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[helpful]

Thanks! (I just wish when someone makes a flippant comment, they don't assume that everyone knows who flippant comment is about).

[dellaroux]

I wondered if anyone would ask.

Mary Daly, in the late 70s, was an early feminist instructor at Boston College. Her teaching style was, for males, extremely abrasive, she did not give men entry to some of her classes, and in many ways exemplified the style and approach to teaching theology that is described above.

In fact, I was only half-joking--several other females (Carter Heywood, one of the early Anglican female irregular ordinands, for example--and others) adopted this style as appropriate for women seeking to emulate their male peers (very ironic in tone, of course, but there were some points to the issue) who had for many years kept them from teaching academic theology unless they were subservient, acquiescent nuns.

I'm not saying I would have agreed with this in all its aspects, but it created a very lively, ventilated atmosphere in the places it appeared.

Never directly met Ms. Daly, did hear C. H. preach once, and knew a couple of the other early Anglican ordinands very briefly. I would say that, at one level, I owe one of them my life, since she intervened to help me assess my abusive marriage and leave it.

For more, see:
   http://www.marydaly.net/

and
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Daly

See also:
   http://people.bu.edu/wwildman/WeirdWildWeb/courses/mwt/dictionary/mwt_themes_905_daly.htm
 
All this simply to say that I wouldn't be too quick to assume the OP has fabricated anything...

[dellaroux]

I wasn't being flippant, by the way. I mentioned it only briefly because I thought perhaps more people were familiar with the person and the situation than apparently was the case. I hope the above post helps to amend that.

[kedves]

I appreciated the Mary Daly reference and thought it was funny in the cosmic-joke sense.  It's not impossible that this colleague is as described.

I have been imagining this department's expectations as if they applied to me as a new hire.  Some of the conflict seems to be about perceptions of uncollegiality, some of it is about course content, and some is about fairness to students.  (I may have missed something.)  In this case, these might or might not be genuine problems; the OP seems to tend to focus on the negative in the colleague and in this thread.  But in a general sense, they are issues that could cause problems, especially in a department that has a well-established way of doing things.

However, putting those aside for the moment, the service part of this would concern me as a new hire.  If the search committee told me that community service is expected in addition to university service, and I volunteered for a cause close to my heart, then I would be upset to learn that it was a non-approved form of service.  I would be dismayed to learn that I was considered lazy or disrespectful to colleagues because I volunteered at place X instead of place Y.  Possibly I am reading that part of the original post incorrectly, but it sounds like a way to alienate people that I didn't know existed.  I'm trying to guess what would be off-limits, but I understand that we can't know the details about this case.