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[jonesey]

[Please reexamine the "I get that" because "presumably, as a foreign student he will be returning to the UAE upon graduation" indicates otherwise.

Explain?  He's a foreign student; he can only stay in the country until he graduates, then he'll return to the U.A.E. to use whatever he got his degree in to enrich his own country (and his own life, of course). 

I get that people study other cultures, etc.  However, this guy was in grad school, not an undergrad, so, presumably, he was majoring in Latin American Culture.  Just seemed strange, that's all.  It's not an attack on anyone's right to study whatever they want to. 

[shamu]

Frist, let me say that I do not know whether or not this letter would or would not be grounds for firing someone. Nor do I claim to know the entire story or the history of the supposed professor's behavior on the job he was supposedly fired from.

That said, the letter itself (especially from a professor to a student) is very unprofessional. For someone to put this in writing is especially nuts. I sincerely hope this did not happen for real, because seeing such a letter from any of my colleagues to any of the students would be highly unusual and inappropriate.

[latis]

The guy is guilty of poor judgment.  Email should be short and sweet.



http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0708/S00072.htm

Scoop also understands the University of Auckland had received a degree of pressure from the student's family's networks that warned: should the University not act on the complaint then the UAE would send fewer students to New Zealand.

Scoop understands the student failed to pass any of her courses at the University of Auckland, nor did she present documentation to support her claim that she had suffered a family bereavement.

[jwocky]

Jonesy,

Hu is in graduate school and reading in Latin American studies, so perhaps there is something vested in this course of study beyond just enrichment.

Returning to the UAE may be one of several options available to this student.

If hu intends to become an interpreter or to teach about LA culture, hu could land up in any number of locations around the world.

[vortex]

He had to have been drunk.

[megatarts]

At the VERY LEAST, that man (the professor) should have been dragged before a disciplinary committee. That he got fired should hardly cause too much harm to his institution. What kind of professor (or teacher, or educator, or professional) writes e-mails like that, anyway?

[fwicgrad]

It is hard to believe that he got fired over this letter alone.  Don't New Zealand professors have any job security at all?  The letter is insensitive and harsh and should not have been sent.  The letter also reveals likely deep prejudices against foreign students or at least against Arab students or, possibly a bias against women.  I hear this excuse myself often enough and I have been skeptical about it, too, but I would never treat a student so callously.  The death of a family member can indeed be very traumatic.  Nevertheless,  they fired him?  Hard to believe.     

[autie13]

He should have kept it simple with just the last line of his email,

"NO-I do not accept your extension request"

THEN he should have come on here and ranted the rest.  That's what forums are for!!!!  You don't say that kind of stuff to students!!!! 

[daniel_von_flanagan]

The letter was intemperate, but on rereading is not even all that offensive - for example, he makes no cultural slurs on the student (which I thought I saw on 1st glance), but rather accuses her of trying to exploit his cultural attitudes.  His statement about her father is, of course, insensitive as hell.

The letter was also badly written, but of course it is an email, and many people are sloppy with email, even good academics.

I was curious about the "Hoadley student" reference, but then found an explanation buried here:  http://www.gulfnews.com/nation/Education/10145233.html  (This story doesn't mention whether her father did in fact die, someting else I am curious about - I would think that it is a significant enough additional fact, either way, that the press would mention it!)

Both of these men seem to be US expats, BTW. - DvF

[georgia_guy]

Lets look at the many things wrong with this letter, aside from grammar and spelling.

Dear xxxx:
I say this reluctantly but not so subtly: you are not suitable for a graduate degree.

Not suitable? Wow, imagine trying to defend that in court?

It does not matter if your father died or if you have a medical certificate. I have been too nice and given you too high marks all along (at C+).

I am "nice" and give grades people don't deserve?

I do not anticipate that you will do better in the final exercise. You are already a day late. The extension is meaningless because you have not attended the last few classes and are the worse performer in the class.

Well, if her father DID die, I can see her missing the last few classes. Then there is the fact that statistically, SOMEONE must be the worst performer in EVERY class. No reason to be rude to them.

Of course by a far stretch, You will have the obiturary of your father, but even if available and the student health people might have believed you, I do not.

