November 4, 1997

continued from p.3 percent on her essay, a mark she took exception to. (Note: amark of 49 percent is banned at some Canadian universities due to its negative overtones.)

According to Rachel, Holbrook had accused her of making him look bad in front of his students. During a meeting in his office, he stated “Pro- fessor Wolf is responsible for you failing this paper.” He went on to say that he would have nothing to do with her until she apologized to him.

Prof. Wolf forwarded the complaints to the Chair and awaited Dasgupta’s in- vestigation into the problem. Dasgupta responded on No- vember 16, but the delay im- peded the investigation.

Rachel, a manic depres- sive, was hospitalized due to stress.

Due to Rachel’s state of health, Dasgupta decided to ask her questions regarding the events. The issue was closed by Chair Dasgupta on November 22, 1995.

Rachel’s complaints were never formally investi- gated by either the department or the administration. She re- mained in the hospital for sev- eral months after the incident.

Holbrook formally com- plained about Wolf during a departmental meeting on No- vember 1, 1995. Asaresult,a motion was passed requiring that “each professor contrib- ute rules for professional con- duct to be considered at a fu- ture meeting.”

A The rules, if enacted,

would limit the ability of stu- dents to receive help for a course from other professors. Two of the student representa- tives at the meeting wrote let- ters to President Epperley to voice their concern over the proposed rules.

One student wrote that these rules “would infringe on students’ academic freedom.” The proposal was later dropped by the department.

Problems continued as

The Cadre

The legacy of Soc/Anth

the semester wore on.

On December 14, 1995, the final examination for An- thropology 211 never took place because a professor never showed up.

Anna Stawicki, the pro- fessor for the course, was at- tending a conference on the exam date and had made ar- rangements with Dasgupta to proctor for her. He, in turn, passed it on to Bruce Holbrook. Prof. Holbrook never arrived.

After twenty minutes of waiting, students placed calls to the secretary of the depart- ment but found no one in. The students left the exam room and went to the registrars of- fice where they were told to go home and that someone would contact them.

In a letter to the Presi- dent, one student complained that the promised phone call from Chair Dasgupta left her parents visibly upset.

According to *Wanda Jones, Dasgupta called the evening of December 19. During the call, he led her par- ents to believe that if she failed to be present on campus on January 3 to find out the date for the make-up, she would risk compromising her gradu- ation. Atthattime, he failed to mention that there were, in fact, three re-write options.

Though he later commu- nicated to Wanda all of her possibilities, Dasgupta never apologized for distressing her parents. The apology came from the President of our uni- versity the following day after Wanda complained of her treatment.

Wanda’s complaint wasn’t the only one received from a student in the Soc/Anth department that year.

Martha Martinic*, a stu- dent representative for the department, wrote in her letter to the President that “We [stu- dents] are very troubled about the professional, or should I say, unprofessional conduct of certain professors.”

Another student, *Geoffrey Townsend, watched his mark drop from 95 percent to35 percent in one of Holbrook’s classes after making a comment to which Holbrook took exception. Geoffrey also bypassed the Chaircompletely, and dropped his letter of complaint directly on President Epperly’s desk.

One student complained that Holbrook, when giving out course evaluations, warned students that he would be hav- ing many of them the next semester. He then went against

university regulations and col- lected the course evaluations himself.

This practice continues to this day.

According to *Jason Clarke, a current student of Soc/Anth, Dr. Richard Wills also collected course evalua- tions himself at the end of last semester’s classes.

By spring of 1996, more than a dozen complaints had been forwarded to the admin- istration. No public investiga- tion into the concerns was ever launched.

UY

During the fall of 1996, Jennifer Caseley commenced her investigation of the depart- ment. Her article was pub- lished January 21, 1997 and refocused the university’s at- tention on the ongoing prob- lems of the Soc/Anth depart- ment.

In part two of our story, we will examine the direct effects of her article, the ad- ministration’s response, and proposed solutions to the legacy of Soc/Anth.

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