..it was mostly down to men being used to working with crazy academic people. It was emphatically NOT due to men protecting ‘one of their own’ That’s not a kind assertion for you to make, and I think you’re dead wrong there.

Dammit. It’s not possible to get anything past you, is it? K. I admit to a little bit of hyperbole, that it is overly simplistic to explain it as ‘protecting one’s own’. If we could say that, then we could just as easily say that adequate processes weren’t in place because of mismanagement, which itself was due to managerial ignorance (perhaps due to nepotism) and/or laziness. Of course, those things could be entirely true. So I admit to simplification, I’m sure there were as many different personal reasons, as there were academics in the dept which lead to the tolerating/not dealing with, Fabrikant’s behaviours.

I generate about the second highest level of “best ever� and the third or fourth highest level of “worst ever� reviews as compared to my colleagues. That may or may not be a good thing.

If you are talking about courses or units in one particular dept, that sounds pretty good. If you mean to include different courses, over different faculties, within an entire teaching facility, then I would say that is remarkable…and that I am fortunate to be on your blog and hear your views.

The departmental men didn’t consistently put off dealing with him though, any more than the women did. The contrast really isn’t as stark as you see it as being, especially given what I quoted.

It could be he mainly threatened women with guns. I strongly doubt that; I suspect they were more likely to remember and be alarmed.

And finally it could be that the contrast you suggest existed did in fact exist. But seriously, if it did, it was mostly down to men being used to working with crazy academic people. It was emphatically NOT due to men protecting ‘one of their own’ That’s not a kind assertion for you to make, and I think you’re dead wrong there.

On Death Threats — a lengthy response, more focused on academia.

You also seem to be assuming these are from faculty, not students? Do none of your students ever fail your course?

All from students. I fail the lesser of [as many undergraduates as I believe deserve to fail AND the maximum number unwritten university rules will permit me to fail]

Yes, that means I’m forced to bell my marks. Hate doing it, but that’s the way it is, in this enlightened age.

Thankfully, I spend most of my time in industry where this doesn’t matter. Or isn’t as pressing.

I have an incredibly low tolerance for cheating and I set complex examinations that require both thought and good writing skills.

I’ve flunked only one graduate student in my life, and that’s because he never showed up to any lecture, seminar or exam.

There, my view is that my job is to discern whether your work is Outstanding (A), Good (B), Passable (C), or Pathetic (D).

My teaching evaluations have about 10% saying I’m the worst professor they’ve ever encountered, everything is at zero. About 20% saying I’m one of the best, and the rest in the lazy middle.

I generate about the second highest level of “best ever” and the third or fourth highest level of “worst ever” reviews as compared to my colleagues. That may or may not be a good thing.

-wolfe

You also seem to be assuming these are from faculty, not students? Do none of your students ever fail your course?

Your supposition is interesting and food for thought.

That said, you went looking for a male/female dichotomy and you found one, mostly cherry-picked and partly manufactured.

It’s silly, though.

There are plenty of examples of men voicing concern (and taking action):

Osman called Fabrikant to say his request violated both university and federal regulations

Hmmm… he hasn’t documented it, but at least he’s started.

Osman wrote a stiff note informing him that what he was proposing was in fact illegal

Good. There. Documented, as the University required. (How did the writer know this had happened? Not via Fabrikant’s files; via university files).

He asked Fabrikant for proof of his academic qualifications.

Also in writing, more documentation. Good.

On October 25, sixteen senior members of the mechanical-engineering department met to discuss Fabrikant and passed a motion calling on both the department and the university to take action against him. They were troubled

Written concern, call for action. From men.

Members of the intervention team say that they subsequently met with the rector’s new executive assistant, Maureen Habib, and told her they thought something serious was going on … Habib says she doesn’t remember

There’s a woman who totally ignored it! Oh my gosh! Men told her it was serious, met with her and she can’t even remember!

She then sat beside Fabrikant while he followed the proceedings with theatrical attentiveness. When the meeting ended, the police searched him. There was no gun.

Calling the police and a false alarm. From a woman. False alarms are a really bad thing. They make people much more reluctant to take action in the future. Fabrikant gained the possibility of a grievance with that if he wanted to go through his union. And never, ever, ever underestimate the power and willfulness of a faculty union.

The departmental personnel committee’s [written] recommendation that Fabrikant not be renewed

Men, saying “let’s ditch this guy”.

