Henry called the dean of the medical school, Sam Broadhurst, MD,
and asked him to identify himself and his position at Belmont
for the record, as the witness before him had done.
The dean was a swarthy complected, strongly built individual.
At 52, his reputation as a ruthless administrator was well known.
Just as well known was his reputation for fairness. Where he
was faulted was the way he backed up, no matter what,
the medical school chairmen (there were no women)
who along with him were called `The Boy's Club'
by the rest of the medical school faculty.
The Boy's Club often went on retreat. At these meetings,
held in luxurious surroundings, policies and plans were decided
and everyone fell into line, or else. There were those among
the faculty that believed that Sam Broadhurst demanded from
the chairs, and took himself, an oath in blood. This was because
they invariably backed each other up publicly even though privately,
they didn't.
Henry knew that the dean was not happy with the way the
Trenchant situation had been handled. The dean was royally
pissed that Lyle had gone over his head to Mark and himself
instead of keeping the matter in the medical school and dealing
with it there. He was further incensed that they had decided to
charge Diana and terminate her before he was even apprised that
the situation existed. By the time he was brought into the process,
it was to late for him to do anything but go along with it.
So Henry wasn't surprised when the dean made it quite clear
that he was not consulted until the central administration had
already decided to terminate Diana. This was so obvious that
everyone in the room realized that he was just doing his job
within the system but that didn't mean that he liked it.
Having thus vented his spleen about the way the affair had
been handled, Dean Broadhurst clearly and forcibly added his
opinion to that of Lyle's in almost a carbon copy of Lyle's
relevant testimony. Clearly and succinctly without the wandering,
self serving side trips taken by Lyle, the dean cast the party line
with all the skill of the accomplished angler he was.
All right. Well done, thought Henry, with transparent relief.
At least things were going all right thus far with this witness.
Esther took over the questioning and asked, "Would five or six
SmurFF critiques out of around 200 have enough weight to influence
your process of evaluating faculty performance in a course?"
The dean sidestepped, "The ones in question were pretty damning comments."
Esther persisted, "Have you seen the other evaluations? I mean the ones
that are believed to be authentic student feedbacks?"
Here Dean Broadhurst intentionally contradicted Lyle's testimony.
"No. The student comments are summarized by the department secretaries
and I see the summaries. There is also a summary of the positive
and negative comments and a summary of the numerical evaluation."
Jane looked at Henry to see his reaction. She remembered that Lyle had
testified that all the SmurFFs were given to, and reviewed by, the dean.
Perhaps, Sam Broadhurst thought to himself, it is all I can do for her.
The panel has the information, if they choose to hear it. If there was
manipulation of the evaluation process, it wasn't a product of five
`suspicious' ones out of some two hundred that were considered valid.
Statistically, the evidence stunk and he knew it. He also
knew a lot more. Two of his children had gone through the
medical school when Diana taught in the radiology laboratory.
The dean remembered the many occasions he had seen fit to
compliment Trenchant on her teaching, saying that he was giving
her this critique first-hand from one or the other of his children.
Perhaps, thought the dean, if witchcraft was the real charge,
the panel would insist that it be proven.
Or maybe not. The administration appeared to be out for blood
and he was sure that Lyle was still licking the wounds
of a few short months ago. . .
He had Lyle on the carpet. He had summarily called him down
to his office to read him the riot act.
"Here are the letters I've received from three top publishers
of medical texts. Each one of them protests the plagiarism
that a medical student told them your people have committed
in preparing course material.
"I went to the radiology lab after I received the first
letter and talked to some students. Although no one wanted
to admit to contacting the publishers, they did show me the areas
in their manual and notes that had been copied directly from
different texts without citation.
"They also showed me the notebooks filled with diagrams that
had been copied from a published atlas. Again, nowhere in the
book was there any mention of, or credit given, to the source.
Hell, your guys didn't even get permission to photograph the material!"
The dean continued telling Lyle that quite a sum of money would
have to change hands with the publishers to keep this thing quiet.
"It must be her," Lyle whined when he could get a word in.
"She must have put the students up to writing the publishers."
The dean knew who he meant. Lyle was a chronic complainer.
"Did Trenchant put your boys up to plagiarism too?" ridiculed
the dean. "I understood from you that she was no longer
in the radiology course."
"She's not, but the students from previous years have told
this year's students about her and they all go to her when
they don't understand something.
"She's really a menace to Randy and Ian. One day she even
got a classroom and held a review just before an exam.
I got wind of it and sent Ann Biggot to audit. Ann said that most
of the radiology class showed up. The students told Ann afterwards
that they had been the ones to ask for the review.
"Now you know how that must have hurt Ian's feelings. His reviews were
only attended by a handful of the students and no one came to Randy's."
"You should be able to handle a situation like that.
Tell her to stop it if you think it undermines your faculty."
Lyle was not a happy camper. He left, enraged. As soon as
he reached his office, he called for Ian.
"Ian, I know you've got a lecture in a few minutes so I'll
be brief. After the lecture, I want you to tell the students
that they must not consult Diana anymore because she is not
involved in teaching radiology and is much too busy to be bothered.
Also, you lay it on the line about your job. You tell them that
unless your critiques improve, you are out. Work on their feelings.
Most of the students like you and would hate to have you lose your job
on account of them.
"After you finish that, you and Randy get in here. I want
to talk to you both about that lab material you plagiarized."
When the panel had finished its brief examination of the dean,
Diana simply said, "I have no questions." She understood the
constraints he was under and appreciated how much he had tried,
in spite of them, to help. He had given the panel some
vital information. The question was, did they hear it?
Dean Broadhurst was excused and the next witness was called.