Shocking news out of Alabama yesterday, where three faculty members (incl. the chair) of the biology department at UA Huntsville were shot, allegedly by a faculty member involved in a tenure decision. I'm assuming that there will be a flood of articles and blog posts about this, and probably quite a bit of hyperventilating about tenure and the tenure process. The fact is, some (thankfully very) small percentage of the population is unbalanced and responds to personal setbacks (real, perceived, or imagined) with violence. It's a terrible shame, but this sort of thing happens across all occupations. My condolences to the UAH community and the family and friends of those involved.
update: ...and I was right. *Sigh*, Christian Science Monitor.
9 comments:
It should be UA-H instead of UAB!
Fixed - thanks.
This incident powerfully supports diversity hiring. Obviously a female, obviously challenged, obviously deserving of priority tenure and subsequent promotion openings. All she wanted were her rights. The tragedy is her being denied her rights.
Flip the coin. If Homeland Severity lost a stormtrooper each time it warrantlessly searched and seized at an airport, how many passengers would be roughed up and shaken down tomorrow?
To Al: there is no right to tenure or promotion. Everyone is subject to selection. To ignore the tragedy of three lives needlessly loss for a perceived 'injustice' is outrageous, no?
But this misses another point. Read the first link to at least the second page and you will discover that this woman has a violent past.
What Jonah said. She shot her brother something like 15 years ago. This is a case of a violent and unstable person acting violently and unstably. Nothing to see here.
who is this second jonah that is not me that posts here?
(good comment though and i agree)
11pm CST is 4am Paris time... no way i'd be up that early on a Sunday! ;)
I love the way the CSM article quotes an anonymous blog poster as an authoritative source, saying "there's no way someone of her obvious talent and intelligence would commit murder, so something is fishy here" and then we discover that she killed her own brother 20 years ago. Three cheers for responsible journalism.
out of curiosity I googled "tenure denial story" to find what else are there and found this very interesting article:
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/05/16/21215/
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