Now. All that shows men repeatedly documenting concern in writing, one woman ignoring recommendations from a team of men that this was very serious (and then forgetting about it), one woman raising a false alarm to police, and men recommending he not be renewed.

You could say I’ve cherry-picked the document to get all that. Not so. I’ve quoted from every single paragraph on a single page picked at random. ( http://www.grubstreetbooks.ca/essays/fabrikant7.html )

The point is not that men or women failed, though I think there is an element of crying ‘wolf’ on the part of some women. Calling police in to search a member of the academic community because you believe he’s carrying a gun is definitely not conducive to building morale.

The point, in this case, is that Concordia was, like many academies, especially second-tier ones, not particularly well-run. It’s also that there are an awful lot of very flaky people in academia.

Look: When I teach, I generally receive a death-threat every couple of years. It happens, you evaluate the seriousness of it (usually zero) and move on. If I called the police on every one, I’d be wasting a lot of people’s time.
Many academics are nutty, strange, volatile people. Industry and government are, if nothing else, a lot stabler.

There may be value in looking at the male/female response to this situation. As a starting point, I’d look at both false alarms raised by women, and contrast with the supposition that women may also (valuably) be more sensitive to loony people.

But not the way you’ve done it. Not by cherry-picking with an agenda.
-wolfe

wolfe, you have looked at these shootings from a socio-political point of view. I don’t disagree with your veiws on how these things may come about but I also think it is worthwile to look at the psychological-interactional actions that occur around the persons in question.

Fabrikant is an interesting case, as are the politics that lead up to his fatal actions. I hope you don’t mind another long post. I promise to get my own blog soon (it’s being created for me, yay!)

I’m going to be doing a lot of copying from Morris Wolfe’s essay. Hope that doesn’t violate anything.

[Rose] Sheinin then met with senior members of the mechanical-engineering department and attempted to persuade them to reverse their recommendation [to give Fabrikant Tenure at the uni]; she wanted them to document Fabrikant’s abusive behaviour [veiled death threats diagnosed by a psychiatrist as consistent with a narcissistic personality disorder]. They demurred. She had the impression his unpredictability spooked them. And Sheinin’s poking her nose into the almost-all-male world of engineering irritated them. No woman, even if she was the vice-rector academic, was going to tell them what to do. Fabrikant’s behaviour shouldn’t be a factor in getting a tenure-track job, they said. Osman insisted that giving Fabrikant what he wanted would “bring out the best in him,� and he made it clear that if Sheinin attempted to overturn the department’s recommendation, he would make use of the university’s grievance procedures to oppose [scapegoat] her. http://www.grubstreetbooks.ca/essays/fabrikant6.html

This is very interesting. Did the male academics put up with Fabrikant because he scared them? Because he bought in research grants? Because they didn’t want to admit their error in hiring a loose cannon? Because Sankar didn’t want his financial contributions to published articles to be exposed? Seems likely these could all be true.

I note that a woman, Rose Sheinin, is not afraid to defend herself and pursue the right course of action, being, to attempt to limit Fabrikant’s abuse through issuing him a formal memo. Unfortunate that she was politically blocked by a male dominated department bent on closing its rank in self-preservation, because had though not, perhaps the matter could have been dealt with at this point in time.

Interesting. Another woman, Catherine McKenzie, next takes Fabrikant’s behaviour serious enough to ensure police, security and herself monitor him at a senate meeting.

“That same day, Fabrikant arrived at a university senate meeting ostentatiously carrying a large artist’s portfolio. Catherine MacKenzie, now an associate vice-rector responsible, among other things, for security, quickly assumed there was a gun in the portfolio. She remembered what he’d told her about solving things the American way. She’d also attended part of the intervention team meeting. MacKenzie called Concordia’s security force and had them summon the Montreal police. She then sat beside Fabrikant while he followed the proceedings with theatrical attentiveness. When the meeting ended, the police searched him. There was no gun.� http://www.grubstreetbooks.ca/essays/fabrikant7.html

Third woman to take this man’s behaviour seriously – Maureen Habib. “In March, Maureen Habib, the executive assistant to the rector, consulted yet another expert on how to deal with Fabrikant. On the basis of Habib’s description, Frema Engel, a specialist in violence and trauma in the workplace, wrote her, “I would suggest there is reason to be concerned and I would take [this person’s] behaviour very seriously … . The worst case scenario is that he would act out his anger, become violent and either harm a member or members of the university or himself.â€? Habib claims she sent a copy of Engel’s letter to Sheinin. Sheinin says she didn’t receive it. In the meantime, unknown to the university, Fabrikant had completed a course in handguns, obtained a permit, and had bought a pistol — for target practice, he said.â€?

