[A version of this post was sent to D:F/M Members Regarding the March 14 Faculty Meeting]
This rebuttal addresses comments of Colleagues Isabel Pinedo, Kelly Anderson, Larry Shore, Peter Parisi, Karen Hunter, Ricardo Miranda and Jay Roman at the last faculty meeting, especially the attack victimology embraced by several Colleagues and threats about censoring the WORD.
2) Kelly Anderson & the Big, Big Lie on Hunter-L
The Usual Suspects
At the meeting, Colleague Anderson said she was the victim of an attack because of her decision as a member of a D:F/M Grade Appeals Committee regarding a student who flunked one of my classes. She was not power smirking at the time she spoke of her victimization (though she is known to p-smirk). This is my recollection of what might have been our interaction regarding a grade appeal.
After the WORD censoring coup failed, several Colleagues decided to take This Colleague to task, using customary stratagems classified in that emerging body of study about Campus Bullying. I prefer Campus Bigotry [more] but Colleagues, off campus, off CUNY, of course, prefer the appellation Campus Bullying, Academic Bullying.
Anyway, Colleagues did engage in grade appeal decisions of heinous natures. This is not an exaggeration. [RE: The nefarious 4 Barnacles of the Apocalypse are an example.] This tenured Colleague would not be allowed to flunk students in his class or he would suffer for trying, was the aim of their efforts. That predacious tactic can seriously undermine a Colleague’s Academic Freedom and other Academic efforts if not challenged. I assume everyone knows that. [I neglected to include the following in the email memo sent to the department: It can also undermine a Colleague’s classroom instruction if students, led to believe that they can get support from other Colleagues, decide to disrupt classroom instruction to get grades they don’t deserve. This happens a lot in D:F/M.]
[I won’t clutter this particular narrative with accounts of classroom and office intrusions and invasions nor the fatwa I once had to issue against a persistent, disingenuous CLT, who – swept up in the frenzy of predatory calumny gripping this department – made several attempts to disrupt my classes.]
I filed grade appeals and other forms of complaints with the Ombuds Office and the Senate and wrote numerous memos to the High Mucky Mucks on the 17th floor. Etcetera. I posted a lot on Hunter-L and, of course, there were lots of emails to D:F/M Colleagues over the course of several years. I consulted the NYCLU, AAUP, NABJ, The National Writers Union, other bodies and organizations I won’t mention in this draft. I met with various 17 Floor Brahmin. Etcetera.
I don’t recall Colleague Anderson’s name in any complaints to the Ombuds Office or in emails to the 17th Floor, though her name might have been mentioned in a grade appeal to the Senate. There was a discussion with one of the 17th Floor Brahmin about Colleague Anderson but it had nothing to do with grade appeals.
I never liked the Deputy Chair’s extemporaneous ad hominem comments at department meetings about adjuncts. I once bore witness to a pogrom formed flash mob style against adjuncts; it was ignited by Colleague Anderson’s feverish repetition of, Quotation Marks for Effect, “He’s been here 11 years,” regarding an adjunct who wasn’t named but was known by many Colleagues at the meeting who had been in the department a few years. Near the end of the faculty meeting, the Chair encouraged Colleagues to send him the news of adjunct rascals that needed to be purged and that he and the P&B would deal with them posthaste.
Nevertheless, the Adjunct Colleague of 11 years came up with a winning strategy and saved his ass, so to speak.
I, of course, never liked the venom spewed by Colleague Anderson, especially at This Colleague during a particular department meeting a while back, inspiring me subsequently to post on Hunter-L about the infectious disease corroding the brains of redneck hillbillies in the department: Mad Redneck Disease (with symptoms very, very, very similar to bovine spongiform encephalopathy). Etcetera.
Anyway, Colleague Anderson was only on one grade appeal committee I appeared before (as I recall). In comparison to The 4 Barnacles of the Apocalypse and her business partner, she didn’t do enough to rate much attention (I think). But she indicated otherwise in the March faculty meeting, saying that she was attacked. I am sure that she can provide details when the time comes.
Colleague Anderson recently told this big lie on Hunter-L, however, and though I’ve addressed it, I’ve yet to address it in a manner befitting someone of her stature who lies like that. Responding to a listserv post by a former student (who flunked my basic reporting class and was one of the most disruptive** in recent memory (especially when said student was off medication), the Deputy Chair wrote:
“believe me, this is embarrassing for those of us in film and media who are not perpetrating it … we have been trying to ignore the inappropriate postings by one colleague in particular for years. this is not an deparmental conflict [sic]s– just one individual. maybe if more people express their feelings about it we can get him off this listserve? there are guidelines for posting …”*
Wow. What a lie? And it’s in a public forum no less.
Larry Shore, Larry Shore, Larry Shore
I never, never want him to stop posting on Hunter-L. Nor stop emailing me late night or early morning, Quotation Marks for Effect, “Everybody at Hunter Hates You, Everybody on Campus Loathes You.” Etcetera. Nor stop jabbering, lambasting, spewing venom at department meetings as he did unhesitantly and with great vigor at the March 14 meeting. Colleague Shore can put his left and right foot in his mouth unlike any antagonist I’ve ever encountered and that kind of collaboration of the collective sleaze in this department is invaluable, especially when he spews it around campus with the belief that everyone believes him. I Imagine he washes it all down with his beverage(s) of choice. Etcetera.
Who else but Colleague Shore would post on Hunter-L that he was certain that other departments in the College summon HC-5-0 to remove staff members from department meetings. That gem of an expression is priceless. And that lie about Rashaan? It will resonate forever. I promise. And here is his infamous Hunter-L post:
In response to Prof. Gregg Morris’s post – unfortunately it is necessary to respond to these incorrect and malicious accusations.
Nothing of the sort happened.
The FM department had a faculty meeting. As all departments know, the participation of staff at faculty meetingsis dependent on an invitation from the chair. One of the topics to be discussed were staff problems so obviously none of the staff were invited.
This particular staff member seated themselves before the faculty meeting. They were quietly reminded that it was a closed meeting. They refused to leave.
Security was called. They left quietly. No department in Hunter College would have done any differently.
I still can’t get over how Colleagues Shore and Anderson lie the way they do in a public forum. It makes me wonder. I want everyone to join me in encouraging him to keep it up. I shudder at the thought that he might stop or be stopped or his mouth shuttered one day forever, the gods forbid. This guys deserves immortality.
**Said student engaged in a comedic yet grotesque striptease, puerile but morbid nonetheless, in class ,to express contempt (she was failing) but I won’t go into details now. I’m saving it for a rainyday. But it’s interesting that the student and Colleague Anderson bonded in a public forum.
End of Part 2
Tags: Academic Bullying, Campus Bigotry, campus bullying, Isabel Pinedo, Jay Roman, Karen Hunter, Kelly Anderson, Larry Shore, Peter Parisi, Racism in Higher Education, racism on campus, Ricardo Miranda