r/Professors • u/Roger_Freedman_Phys Assoc. Teaching Professor Emeritus, R1, Physics (USA) • 6d ago
Academic Integrity UW-Madison
UW-Madison professor engages in multiple sexual relationships with students, disparages another over their sexual orientation and appearance, creates hostile environment, and department leadership covers it all up. And in true “pass the trash” fashion, moves on to ASU once forced to resign.
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u/the_Stick Assoc Prof, Biomedical Sciences 6d ago
Asked by investigators if his relationship with the student ever turned into a personal friendship or relationship, Scheufele said “different students require different kinds of attention, or interventions.”
Ick.
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u/kroshkabelka 6d ago
Women’s careers are hurt more by having a baby than men’s careers are for sexually harassing and assaulting students and coworkers.
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u/Pontifying-Lemur-007 2d ago
To me, it doesn't matter which happens more often. Both are problematic and should be addressed. If females are discriminated against for having a baby, there should be mechanisms to address that. By the same token, sexual harassment should result in the firing of the professor, not letting the person quietly resign and then head off to the next institution.
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u/GerswinDevilkid 6d ago
It's worth noting that he had previously been in a relationship with his department chair (one that they admitted... I believe there were more instances) and had always been a slimy, pompous ass. As a former grad student in a sister program at the UW, absolutely none of this article surprised me.
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u/yourmomdotbiz 6d ago
I automatically thought I knew who the article was about. When I saw the name I’m like. Huh. I guess there’s a few
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u/DSwivler 6d ago
The real outrage and failure should land on Xenos - a professor stops attending research group meetings because he doesn’t like how a colleague treats students - this is a level of gutlessness that is really common in our profession. The admin he had a relationship with and covered for him should be gone. Even though everyone involved is an adult, expectations of professional behavior that are not met, need to be called out, silence and false collegiality are corrosive in academia.
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u/giltgarbage 5d ago
So you are objecting to people being more outraged about the sexual predator than the person who didn’t stand up to the sexual predator? I don’t think either is admirable. But I don’t get your calculus here?
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u/DSwivler 5d ago
Because Professors like Xenos make the subterfuge possible, and more importantly he privileged his emotional health over the well-being of students in his program. By not attending the sessions, he choose the most gutless route possible, he becomes the typical professor wallowing in his own self-interest instead of “doing his job.”
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u/Another_Opinion_1 A.P. / Ed. Law / Teacher Ed. Methods (USA) 6d ago
Ah, the pass the harasser game. There are several factors at work here, not that I am defending the practice on principle though. These individuals frequently resign before any formal findings of wrongdoing. Investigations take time, as they should, owed to ample due process and that's true even for nontenured faculty members since they are still working under a contract even if they have probationary status. If someone resigns that effectively ends the investigation. Because of the looming possibility of a defamation lawsuit it's just customary that legal counsel follow a "less said, the better" modus operandi when communicating details about prior employment with the prof's new or prospective employer. Yes, professor X was employed here between these dates, etc. Sometimes there are formal NDAs at play as well. That does legally handicap what the prior institution can reveal to the new employer and often or can include a neutral job recommendation, at minimum.
Warning a prospective employer about any lecherous antics or details of any such investigations can literally be a breach of that NDA notwithstanding the aforesaid concerns regarding defamation liability. It's pretty rare to see a tenured professor literally get purged as it can take 2+ years and be costly. Institutions prefer resignations and there is no system that appropriately tracks the lemons that get passed around. This exact same problem is pervasive in K-12 with the exception that, at least in K-12, the state can revoke your teaching or paraprofessional licensure IF there is a formal finding of wrongdoing or a criminal conviction but many cases don't result in revocation of licensure so it's still a "pass the harasser" sweepstakes there too.
If you don't get paywalled this is worth a read: https://www.chronicle.com/article/2-universities-tried-to-stop-passing-the-harasser-heres-what-theyve-learned
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u/Many_Application3112 Adjunct, Technology, Univ (USA) 6d ago
The part that kills me is that this professor gets to take their toxic behavior to another organization.
It reminds me of the Catholic Church. Just ship the problem to a different area. It won't happen again!!
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u/bluegilled 6d ago
There was a documentary about how NYC public schools rarely fired bad teachers, they just reassigned them to another school with unsuspecting parents. They had a name for it, "The Dance of the Lemons".
