming these aren't even real areas of study. It was just blatant ad-hominen attacks that didn't even have anything to do with the incident in question. Again, here is my biggest problem with McAdams in this situation. This is a STUDENT, and he publicly shamed her on his blog and is now taking to national media playing the victim. Under no circumstances should a STUDENT who admittedly made a mistake in the way she answered another student's question be submitted to this sort of public harassment. This should have been handled in-house. In this situation, the way McAdams and the media have acted is despicable.

And, as is usual in these cases, she will get a ton of emails that are a lot worse than anything Weber said today.

[brandx]

Wow! I commend everyone here  - almost all of whom have made this thread a very interesting read. We (myself included) certainly have our lows on this board at times, but this is the opposite.

It's like we all became little "Canned Goods n Ammos" during this discussion. (I use him because he is probably the most consistently rational person on this board.)

[mikekinsellaMVP]

Abbate is a STUDENT who teaches a class. There probably are specific guidelines for TA conduct, and in all likelihood, she probably did not follow them in the original incident. She made a mistake.

But again, the bigger issue here is McAdams' unprofessional conduct towards a STUDENT. I'm going to continue capitalizing it until it is hammered into everyone's brain that Abbate is a STUDENT.

I think this is where we're seeing the most disagreement among people with similar mindsets.  My fear is that the perception of magnitude will result in the "biggest" issue (or likely the one receiving the most attention) being addressed while the two or three "minor" issues get swept under the rug.  Each level must be addressed or else the little issues will become the big issue down the road.

It's like we all became little "Canned Goods n Ammos" during this discussion. (I use him because he is probably the most consistently rational person on this board.)

+1.  Do what you do, Ammo.  Even if I disagree with you this time.

[Ari Gold]

Wow! I commend everyone here  - almost all of whom have made this thread a very interesting read. We (myself included) certainly have our lows on this board at times, but this is the opposite.

It's like we all became little "Canned Goods n Ammos" during this discussion. (I use him because he is probably the most consistently rational person on this board.)

except for the asshat that had to use "Websters dictionary defines..."

[Benny B]

As a former GA/TA at Marquette, I can tell you that my interactions with professors were always collegial.  I wasn't a "student" to them, I was an assistant (the "A" in GA and TA), and ignoring the usual pejorative nature of that word, I was treated as such.  Even when I would work with other professors to whom I was neither assigned for work nor class, the rapport was always more along the lines of equals than that of a typical student-instructor relationship.  

At the risk of repeating a cliche twice in one thread (on one page, no less), it's a two-way street.  It is my understanding that McAdams was not being critical of a "student," he was being critical of the student's decision(s)/elections(s) in her role as a TA.  How many times have we as parents told our children (or had our parents tell us), "if you want to be treated like an adult, you need to act like an adult."  If the student wants to be treated like a TA, she needs to act like a TA, and acting like a TA means that you are not a "student" when you're fulfilling your role as a TA.  I know that human nature is to paint victims in the most sympathetic light possible, but a "student" is not the protagonist here.  The TA is the protagonist.

Apply this to a different situation... what if one of the cops at the subject of recent controversies volunteered for terminally-ill children at the hospital?  Would the protesters have just let it go?  Of course not, because people were upset with what the cop did in his role as a uniformed police officer, not as a hospital volunteer.

I'm not saying what McAdams did was right; I am also not defending McAdams by any stretch.  But if you're upset that McAdams acted unprofessionally toward a student, let me ask whether you'd be equally upset if McAdams acted in the same manner towards another professor or contemporary, be it at Marquette, Notre Dame or MATC?

If you can't make the argument without having to spin what is otherwise a material distinction in someone's role, then your argument itself is going to get rolled.