All of her witnesses were waiting in a high state of
excitement when Diana reached Howard Hall the next morning.
"Roz came in early," she was told. "She wanted to be sure
we got this room again today."
Roz brushed aside the praise, "Hey teach, I've got some
great news. The rest of the class is kicking in to make up
for what we lose in wages by attending the hearing."
Diana was delighted. The fact that many of her witnesses
were losing time at work to help her had caused a nagging
pain of remorse. Already, most of them had lost a day's pay
just sitting around waiting to testify yesterday.
While her witnesses occupied themselves in various ways--
studying, reading or conversing quietly, Diana sat down on the couch,
closed her eyes and sought to compose herself. Even though the panel
had instructed her to be there at nine with all her witnesses,
one never knew when the hearing would reconvene.
Good news indeed. What great people these were, she thought.
When the whole mess happened, this class of some two hundred
nutrition students had rounded up hundreds of signatures for
petitions sent to Lyle, Sam and the Pope. Many of the students
had gone to them in person to plead for justice.
Although most of the students were in the nursing school,
some came from the colleges of agriculture, arts and science
and special education. Collectively, they had filled out
and filed more nominations for me to be named Teacher Of The Year
than had ever been received before for one teacher. They were
devastated when the committee receiving these nominations
threw them in the wastebasket, following the instructions
of Henry Tarbuck.
Then there were some that went as a group to beg help from
the `Minority VP'--Dan Field. Dan talks a good game against
discrimination and even pretends to speak for the black community.
He's a brilliant, fascinating lecturer, a perennial favorite
with the students. They considered him to be the most impartial,
open-minded administrator they had ever known. His feet of clay
surprisingly revealed when he washed his hands of the students pleas
and sided with the administration, telling the students who
petitioned him for help that I am a criminal. At least the blacks
on campus weren't surprised by this. They had long ago discovered
he was not only a smart cookie, he was an oreo.
But, Diana mused on gratefully, Dan was the exception. Many pleaded
on my behalf. Someone once said that all it takes to stop evil
is for one good man to speak up and many good men, and women, did just that.
They spoke up for justice and fair play. They argued with administration
officials, citing example after example of male faculty misconduct
over the years that had gone nearly unnoticed and never punished.
They asserted that a witch hunt would hurt the Belmont image
and reflect badly on all who worked there. They all knew what
a farce the SmurFFs had always been and all this fuss over seven?
Sure, evaluations were used at times by administrators as justification
for not reappointing a faculty member, but even then, there had to be
a preponderance of negative evaluations.
It was of no avail. The administration was adamant. So much for wise
sayings but the fact that some people did try was heartwarming, Diana thought.
Roz broke her revere, gently. "It's time, Diana."
Was it her imagination or was the panel friendlier this morning,
Diana mused as she entered the room and took her seat.
I do believe besides saying good morning, most of them smiled at me.
Maybe things are looking up.
A chastised Randy returned to the witness chair. He looks
ridden hard and put away wet, thought Diana with amusement.
Responding to a question from Annette, he avowed that,
"The year that Trenchant didn't teach, we rewrote the lab manual.
We didn't use any material from the manual written by Trenchant."
When all on the panel had indicated that they had no more
questions to ask him, Henry asked Diana if she wished to question
the witness. To himself, he added, God help us if the little
twerp doesn't do what he's been told. Mark had assured him that
he and Lyle had a good long session with Randy and felt that
he had now seen the light and would behave properly.
"Yes, please. I'm confused, Randy. You have said that you
saw one evaluation that appeared to be more directed toward
one year than both years. You answered that this was one
of the reasons why you thought it was suspicious.
"Now these evaluations have no dates on them. Is it
not possible that both are from the same year?"
"No."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I don't remember which one was from which year,
but these are from two separate years."
"Did you mark them."
"No. I picked one out of each year's evaluations."
"But you don't know the specific year each came from?"
"No."
With further questions, Diana established that from the time
the evaluations had been given to Randy, they had not been
safeguarded in any fashion. Sometimes they were in a file cabinet,
sometimes on a bench or table in his lab.
At least twice, they had left his possession when the secretaries
had called for them to use in tabulating the synopsis for the dean.
It appeared that there was some confusion as to when he took
the `suspicious' documents to Lyle. "I don't know the exact date.
