<p>The student should report the interviewer and not the coach. The student has no first-hand knowledge of the coach’s behavior, but certainly does about the interviewer. that interviewer acted unethically, in my opinion.
If the alum knew something about the coach, it was her job to report it to the admissions office or some other person at the college so that an investigation could be conducted and proper steps taken. It seems to me that right now, that alumna is just spreading rumors that may well be unfounded and wrong. It could land her in court for slander.</p>
<p>Boy, I’m conflicted on this one. An influential musical theater professor at UNC in Greeley just plead guilty to a whole host of sex offender crimes against college students, including videotaping them (without their knowledge) in the bathroom, seducing students, promising job opportunities for students who slept with him,…and the alumni network has been pretty vocal that they TRIED to tell the school for a long time that bad things were happening, but they were ignored. Even the local employer’s council investigator noted that other faculty in the department seemed to have trouble understanding boundaries between students and faculty; apparently the notion was pretty strong that drama and MT are different than chemistry or lit, and faculty have different kinds of relationships with students in our department. Ay yi yi. </p>
<p>So if a your young MT student was considering heading up to UNC, and an interviewer gave him a heads-up on this professor’s reputation, would you be mad at the interviewer? Or supremely thankful?</p>
<p>Allegations against this guy went back years. More than a dozen of them.
The Denver Post published an editorial column about it:
<a href=“Search Results for “ci_13732295[/url]” – The Denver Post”>Search Results for “ci_13732295</a></p>” – The Denver Post;
<p>I’d investigate further if I were interested in that particular school before acting one way or the other.
Deciding against a school on the basis of hearsay (whether or not accurate) and reporting someone are two quite different things.
What evidence did the alum provide about the coach when mentioning the coach’s behavior? Did the alum have personal knowledge or repeating rumors? Did the alum try to alert the college about what was being said about the coach?</p>
<p>Well, I’m known for escalating, but I think I’d write a letter to the president of the college and describe exactly what happened. I’d name names (the interviewer, the prospective student), and I’d ask for an explanation.</p>
<p>I think it is possible the interviewer was trying to be helpful. Because certain behavior is hard to regulate or prevent, it is common for women to warn younger or less experienced women that a coach’s eagerness to befriend may mask other motives. Unfortunately, some supervisors or mentors do believe it is appropriate for them to engage in relationships with those they have authority over. It doesn’t mean your daughter shouldn’t swim for the school, only that she may want to firmly indicate she isn’t interested if the coach says anything weird to her. There seems to be an assumption that the interviewer is engaging in slander, but perhaps she is only telling the student what the school will not.</p>
<p>I’m with Muffy. And if I was the prospective student, I would be thanking my interviewer heartily for having given me the heads up about this situation. Forewarned is forearmed! Reporting the interviewer is turning on the whistleblower, and definitely the wrong thing to do!</p>
<p>Perhaps the student or her parent should contact the interviewer and ask if the remark was serious, and if so ask whether the situation has been reported to the school, if not why not, etc.</p>
<p>Congratulating oneself on one’s lucky escape and leaving the situation in place to potentially harm others is not an ethical course of action, IMHO.</p>
<p>The interviewer said the coach is known for wanting to sleep with the female swimmers. This is not in the same category as being a mite over-friendly!
If the interviewer has evidence for this, the coach needs to be reported.</p>
<p>the question of reporting the interviewer v. the coach is somewhat silly in my mind–if you tell the college what you heard, they will end up investigating both of them.</p>
<p>If your daughter still wants to go to the school, I would wait until after she gets an admissions decision to report it. If this is calling into question her feelings about the school, I would try to find some current members of the swim team for her to talk with and ask about the issue. </p>
<p>A rumor like this is certainly cause for concern, but I would guess that most every college in the country has a rumor like this about at least one professor/coach/employee. Sometimes it’s true and sometimes not. Sometimes it’s against school rules (or the law, if the student is very young, or coereced). Some schools merely caution against staff-student relationships or prohibit the staff member from grading or supervising the student but don’t forbid dating. </p>
<p>If you find out that the rumors are true, it makes sense to weigh that heavily in your decisonmaking process. However, I agree with previous posters that your daughter will at some point in her life have men interested in her, and this situation would be a good jumping-off point for discussions about how to deflect (politely, or not, as the situation warrants) if she does not share that interest.</p>
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<p>How she should deflect unwanted advances is one issue. Another would be whether she would want to be on a team where the coach was sleeping with one of her teammates. That can be an awkward situation for everyone. If this were my daughter and she were still considering this school, I’d urge her to investigate the allegations, perhaps by talking to some current team members.</p>
<p>My rule of thumb is, if you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything. There is also a lot we don’t know about this particular scenario. Don’t know how old the interviewer’s information about the coach is (is he an old letch who has been after the swimmers and divers for 35 years, or is that old gossip from her days at the school, whenever that was). I agree with those who said the interviewer was probably trying to be helpful, to give the student the heads up. It was probably not the appropriate time/place to share that info, but I don’t think it warrants a phone call, email or letter-writing brigade.</p>
