No, she’s not. But I was actually thinking more about the president and divided faculty. Faculty members quitting or signing open letters calling out a decision by the president of the university highly unusual. Student protests happen all the time, but a hunger strike?
We have time to watch the news for a few more weeks and see what happens before deciding to submit an app. But right now, this is not a good look for UR.
Got an email from the Board of Trustees yesterday. Pasting it here for those not currently enrolled but thinking about it:
"The Board of Trustees of the University of Rochester has appointed a Special Committee to oversee an independent, comprehensive investigation into all matters involving the EEOC Complaint. The Committee will be chaired by Richard Handler and its members will initially consist of trustees Nomi Bergman, John Davidson, Lance Drummond and Lizette Pérez-Deisboeck. The Committee will also review the University’s processes and procedures related to addressing claims of sexual abuse and harassment. The Committee’s work will proceed to conclusion, irrespective of any decision by the EEOC or any other parties to pursue claims.
Chairman Danny Wegman stated, “This is a matter of utmost importance to the entire University community, and the Special Committee will conduct its investigation with complete independence, with access to all relevant information, and receive total cooperation from the University.” President Joel Seligman added that: “I welcome this independent investigation by the Board and assure the complete cooperation of the University and its staff. Students, faculty, staff, alumni and the public deserve a full and transparent accounting on this matter.”
The Special Committee has today retained Mary Jo White, Senior Chair of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, to lead the investigation. Ms. White, who has served as both Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has decades of investigative experience. Ms. White and her team have conducted numerous independent investigations involving sexual abuse and harassment at educational and other institutions. They will report the findings of the investigation to the Special Committee. The goal of the Special Committee is to complete the investigation by December 31, 2017, and once the investigation is completed, the findings will promptly be reported to the Board and made public to the University community. The Board of Trustees believes integrity is the cornerstone of every great university and only a rigorous, methodical, focused, and transparent process will be acceptable.
The University, with agreement from Professor Florian Jaeger, has put Professor Jaeger on administrative leave pending the outcome of the Special Committee’s investigation."
There is a four page response (with footnotes!) out from the complainants as well. It’s too long to cut and paste (I got an error that it was almost 4000 characters too long)
TLDR: They’re not very trusting ATM
It happens at lots of universities. You just happened to read an article about this one example. Undergrads are not exempt (who “protects” them from it?) One of my kids had to put up with a lecherous prof in her major (different school) – only one teaching 2 courses she had to take to graduate. Dirty jokes in class, touching her shoulder when she asked a question in class or office hours. She loathed him, but felt it would damage her grad school chances if she complained openly.
Now she has different gender-related issues as a Physics PhD student – lots of pushback in grading from male undergrads who seem to think she doesn’t know her stuff. A male TA who shares office space with her and another woman commented to her today on this behavior toward the female TAs that he is observing, and said that the male TAs don’t get that type of response – he says the guys are being jerks to them because they are women. (He is sympathetic to my D & the other woman). So… it can come at women from all directions.
Time will tell how this goes but my daughter’s take on it was at least the conversation is going and they are looking into the current policies. Sometimes it’s more dangerous when everything seems perfect on the surface because the tendency could be to sweep all allegations under the rug to keep that image.
Having visited a lot of campus’s so far we both had a really positive vibe from the campus and staff and student’s we met. This is still her number one choice and as a parent it’s really not my place to say you can or can not go to the college. It’s to prepare her to hold her ground and report things that are not right either happening directly to her or around her.
@skateguy50 I’ll piggyback off what you just said. If you ask most U of R alums or current students, they will tell you that U of R is a place that really enables its students to be responsible, independent adults. For that reason I’m honestly not surprised that they don’t have a policy explicitly forbidding relationships between faculty and students (they do have one that forbids it for a professor who is directly evaluating said student).
This is kind of unrelated to this thread, but I think it’s some anecdotal evidence that people might appreciate:
I remember visiting some friends who went to other schools during my first couple years. When you went into their dorm buildings, they had to sign in, and a guest would have to show ID/sign in. Parties weren’t allowed on campus - if you got caught with alcohol in your dorm it was a huge deal. U of R was very different. Sure, you needed a valid ID badge to get into the building and you had an RA, but you didn’t have people constantly checking in on what you were doing and who you were with. If you didn’t already know, U of R allows alcohol in it’s dorms (outside of the freshman-only dorms, but they certainly don’t police it there). There are also parties at on-campus fraternities and often times in upperclassmen “suites”. They know students (underage and of-age) are going to drink, but they don’t exactly go after them. Unless you’re underage and waiving a beer in a security guard’s face, they aren’t out to get you. If you act like an adult, they’ll treat you like one. The same went for going to classes - it was up to you to go/not go in most cases, and if you needed to speak to the professor, you could go to office hours (but it wasn’t required). So I guess what I’m saying is that the University has a culture that allows its students to be adults and make their own decisions - which I think is a very good thing.