Certainly after the second year I was in the course--January or February."
"Lyle said it was a year later than that. He said it was last year,"
pressed Diana.
Interrupting imperiously, Anuse jumped in to lead him with
careful questions in a direction away from that subject.
When he finished, Diana summed up his testimony. "The `suspect'
evaluations were not dated. You testified that you didn't know
which one came from which year. You have no idea if all or any
of the remaining evaluations are authentic, is this all correct?"
Randy nodded glumly.
When Diana again referred to Lyle's testimony that Randy had
brought the critiques to him last year, Anuse again interrupted.
This time Trenchant held her ground and forcefully turned toward him saying,
"Excuse me. I believe this is my time to examine this witness!"
"Now, Randy, you have stated that none of the material in
my laboratory manual was used by you to create the manual you
used last year when I was not in the course. Do you want to
change that answer?"
"No."
The accused held up two large manila envelopes, thick with
their contents, saying, "I have here a copy of my manual
and the one you prepared. Clearly marked are the parts
in your manual that have been lifted verbatim from mine.
"In addition, I have given the references of whole paragraphs
that you have copied from published radiology text books
and used without citation in your manual.
"I am prepared to offer this to the panel as evidence that
you are not telling the truth."
"This has nothing to do with the Termination For Cause
action that this hearing is all about," interrupted Henry.
"You must keep to the subject." How did I ever get into this fix,
he thought. Aloud, he continued, "Since this material does not
bear directly on the matter at hand, it cannot be allowed
into evidence. Please continue."
"I have no further questions."
Whew, she gave up. Henry wiped his brow. That was close,
I figured she'd keep picking at him until he blew up and spat-
tered all over the room. Hurriedly he said, "You're excused,
Randy. Please tell Ian to come in before you leave."
Randy shared in the relief felt by the chair of the panel.
He ran lightly up the stairs to the witness room. "You're on
next, Ian." He was surprised when Ian fairly catapulted out of
the room, grabbing his arm as he passed and nearly hurled them
both down the stairs. "What in hell is the damned hurry?"
Safely away from the second floor, Ian steered Randy into
an alcove from where he could see the stairs. "That Mark!
Honestly, Randy, he's been driving me crazy. Talks a blue streak
all the time. Ask him the date and he'll discourse for hours on
end before he gets to the point. Holding any kind of a conversation
with him is as impossible as stopping a hurricane by shouting at it.
"I kept trying to get away. Once, I said I had to take a piss
and the son of a bitch came along with me, whizzing away in the next urinal,
without missing a word. I tell you, the man should be muzzled."
"Well, it looks as if he isn't going to follow you into the
hearing room, Ian. Calm down. They're waiting for you in there."
"Yeah, in a minute. Tell me first, Randy, how was it?
Anything I should watch out for?"
"Nada." Randy had regained his usual swagger. "Not a thing, old bean.
Between us, we'll give the bitch the old one two. . ."
"We're waiting for you, Ian." Henry said from the doorway
of the hearing room.
"Oh, right. I'm coming right along. Just had to get things
straight about who takes the review session today since I could
be tied up here, " blubbered Ian, apologetically. As he reached
the door, he turned and looked back up the stairs apprehensively.
Seeing no one, he breathed a sigh of relief and entered the hearing room.
Ian Heathson was of average height. His most striking features
were his mop of blond hair and pale blue eyes which flitted about,
examining the room, looking everywhere except at Diana.
When asked to substantiate the testimony of Lyle that he and Randy
had found `suspicious' SmurFFs, Ian told a slightly different story.
He hadn't found any himself. Randy had found them. "He showed
them to me and I was flabbergasted. I had no reason to suspect
that something like that would happen."
Having said that, he reversed course and said, "I always thought
there was some kind of manipulative action going on with the students,
because we used to get critiques that were totally inconsistent
with what we were doing in the course. So we always felt there
was something going on."
When Henry asked what he did next, he stated that Randy had
brought the `suspect' SmurFFs to Lyle and, "indicated our concern."
Given the packet of SmurFFs that had been sent to the
document examiners and asked to identify them as the ones found,
he said, "I can't remember, I didn't memorize them."
