November 4, 1997

et me tell you the story of one Dr. Daniel R. olf, former professor

of the department of Sociol- ogy and Anthropology. It isa good story, filled with lots of action and intrigue, good guys, bad guys it even has a noble cause. It is a story about a decent and respected profes- sor who made the simple mis- take of believing that, at UPEI, justice is not obsolete. Decide for yourself how wrong he was.

Dr. Wolf first started teaching at UPEI in 1988. His specialities included field meth- odology, youth gangs; many of his articles were published in highly respected journals. It wasn’t unheard of for there to be a call for Dr. Wolf from news groups with the CBC, BBC, or even CBS. He did have his drawbacks, though. He was in and out of the hos- pital with physical problems due to his diabetes. allow- ances, however, are often made fora professor of Wolf's caliber.

As reported in today’s feature story, Wolf's problems first arose when he involved himself with *Rachel’s aca- demic concerns. In mid-Oc- tober, 1995, Wolf offered ad- vice and acouple of text books to one of Bruce Holbrook’s students, and this resulted in the student receiving a mark of 49%. Holbrook, in fact, was quoted as saying “Prof. Wolf is responsible for you failing this paper.” Dr. Wolf,

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after first suggesting she at- tempt to reach a solution with Holbrook, explained the offi- cial avenuesof complaint. This advice was the beginning of his end.

On Novemberl, Holbrook confronted Wolfand charged him with unprofes- sional and uncollegial conduct. Later that day, he reintroduced the charge at an official meet- ing of the Soc/Anth depart- ment, called by the Chair, Sadatal Dasgupta. Interest- ingly enough, Wolf was not invited to that meeting, and was therefore was unable to defend himself against the ac- cusation in person. A minor oversight, I suppose, perhaps relating to Wolfnot having ten- ure.

The day *Rachel was hospitalized, Wolf wastold by Dasgupta to leave well-enough alone. On November 9, with no action done on Dasgupta’s part, Wolf started his formal complaint. For the next two weeks, Wolf witnessed delay after delay in the investigation on the part of the Chair. On November 22, three weeks after Rachel was hospitalized, Dasgupta closed the case, ap-

ling to Rachel’s state of fealth. No one was ever brought to task for what Rachel suffered.

Score after Round One: Chair 1, Wolf 0.

On November 17, Wolf narrowly avoided missing the submission deadline for course outlines for the Summer Ex-

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tension. Though notices were sent to all departments, no warning was passed on to Prof. Wolf. Four days later, he learned that his two Summer courses were not on the list forwarded by Dasgupta to the Dean of Extension. The ex- planation? It seems that, dur- ing a meeting with other pro- fessors, Dasgupta was given a mandate to look for "new blood"; and this did not include Wolf. Considering thatno ‘new blood’ in fact arrived to teach in the Summer of ‘96, I won- der how powerful this noble ‘mandate’ was. Oh well. Good stories need a little fantasy. Dr. Wolf, realizing how damaging it would be to the career of a non-tenured pro- fessor to have their Summer courses canceled, demanded that his courses be offered. They were the most popular courses of 1995, so lar that Jan MacDonald, of the Department of Extension, had already included them onto his 1996 list, pending Dasgupta's approvall. The approval mever came. Dasgupta canceled Wolf's Summer courses on Decem- ber 1, 1995 -- no official rea- son was ever given. Round two: Dasgupta. ispute started on December 7, when one of Wolf's students was ques- tioned about her Special Stud- ies course and asked to submit a resume of her work to the Chair. Though seemingly within Dasgupta’ srights, itisa

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request rarely, if ever, made by other department heads. He later informed * Janice that she would not be allowed to take the second part of her Special Studies, even though his approval of the course had been given earlier. Wolf ap- pealed to the Dean who, after taking three weeks to con- sider the issue, came down in support of the Chair. The decision, though, was later re- versed by the acting Chair while Dasgupta was away.

Dizzying as this battle was, Round Three went to Wolf by default.

Prof. Wolf's ultimate advisary wasn’t his own de-

ent, though. That title

longs to our noble adminis- tration who, through all of these battles, never raised a finger in his defense. This isn’t too surprising. After all, they re- fused to act formally on the dozen of complaints they were receiving from S/A students the entire year. What makes us think they would defend the interests of a lowly professor? Seven years of good, hard work? Flip him the bird.

On January 18 he called in the Faculty Association to protect his career. They then gathered many of the files we have used to write this story, and acted as intermediaries between Wolf and the admin- istration. The President, fi- nally, agreed to a meeting, scheduling it for June. Dr. Daniel R. Wolfnever made it.

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The views that are presented in the opinion columns are those of the writer, and are not necessarily shared by the staff and volunteers of The Cadre.

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1996, Wolf’s health deterio- rated rapidly. As the battles dragged on and his isolation continued, his level of stress grew. Any doctor will tell you of the horrible effects stress has on victims of diabetes. He developed ulcers on his spine, his nerves were shot -- once he was found collapsed on his office floor. By April, he suf- fered a total physical break- down and was hospitalized. He spent months alternating between the QEH and the Victoria General in Halifax. He was eventually transferred toa permanent care facility on the Bow River in Calgary, were he lived until just a few weeks ago: avictim ofthe Soc/Anth’s "golden handshake."

Some of you may won- der about the importance of this story. Some may question therelevancy of problems that happened long ago, wishing to letthe whole issue just go away. “The past is done.” “The time has come to putitall behind us and move on.” Isn’t it?

You see, if we deny jus- tice to Dan Wolf, we deny justice to ourselves. Not as common members of an aca- demic institution, but as mem- bers of the human race. If this concept is to abstract for you, ask yourself this. How much time must pass before the vio- lation of one man’s rights and dignities become okay? Is a year acceptable? Two?

If you were Dan Wolf, how much time would be ac- ceptable to you?

*name changed