Calling the student a liar, even IF they DO provide proof? Pretty nasty, IMO.

You are close to failing in any event,

so give her the extension, and let her hang herself.

so these sort of excuses-culturally driven and preying on some sort of Western liberal guilt-are simply lame.

Ahh, overt discrimination. And he wrote it down. Really, really stupid.

Prove that your father died and your were distraught and unable to complete assignments-in spite of your abysmal record to date as an underperforming and underquallifed student- and perhaps you might qualify for an extension to get a C-.

so, let me get this straight, only good students can have parents die? Somehow a mediocre student's parents are immune from death while he is in school?

But as it stands, you will flunk since your are already a day+ late, and you trrack record is poor.

Her track record? Did he mean her grades to date. Vague at best.

By the way-are you a Hoadley student? That would explain a lot of things.

Ahh, insult a colleague and the student simultaneously, brilliant.

In a word: NO-I do not accept your extensuon request.

While I tried not to hit the spelling, it really is a bad idea to have errors like extensuon, trrack, underquallifed, etc. in an email in which you call someone else too stupid and underqualified for graduate school.

PGB
Paul G Buchanan
Director, New Zealand Centre for Latin American Studies (NZCLAS)

EX-Director

My guess would be that this is not an isolated episode. This degree of poor judgement doesn't suddenly appear from nowhere. I would bet that they were waiting for an opportunity like this to dump this guy.

If the student really wasn't cut out for graduate school, the professor should have graded fairly (not "been too nice"), given the extension if the obituary was provided, and failed the student on merit, rather than bias.

This letter alone should not have been enough to cost a professor his job. However, anyone foolish enough to write that letter, and then actually send it, has certainly done other similar things, the cumulative weight of which may have been sufficient to can him.

[matand]

This is exactly why I don't want to interpret excuses (hence the thread on make-up policies)...

[choirguy]

Vindictiveness and degrading comments have no place in email correspondence.  A simple "no" should suffice.

That being said, we should also remember that Karma is a b**ch. I am reminded of my freshman composition teacher (about a thousand years ago) who announced to the class that absences should be kept to a minimum and that each of us was allowed "one grandparent death per semester."  In the next three weeks, both her son and her father died.  A horrible irony, but a lesson I have never forgotten.

[yemaya]

Vindictiveness and degrading comments have no place in email correspondence.  A simple "no" should suffice.

Exactly.  And all she was asking was an extension.  It may be annoying to have a chronically under-performing student ask for an extension (hopefully it was a request and not a demand), but it's not like this student was making an unreasonable request.  I also find it hard to believe (though not impossible) that a graduate student who fails all his/her papers/courses does not have an inkling that perhaps things aren't going so well and perhaps this isn't the best tract for him/her.

[solly]

Auckland University may have been awaiting the opportunity to be rid of Dr Buchanan. Here is a sample of his political philosophy:

It (the U.S.) also must admit the possibility that it will have to respond in similar kind to atrocities, perhaps with some measure of decorum in order to maintain some type of ethical supremacy in the eyes of its own people and world opinion......
Sometimes it is necessary to curtail domestic freedoms in order to thwart those who would take liberties with liberty.....Confronting the
internal threat requires more of a militarized, covert approach, which will undoubtedly impact on civil liberties for both the few and the many. Yet with proper legal demarcation and the use of temporary exceptional rules of internal control, the infringements on the rights and movement of the general population can be minimized. The key to success is to specify targets with absolute certainty, act decisively and without equivocation, and only in the instance of absolute mistake apologize and compensate. Read differently: if you are hanging out with the wrong crowd and a
Delta Force squad ruins your day, your survivors need to remember that you were only as good as the company you kept. The inevitable lawsuits over mistakes can be dealt with by legal limits on liability for actions undertaken in combating the terrorist threat and a whole lot of “sorry.”
Unfortunately, this is not what the US government has been doing

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:FPpd4qrCPnUJ:www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/FileGet.cfm%3FID%3Dfdcc89fd-5d30-4b16-8f6e-ea90dd3229bb+Buchanan+Shadow+wars&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=fr

[yemaya]

Wow...his writing there is just as atrocious as the email.  Politics aside, I would think that Auckland University would find a basic command of the English language a desireable trait for their faculty.