Posted on 04/07/2006 5:34:26 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
MADISON, WI - University of Wisconsin System regents on Friday fired a professor convicted of sending naked pictures of himself to a detective posing as a 14-year-old boy.
Another UW-Madison professor convicted of stalking a former girlfriend last year agreed to resign this week rather than fight to try to save his job, the school said Friday.
The firing of comparative literature professor L. Keith Cohen and resignation of human oncology professor Steven Clark means three professors convicted of felonies last year are no longer affiliated with the university. The board in February fired Roberto Coronado, a medical physiology professor serving prison time for sexually assaulting three girls.
The crimes embarrassed the school and led to criticism from lawmakers over the university's lengthy internal process for firing tenured professors. The regents adopted new rules meant to speed up the process, but the rules are now being reworked after faculty representatives said they did not adequately protect due process rights.
"The University of Wisconsin-Madison has reached closure today on three extremely rare and arduous personnel cases involving faculty members convicted of felonies," said the school's new provost, Patrick Farrell. "The university community shares in the anger over the crimes committed by these people and we regret the impact they had on some individuals personally and on campus morale in general."
UW-Madison's former provost had dismissed all three professors last year, but they remained on leave while they appealed the decision.
The UW System Board of Regents voted at a meeting in Green Bay to dismiss Cohen, who was arrested a year ago after he drove to suburban Milwaukee in an attempt to meet with someone he believed was a 14-year-old boy.
Cohen, 60, acknowledged sending naked pictures of himself and other men from computers at his home and university office, according to the criminal complaint.
He pleaded no contest in July to one felony count of exposing a child to harmful materials. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail and forced to register as a sex offender. As part of a plea deal, prosecutors dropped other charges against him.
Cohen, who earned a $72,856 annual salary, had been on paid leave since September and barred from campus.
"Professor Cohen's egregious conduct and its effect upon the university and the community require that this action be taken," Board President David Walsh said in a statement after the board voted unanimously in favor of dismissal.
Cohen's lawyer, Marie Stanton, said she had asked the regents to follow an appeals committee recommendation that he be allowed to return to work after completing his probation.
"He wanted a chance to come back and was hopeful there would be an opportunity to return to the university," she said.
Mark Evenson, president-elect of The Association of UW Professionals, which represents faculty and staff on UW campuses, criticized the board for going against the committee's recommendation.
"This is still another example of the regents and system administration not abiding by the rules of shared governance," he said. "We're against dismissing people on the basis that some people think the standing of the university has been jeopardized by their actions. It's a slippery slope."
Clark, who pleaded no contest a year ago to stalking and violating a restraining order, has been on unpaid leave since his vacation pay ran out last year. His agreement to resign on April 4 means he will drop an appeal of his firing.
His resignation will take effect Aug. 15, but he will not receive any pay or benefits, the university said. Clark, a cancer researcher, is serving a one-year jail sentence in Dane County.
At Berkeley he would have been lauded and promoted.
Could this imply thet even liberals are becoming fed up with liberalism? Thanks be to God!
Spoken like a true anti-American values liberal.
I once took a CompLit course at Madison. It was nonsense. I also took a Physics for Liberal Arts majors course. The prof was a lunatic who like to run around with a big rip in the upper thigh area of his jeans. Crazy times, crazy people.
I, too, have more credits from the UW Madistan than I care to claim. :(
Fortunately, the Army saved me and later granted me (and paid for) many, many credits for my military service, so I can now look myself in the mirror each day, LOL! :)
Good Catch! Thanks! :)
NOTICE TO ALL STUPID PEDOPHILES!!!
That 14-year-old girl/boy in the chat room is not really a 14-year-old boy/girl. If he/she were, he/she would recognize you as a perv the minute you started writing about your miniscule weenie.
In fact, there hasn't been a 14-year-old boy/girl that stupid since you were 14. You might be stupid enough to fall for that crap, but today's kids aren't.
But...hey...go right ahead. The cop on the other computer will be very happy to read your masturbatory fantasies. He/she will read them until they pin down your IP address (never heard of that, did you) and the nice policemen are at your door.
Enjoy!
END OF NOTICE!
I hear you, my Wisconsin FRiend. One of my girls asked me a few days ago how, after attending UW-Madison and UC-Berkeley, I am a conservative. Maybe it's the BS meter implanted under my skin. :)
Was it a real physics course or "physics lite" for non-science majors?
I don't think 'three' and 'extremely rare' belong in the same sentence.
It was definitly physics lite. I did take "real" physics to meet my lab science requirement. I was awful and barely pulled a C.
Wow! You did get a double dose...and lived to tell, LOL! :)
I didn't think it was possible to embarrass that school.:(
Unfortunately it is my son's school of choice and he will return there post-deployment.
How a place can be so academically top-notch and at the same time so totally whacked out is beyond me.
He'll be okay though. He does not suffer fools gladly.
I actually was in Cohen’s Film and Literature class during his final semester when he was asked to leave. It was a very dramatic class to say the least. I was filled with a wide array of emotions because I enjoyed the class so much that I didn’t want it to be true. He was incredibly smart, and his knowledge in Literature, Film and Art made the class one of my highlights that I looked forward to in my schedule each week. I can’t even imagine the feelings that some of the Grad Students in the department must had felt. He was their adviser and they had worked with him their entire time at school. Its truly sad to me that such an intelligent person could make such a horrible decision like that. However I don’t think it’s an embarrassment to the school at all. A school that size you’re bound to have a few rotten apples that spoil a batch.
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