Randy Fecesi sat in the witness chair and raised his hand
for the oath with alacrity. He was going to enjoy this.
A wispy, rather nondescript person, his main aim in life
apparently was to live up to his name. He sported a crew cut
which bristled, much like his ever present bad temper,
above bright beady eyes which were forever darting around
undressing every female in sight.
Although he had some talent in research, having received
a sizable grant, his conceit and arrogance got in the way
of establishing a rapport with students. It also prevented him
from really understanding how very little he knew about radiology.
Henry had spent a great deal of time with Randy preparing him
for today. It had been a harrowing ordeal. Perhaps the actual
testifying would be more harrowing, Henry thought as he nervously
reviewed to himself what he had learned about Randy from Lyle.
Randy had come to Belmont from a college in Ohio having
sufficiently outstayed his welcome there. As is true in most
college administrations, faculty sexual misconduct was
considered mere professorial peccadillo and was studiously
overlooked. If a woman student appeared to be on the verge
of making a fuss, administrators had a remedy called
`The Grievance Procedure'. Administrative personnel talked to
the woman and were able to subtly or directly lead her to understand
that problems would arise in her matriculation if she persisted
with charges of sexual harassment or rape.
If this didn't work, a brief investigation identified her
friends and she was appraised of situations that might
affect them should she remain recalcitrant. Most didn't.
This was all done under the aegis of Academic Freedom, mused Henry.
The principle of academic freedom evolved years ago. It sheltered
serious scholars from the whims and avarice of the shifting politicians
and their politics. Now it was made better use of. We administrators
use it as a tool to circumvent trouble. Nearly all institutions, battling
the emergence of women and other minorities into the collegiate arena,
use it to maintain the status quo and rightfully so, Henry decided.
Academic freedom was used to shield the many ways we avoid compliance
with both federal and state laws. If we opened ourself to public scrutiny,
we'd never get anything done.
Universities are, were and should be a law unto themselves.
They can tolerate only those who are willing to make sometimes
painful compromises. Those who could not, and were compelled to
fight for so-called human rights and the original meaning of
Academic Freedom, soon left or were not reappointed.
Randy Fecesi was, despite his foibles, a prime commodity.
He was funded. This made him much sought after since colleges
were looking to capture research dollars. There was good reason
for this, Henry noted. Because it paid better, colleges and
universities had stopped putting the emphasis on teaching
and instead, looked for research potential. This meant that
candidates for a tenure-track position were not looked at
for their teaching experience but for their ability to
bring in research dollars.
Competition was fierce among these institutes of higher
learning and much was done to attract suitable candidates.
Headhunting became a profitable business in academia.
For the last ten years, teaching had taken a back seat at Belmont.
Crowded classrooms attested to the lack of adequate teaching space.
Much of the space formerly assigned as classrooms had been rebuilt
into laboratories. At the medical school, prospective recruits
were lured by promises of plenty of laboratory space, unremitting
stroking and very light teaching duties.
The reality was that once the entrant was hired, adulation ceased.
For Randy, this was a problem. In addition, he hadn't even tried to clean
up his act and Lyle did nothing except encourage him to be pond scum,
thought Henry. Randy expected the medical students to worship him
and instead they found him appalling because of his lack of expertise
in the subject he taught and for his repeated, haughty demonstration of it.
Having his way with women took a beating too. Usually, he ignored
any female who didn't fit his image of perfect enough for him to notice.
However, if he needed something, he would approach these females
in a sexual manner and was usually rebuffed.
Since Lyle had already established Trenchant as the whipping girl
of the department, Randy readily fell in with this designation
and laid all his problems at her door. When she refused to photograph
the pictures in a radiology atlas, he was furious. He ran to Lyle
and claimed that she was obstructing his efforts to modernize the course.
He neglected to tell Lyle that she had said she would be willing to do it
if the publisher gave written permission.
Lyle, of course, encouraged him to proceed with his innovations
and just ignore her. Randy took this to mean that he had carte blanche
and it led to his plagiarizing her laboratory manual as well as
the published texts and atlas of other authors.
Henry brought his attention back to the hearing just as Jane was
asking Randy to explain how he had found the `suspicious' critiques.
He answered, leaning forward toward her in his eagerness and excitement,
"In looking through the student critiques I found these that didn't seem
to be right. That is, the comments were not expressed the way
a medical student would.
"I also saw that the handwriting was different. Not the way
students write but like the handwriting of old people.
So then I went back and looked through other years
for similar handwriting." He explained that he, Randy,
had found all three SmurFFs which he had brought to Lyle
and asked that they be sent to a document examiner
because he thought these were written by Trenchant.
Responding to a very leading question from Anuse, Randy agreed,
"Yes, these evaluations had been very harmful to me in that
they tended to undermine my confidence in my ability to teach
radiology and could affect my reappointment."
Esther broke in, "Five evaluations out of nearly 200?"
"Well most of the 200 were pretty bad." Suddenly realizing
how this sounded, he quickly amended, "You see, it was the kind
of comments that tipped me off that they were not real student
feedbacks. They didn't sound the same. She was making these
kinds of comments to the students--exerting influence on them
to write the derogatory remarks. That's what was undermining
my confidence."
Anuse brought him sharply back out of harm's way by asking
if there had been trouble between him and Trenchant.
This opened a floodgate of accusation and crocodillian remorse.
He had no idea why she would be so resentful of him since
he had gone out of his way to be nice to her. "Once, I even
complimented her on the cute sweater she was wearing.
