• Tuesday, November 24, 2009
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University Reassigns Professor After Disclosure of Decades-Old Sex Offense

Missouri State University has reassigned a professor who served time in jail in the 1980s for raping a 9-year-old boy, according to today’s Springfield News-Leader, a newspaper in Springfield, Mo. The move followed a journalism student’s decision to ask parents of children at a laboratory school on the campus whether they were aware of the professor’s past, and his office’s proximity to the school. The faculty member, an assistant professor in biomedical science and father of three who has worked at Missouri State for 12 years and is well regarded on the faculty, did not object to the transfer. He said he understood that the parents would be concerned. He will shift his duties to faculty development and online training, and his office will be moved elsewhere on the campus. —Andrew Mytelka