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<p>Actually it isn’t illegal, provided that the student is over 18 and the relationship is consensual, that’s my point. It’s highly discouraged of course, besides being inappropriate its unethical and dangerous for all the reasons I listed before. It can result in a professor or coach being fired or denied tenure (though again, if it’s a consensual relationship, the school could be sued for unfair termination) particularly if the relationship begins while the student is still under their tutelage or training (rules can be different if it’s just a student at the school, not a student in their class/on their team). </p>
<p>I want to be clear that I’m not advocating or endorsing this. I think it’s absolutely wrong for a teacher or coach to enter into a relationship with a student. I would question whether a relationship based on such an imbalance of power could ever be fully consensual, even if the word “no” is not exchanged. However, student should be aware that this does happen in colleges and universities and on teams all across the country. To male as well as female students. And they should be careful and know that nothing is as important as their personal safety, not a grade, not staying on the team, nothing. </p>
<p>As far as what to do in this situation. Again, you can’t prove it and it would be wrong to cast aspersions on the character of someone neither you nor your D know. But I agree with the poster who says she should talk to current teammates if she has concerns.</p>
<p>Sometimes you acquire an interesting piece of information. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. Just take it under advisement and keep an eye out in the future. </p>
<p>I would not advise my D to report anything in this situation.</p>
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<p>Since I’m adult and not a coward, I would have shared my concerns with the school long before this interview. The idea that slipping that tidbit into interviews is actually doing anything is absurd.</p>
<p>I would encourage my kid to call admissions and report the incident. The school has a serious problem; the swim coach or the interviewer.</p>
<p>Let it go. Forget about it. Don’t tell anyone anything. And keep an eye on the coach, just in case. If the daughter experiences or suspects anything from behavior that she directly observes, THEN she can report it. Till then, it’s just gossip, which is always inappropriate whether from a friend or an interviewer. If she wants to start contacting school deans and presidents about impolite behavior, then she’s going to very busy.</p>
<p>Simple—Don’t let your daughter go to the school</p>
<p>I think those who said “don’t report the information about the coach” are correct. This is a third party statement, that you have no way of knowing is true or not (it could be true, of course, things like a long term coach doing ‘wrong things’ have happened, but the key is, you don’t know). </p>
<p>The interviewer was probably going on hearsay, not on facts, because quite honestly, if he knew real facts (like someone told him directly that the coach propositioned her), why the heck, as an alumni, did he not report it to someone for investigation? Why didn’t he encourage whoever told him the coach propositioned her (again, that is a hypothetical, for arguments sake) to go to the school and file a complaint? Maybe the interviewer was told by some friend who was on the swim team who was ****ed off at the coach because he didn’t let her swim in a meet, etc, and decided to get back? Those are the worst kinds of allegations, because the coach cannot defend himself and it could ruin him and his reputation, without any kind of proof. </p>
<p>As far as reporting the interviewer, that is problematic, and here is why. At some schools, they might take the complaint seriously, and maybe not use the interviewer any more, but at some schools it is not unheard of that they might retaliate against the person blowing the whistle, being a whistleblower sadly often comes with a price. The interviewer was wrong, dead wrong, for the reasons I said above, but you also have to think about consequences of reporting even that; in a perfect world, whistleblowers should be commended, in many cases they get the shaft. </p>
<p>If the child is on that swim team they should be cautious, and someone would be in the workplace and the like, and if she sees that the coach propositions her or behaves untoward towards the other members, that is the time to act. On top of everything else, it is quite easy to deny a candidate admission who complains, they “just weren’t admitted”; it is a lot harder when they are a student on campus and it is a real incident of harassment, something that if they try to retaliate against the student, they would be facing not only massive civil lawsuits but probably criminal prosecution as well, and no university is going to do that. </p>
<p>One other option would be to report the interviewer once the process is done; if accepted, they won’t be easily able to retaliate if they were likely to in the first place. If not accepted, the problem is it could be construed as a disgruntled applicant, so maybe the best answer would still be to forget about the interviewer, it may not be worth it to complain.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for your opinions.
The interviewer was a young woman who had graduated 5 years ago. From what my daughter said it was more like two girlfriends talking than an interview. I won’t be reporting this to the school. If D decides to go to this college, she has a heads up.</p>
<p>Think your plan is a good one, sanbost.</p>
<p>Just wondering, to those posters who suggest contacting the school to report either the coach or the interviewer, if it were you, would you <em>really</em> do that? Sure, it is easy to claim you would, or to encourage someone else to take that risk and do it (and to figure out who to contact), but sometimes I wonder if the shoe were on the other foot, what would you really, really do. Its easy to claim to take a position, but actually doing it-- thats a whole other thing.</p>
<p>jym-- if the interviewer had been a man, yes, I believe I would have reported him. That’s crossing a dangerous line with a younger person over whom he has some power. As it was a young woman, I’d do just as OP is doing.</p>