When asked how he got along with Diana, he admitted that,
"they got along fine until the year Randy. . ." Stopping
abruptly. . . "Well, I noticed problems all along."
Esther, who had apparently read the complete set of student
evaluations for the years in question, entered as evidence
by Diana, suggested that his evaluations had become more positive
each year before Randy came into the course.
He professed to not knowing for sure, but thought, "The first year
I taught was not good, the second year, considerably better
and the third, a hair better, not much.
"The fourth year, well. . ."
Easy now, Ian, thought Henry, that was the year that Randy
started teaching.
As if he had heard Henry's silent coaching, Ian testified
as if his life depended upon it--his professional life did.
He told a long heart-wrenching tale of the terrible student
evaluations he received in the radiology course. He had very nearly
not been reappointed a couple of times but Lyle had fought for him.
Over and over again, at every opportunity, he came back to
the years of deleterious critiques passed in by the students.
Obviously, this had to be because Trenchant manipulated the students.
"Some of the things commonly written on the critiques were,
`Why isn't she lecturing?' `Course is totally disorganized'
and this is wrong because I am not a disorganized individual;
the course is very well organized."
"Did you ever have her lecture to see what the students'
reaction would be?" asked Jane.
"We'd talked about it," he replied.
Ian continued, "Along with the many comments to have her lecture,
the students wrote how she was the only one who knew anything about
radiology and that Randy and I should get out of the course
and let her teach it. As I looked through the SmurFFs
these comments just jumped out at me. When I was a student,
I never wrote such things about my professors."
There was, however, a change in the critiques the year the accused
was not teaching the course. "A complete flip-flop, Ian asserted.
"The students liked the course and the people who taught it."
Henry ducked his head and smiled grimly thinking that these
`flip-flop' SmurFFs would damn well not be seen by the panel,
I'll see to that. Ian is really stretching the truth here since
those SmurFFs he's talking about are more flop than flip. True,
the students didn't lambaste Ian and Randy that year as they
had in the past, however, in a way, they were just as bad.
Nearly every critique carried the name of the student and the date.
The few comments they contained were bland almost to the point
of being insulting. Most of them contained no comments, as the
student just checked off the `average' number for each category
under evaluation. Those that contained comments were all typed.
Well, if the panel or Diana asked to see them he would simply say
that they had no bearing on the issue.
Henry returned from his reverie just as Ian was saying
". . .there were even some SmurFFs submitted by the students
for Diana, which I couldn't figure out why since she wasn't
even teaching the course this year."
Ian carefully did not mentioned how this year, as Lyle had
directed, he had begged and implored the students to write
favorable reviews on their evaluation forms since his job
depended on it. . .
It was time to do course evaluations again. A great many
of the radiology students were unhappy that they had been told
to avoid contact with Diana who had helped them a great deal
during the past few months. They were told she was accused of
doing some terrible thing but that it would be forgotten and
forgiven if they as a class returned positive critiques for the course.
They also heard Ian's sad tale of imminent loss of job
and how he had just bought a new home ad nauseam.
The class officers discussed the situation and offered the following
advice to their classmates at a hastily called meeting just prior to exams.
"Don't write your radiology critique out of anger, even if
you feel angry. We don't want to cause her any more problems.
"Write anything positive you can think of and leave it at that.
Ian has tried hard and none of us want to hurt him. Also, use
a typewriter and keep a copy. None of us wants to hear Randy
fabricate results to his advantage.
"As most of you have heard, no medical student will be allowed
to testify for her, or for that matter, even attend the hearing.
Since many of you have indicated you want to do something,
just remember that we've been officially told to cool it.
The reality is that our future could depend on not rocking
the boat too much.
"Peter is starting a collection to be given to her anonymously.
At this point, it's all we can do. I'm sure she has additional
expenses because of all this. I wish we could tell you this is fair
and courageous. We can't. She is going down the drain, but it won't
help if we go down with her."
Susan Anders stood up. "I hear what you're saying and agree
for the most part. However, as one individual, I just had to
do something--this is such a vicious attack on her. I have
written and mailed a letter to the Pope which I signed and am
solely responsible for. In other words, none of you
are involved if there is any reprisal because of it.
In it, I expressed my displeasure and labeled the
prosecution of Diana an administrative gang bang."
The class applauded.