Instead of acting normally, she complimented me on my cute shirt.
Go figure!"
Pressed to answer what he thought might be her reason to
sabotage him with fictitious student evaluations, he lost it.
Although he had been carefully coached by both the chairman of NERD
and the university attorney, all that training went out the window.
The mask slipped and his answer was pure, vitriolic, undiluted,
vintage Randy.
Perhaps it was because he sensed a kindred spirit in Frank Anuse.
"Well," sneered Randy, "you know broads, they get crazier than ever
at that age and. . ."
Oh, God, thought Henry and nearly shouted, "It's getting late,"
over the rest of what Randy was about to say. "This would be
a good time to adjourn for the day. All right?"
He glanced around quickly, stood up and was halfway to the door
before anyone could disagree. Damned idiot, he thought to himself.
He'd see to it that this boy got a talking to and had his priorities
straight as well as his head before he came back the next day.
Henry kept his bad mood at bay with difficulty during the drive home
by thinking only of his comfortable chair and a huge drink. . .or two
before dinner. He had just entered the door and placed his briefcase
on the hall table when his wife's voice floated down the stairs,
jarring the hell out of him.
"That you, Henry? Hurry up now and get dressed,
we're due at the Bakers in half an hour."
Henry groaned. "Not tonight, shit!" Then almost immediately,
he recollected that the Bakers were giving a party and it was
most important that he be present. No help for it, he'd have to
bite the bullet. Casting a fond look at his Lazy Boy as he passed
the entrance to the living room, he ascended the stairs feeling like
a doomed man mounting a scaffold.
"You look like death warmed over," his wife, Kate, announced caustically,
as she met him at the top of the stairs.
You're no raving beauty yourself, Henry thought. Kate was
an athletic, slender woman of forty-two. She neither thought
herself beautiful or required that others did. Henry often
lamented the fact that with all the money they had, she could
afford to go to one of the many body shops and get some or all
of her sagging flesh lifted, but Kate opted to live naturally and
age gracefully. He was continually after her to at least wear
makeup but she adamantly refused.
When they were married, Henry didn't mind the over a decade
age difference between them. Kate was an exciting woman--
an exciting, rich woman. Her money had been the deciding factor
in asking her to marry him and it was one reason he stayed married
to her. The other was that he basked in the prestige her place
in society lavished on him.
"Go on in and get your shower and hurry up. We're going to
be late as it is."
"Oh, hell, it doesn't matter if we're a bit late for this.
Everyone understands that I'm really busy with this damned hearing,"
Henry grumbled as he made his way to the ornate bathroom.
When he entered his bedroom a few minutes later wrapped in
a towel, Kate called through the connecting door from her room
to ask how the hearing was going. Her innocent question brought
the whole disgusting mess back, along with the foul humor that
went along with it.
Henry set down heavily on his bed. "What a day. You wouldn't believe
the absolute stupidity of that NERD chairman and his little boy bad, Fecesi.
You'd think after all the trouble they took to have this hearing take place
that they would at least be prepared. But no, Lyle couldn't even remember
how many Smurffs were involved--two or three. As if that wasn't bad enough,
he let that damned woman, Trenchant, tie him up in knots on cross examination.
"Then Fecesi testified. He's the guy that actually found these
suspicious SmurFFs and I was told that he'd been well coached.
Mark and Lyle both had gone over and over his testimony with him.
The trouble is, the guy is the pits. A horny, crass bastard
if I ever saw one. He put on a world class demonstration
of constipation of the brain and diarrhea of the mouth.
If I hadn't adjourned the hearing when I did, there's no telling
what else would have come out of that foul throat of his.
"Now, add to all of that, those stupid broads on the panel
got teed-off at the document examiner and apparently aren't
convinced now that Trenchant wrote those evaluations at all.
The only one I can depend on is Frank Anuse." Henry buried
his head in his lap and massaged it with both hands.
Kate looked at him without pity. "Serves you right. You and the rest
of those sanctimonious bastards trying to railroad that woman.
Seven SmurFFs, for God's sake--it's a greater crime to spit on the grass.
"As for Fecesi, he's got his brains in his crotch just like
the rest of you. The only difference is that he doesn't
pretend otherwise--he's a little too direct for you, isn't he?
"Since this whole thing started, I've had more people ask
me what the real reason is for going after Diana Trenchant
because they just can't believe the SmurFF crap.
Everyone on campus knows the SmurFFs are a joke.
Nobody, but nobody takes them seriously."
Henry defended himself vigorously. "Well, it is serious and
the SmurFF thing is not all there is to it. That woman has been
using her influence over the past three or four years to injure
the other faculty in the radiology course," Henry defended
himself vigorously.
"Influence? A lecturer with influence? Who did she influence,
the dean? The Pope?"
"No. The students. That's why these guys in the course
were so hurt by all this. Their yearly evaluation by the
students--nearly all the student feedback for them,
and the course they directed, were really bad.
And, it's her fault. She manipulated the students
to write those bad critiques."
"Pshaw. She manipulated medical students? Since when?
You know, Henry, you can't have it both ways. You claim that
your witnesses are stupid and loathsome, then blame Trenchant
when the medical students agree with you."
"You just don't understand. She had a chance to resign
and didn't take it. Now I'm the one in charge of giving her
a fair hearing and I'm not getting any cooperation from
the very people who want to get rid of her."
"Fair hearing, Henry? At Belmont, that's a contradiction
in terms and you know it. Hurry up and get dressed.
I'll get the car and meet you out front."
THE HEARING - DAY 2