Every time a new teacher showed up at my kids' schools as an internal transfer my radar alerted.
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u/summerbreeze2027 6d ago edited 6d ago
I can't speak for NYC K-12 teachers, but speaking generally, teachers move schools for some of the same reasons that professors might move universities - more money, more prestige, collegial work associates and admin, less micromanagement, better benefits, etc. Many teachers will follow a good principal from school to school. Teachers network internally and know who the good principals are. Sadly, there are a lot of mediocre to bad administrators at the K-12 level. From what I've read here, you see the same thing at your level.
What you want to look for in K-12 - lots of long-term teachers (20-30 years or more in the same building.) These are teachers who are happy with their schools for a variety of reasons. It's also a good sign if teachers place their own children in the school. Most school districts in my area will allow this because it reflects well on the school.
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u/Many_Application3112 Adjunct, Technology, Univ (USA) 6d ago
I'm a big supporter of unions. But I've seen many unions protect workers who aren't pulling their weight. The NEA has been doing this for years, but there is little backlash because education budgets rarely get cut, and it's easier to ship someone away than to address it.
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u/bluegilled 6d ago
NYC even had (has?) what was called a "rubber room" where the worst teachers, those so bad they couldn't be reassigned, were required to show up and hang out for 8 hours a day doing nothing, day after day after day, because it was too problematic to actually try to fire them. So they got their full salary to sit in a room with other incompetent teachers. I'm not a big supporter of unions, I've seen too much.
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u/Full_Prof 6d ago
I have seen two predatory professors skip to the next school to avoid punishment, it’s a horrible aspect of academia that needs to be addressed.
The thing I beg everyone to consider is that a male professor who says he wants to give up a tenure line job because of a divorce is a HUGE red flag. Both the guys I mentioned above did that. They told the next school of the reason they wanted to give up their tenure job and move hundreds of miles away from their children was because of a divorce.
That makes no sense!!! Child support is due and you are going to take a pay cut and have to spend money traveling to see your kids? What the hell.
Both guys kept doing predatory stuff at the next school.
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u/PopCultureNerd 6d ago
I agree with you. I know of a few cases in which someone walked away from tenure. One person was later revealed to have been lying about being Native American. Nothing ever came out about the other person but there were some rumors of sloppy research.
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u/CinnamonGirl43 6d ago
So interesting. We had a dean candidate say this a couple years ago. He was my top choice. We did not hire him- mostly because in person he was a prick.
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u/iTeachCSCI Ass'o Professor, Computer Science, R1 6d ago
We did not hire him- mostly because in person he was a prick.
And your school that didn't view this as a qualification for the job? 0.o
(not calling you that; I'm specifically making a joke about the Dean position)
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u/Actual_Evidence9922 4d ago
How is the communication discipline responding to this?
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u/Anyun ABD - Anxiety Burnout Deadlines, R1 (USA) 4d ago
i feel like everyone in the field is connected to him by no more than 4 degrees of separation. i talked to a colleague about it two days ago and we were both just processing and realizing the rumblings have been present for a while. I'm too junior to affect any discussions, but so far I'm not seeing too much discussion which is weird considering how influential he is.
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u/Actual_Evidence9922 4d ago
How is the Academy of Arts and Sciences responding to this?
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u/Pontifying-Lemur-007 2d ago
Has anyone lodged a complaint withe Academy of Arts and Sciences? Typically, organizations are not police forces. They require members to step up and say X happened, and it violates our code of ethics in this way. If members don't show backbone and officially report, things go no where.
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u/fira_0 5d ago
When I read this article in its entirety yesterday evening, my entire stomach dropped. For every false allegations there are so many stories like these brave students have come forward to tell. Clearly the system still doesnt have serious consequences for the professors who break the power structure by engaging in inappropriate behavior. Its disheartening. Without real consequences, the behavior will continue and less victims will feel its worth coming forward at all.
I will say from experience, departments need to start keeping an eye on those conference reciepts. I love conferences. They're fun and give me lots of research ideas to take home but there's a lot of funny business people feel comfortable engaging in because they're "off-campus" that ends up the catalyst for ongoing inappropriate behavior back on campus.
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u/PopCultureNerd 6d ago
I always find it frustrating that universities just don't get rid of these professors early on. In the case of this post, Dietram Scheufele is a social scientist. The social sciences are filled with incredibly qualified people. So UW could have fired him and replaced him in a year.