So, women note his behavior and investigate. Men note his behaviour, put it down to eccentricity and believe that as long as he brings in money, we’ll just keep our heads in the sand and self-protect by doing the reverse – claim Fabrikant is pretty much a genius, deserving of merit awards. Meanwhile, the Dean (another male) doesn’t keep an adequate file documenting the many official complaints made by women against Fabrikant. Are these actions synonymous with behaviour typically found in a “boys club�? Looks like it.

“In late March, Sheinin sent Fabrikant what was intended as a formal letter of warning, saying, “you have made very serious allegations against members of the University community, thereby causing significant disturbance therein … . You shall … immediately cease and desist from making these types of unsubstantiated allegations by any means.â€? Fabrikant rejected her letter — using e-mail — on the grounds that she hadn’t followed due process: the collective agreement, at least as interpreted by the faculty association, required her letter to be accompanied by a complaint from Fabrikant’s dean. Sheinin got one and sent her letter of warning again.â€?

Fifth woman to complain against Fabrikant (if we include his quarrel with the female French teacher documented earlier in Morris Wolfe’s essay). “A woman called Sheinin’s office to say that, as a student in 1982, the year of Fabrikant’s marriage, she’d been raped by Fabrikant. She gave details: she’d reported it to Concordia’s ombudsman and then, because she was having emotional problems and was afraid of Fabrikant, had left the university without pursuing the matter. The ombudsman verified that the woman had approached her. But when Sheinin’s office tried to persuade the woman to go on record, she was reluctant; she only wanted to warn them that Fabrikant could be physically violent. Then she suffered a brain embolism and died — just before Fabrikant’s trial ended.�

Then unbelievably, even though the mech engineer dept find out that Fabrikant is deliberately missmarking student papers correctly and bumping up student grades, they force him to teach ADDITIONAL courses. Unbelievable. These courses are also outside his area of expertise. Wasn’t it obvious to the dept that their pressure to get him to leave would backfire and result in nothing more than downgrading teaching to students and adding stress to a man who is destructive and who requires clear boundaries, not, subtle, mixed messages? Again, that is unbelievable.

Question for wolfe/other mabtw posters: Here we find an instance of a man mismarking papers and of men downgrading teaching due to political reasons. Aren’t these things you often have accused women of doing? Well here’s a lovely black and white factual example which documents men doing exactly that.

Next altercation between Fabrikant and a woman. “On June 23, Fabrikant raised the stakes again. He turned up in the office of Elizabeth Horwood, Osman’s secretary, demanding that she sign an application for permission not just to own but to carry a handgun. His request was clearly meant, and heard, as a threat. Horwood refused and immediately reported what had happened to the administration. Many secretaries at the university — on the front line when it came to dealing with him — were by now afraid of Fabrikant. Some had even had panic buttons installed.�

Seems like the belligerent Fabrikant always got his way when he played rough with the boys, but when he didn’t, he went straight to the girls to take out his anger on. What a pathetic little man.

Next of course, modern women refuse to be bullied and in this instance, attempt to solve the problem, “When Rose Sheinin and Charles Bertrand, the vice-rector in charge of services, including Security, learned that Fabrikant was trying to obtain a permit to carry a gun, they called a meeting attended by Bertrand, one of Concordia’s lawyers, Sheinin’s assistant, and Maureen Habib. Following the meeting, Bertrand and Sheinin sent an urgent memo to Kenniff recommending that Fabrikant be suspended, with pay, immediately.�

They are, of course, prevented by a man, from being able to get rid of Fabrikant.
“Kenniff, the only person at Concordia with the emergency power to suspend Fabrikant, refused. He didn’t have enough evidence, he said. Not only did Kenniff refuse to suspend Fabrikant, says Bertrand, who delivered the memo, he didn’t propose an alternative course of action. Not so, says the rector. Among other things, he urged Bertrand to tell the Sûreté du Québec not to grant Fabrikant’s request for a permit to carry a gun.�

The rest of the story plays out as expected. The men permitted one of their own to behave inappropriately, they did not back the women and divided they fell.