Spoke with my alumni daughter last night after our holiday guests have left and she said the university has been very forthcoming with regards to the situation. Although she did take one class in that department as part of a cluster she had never heard of this professor or any of the names of the others involved. The university itself is not engaged in a civil war. The discourse is for the most part in this specific department. I would expect that faculty in other departments might be aware of a case being brought or the case once considered resolved prior to these news reports but how a university is organized by schools and departments could make that not necessarily true.
As an alum of this University of Rochester with very long ties to the place, I am frankly mortified by the cavalier response of the Administration to this horrific situation. If I were a parent of a college bound student, I would urge him/her not to even THINK of attending a university where a 111-page EEOC investigation filed by academic intellectuals is given such short shrift by the President, Provost, Office of Counsel, and others. God forbid your child (daughter, in particular) has an interest in a STEM area at UR. The latest action on the part of the jokers who comprise the Board of Trustees has been to retain an “independent” investigator, former SEC chair, Mary Jo White,who just happens to have served with UR’s President (an expert in Securities Law) in various capacities over the last 35-40 years. There is evidence of huge mutual respect for one another all over the Internet. Are there really no other competent investigators out there that have zero ties to the UR administration? The judgment here is nothing short of revolting. I attended a private university where this type of situation arose and it was dealt with swiftly and fairly to all parties. Smart young people who like the quality of the UR should be looking at Cornell, SUNY Geneseo, Washington University, etc etc. It’s bad enough to have to fork over $60,000 a year for a private education but to send your child off to this college knowing that he/she might not even be safe is unthinkable. I was going to establish a UR fund in my parents’ names but that is the last thing I will do now. I will find another place to honor them. The University of Rochester is concerned with one thing only - protecting its assets - and that apparently doesn’t extend to its students.
@Donethat for gosh sake, do you suggest we all live in plastic bubbles? I guarantee that all of the schools you listed have had similar issues to the one we have read about at UofR. The difference is that this one was publicized so we’re getting all up in arms saying “How on earth could anybody go there?!?” because it’s 2017 and we live in a reactive society. And you don’t think schools like Cornell & Wash U aren’t equally interested in protecting their assets?
“God forbid your child (daughter, in particular) has an interest in a STEM area at UR.”
There are bad apples everywhere in life… just because a professor in the BCS department is an inappropriate creep doesn’t mean that your daughter will be constantly sexually harassed if she decides to go to UofR for mechanical engineering.
I’m sure much of the complaint is true, but I think sometimes people forget that the Mother Jones story is just that: A STORY. It doesn’t collect facts from both sides, and is written in a manner that supports it’s narrative. We simply do not know all of the facts. I get that a lot of this was likely mishandled and any form of sexual harassment and retaliation is unacceptable - feel free to boycott UofR, stop donating, whatever. But some of these posts just make me have to say “give me a break”. UofR is still a great place to go as a student for 99% of the people there, and I’m sure most of them would agree.
Edited for language
ED
One thing that helped me come to terms with this situation and my daughter really liking the college is understanding how situations like this happen.
First and foremost it requires an aggressor / predator / pervert / whatever you want to call him. Then you need an environment that lets this person act out of place without built in checks and balances, it would seem the current rules are very open related to student / professor relationships. Finally it requires the subject of the aggressor, these types of people often seek out a certain type of person. Now this is not to say it is the victims fault at all but a highly confident and affirmative person is much less likely to be singled out and targeted or at the very least targeted very long.
My daughter fits into that category and in a lab or a classroom would be among the first to call out behavior written in that report be it happening to her or someone else. TBH I would be more worried about her hitting someone who crossed a line than becoming a victim of it.
This comes back to the part in the complaint where the graduate student was “pressured into living with Jaeger”. I don’t think that we should fault the victims but where do we draw the line in blaming the University for people’s personal choices?