Posted on 02/12/2010 3:31:27 PM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
HUNTSVILLE, AL (WAFF) - Police said a female member of the UA-Huntsville staff shot and killed three co-workers on campus.
Huntsville Police, Madison County Sheriff's department and HEMSI responded to a shooting at the UAH campus at 4:00 Friday afternoon.
The shooting happened in the Shelby Center, a math and science classroom building.
Authorities said a female faculty member during a Biology faculty meeting learned she would not receive tenure. She then pulled out a gun and started shooting.
(Excerpt) Read more at wlbt.com ...
Thanks for that info.
I can hear it now:
"Dang, we can't fire oyez, he's got tenure!"
So very sorry. There really are no words but I offer my heartfelt sympathy.
After 6 years teaching at a university in a tenure-track position, you either get tenure or you’re out of a job. You don’t get the opportunity to keep hanging around on a non-tenured basis. And it’s tough on an academic resume to have been denied tenure after spending the 6 six years in a tenure-track position — there’s no way to conceal it.
Yeah, I thought you would.
Even if state law allows them to carry on campus, I strongly suspect university rules prohibit it.
Can we get that confirmed by someone that knows about this specific place? It's important to have the facts straight in this kind of thing, especially if you're going to talk about it to someone else. You don't want to get caught "flat-footed" in such a conversation...
A few of her latest publications...
J Neurochem. 2009 Apr;109(1):93-104. Epub 2009 Jan 19.
Differential sensitivity of oligodendrocytes and motor neurons to reactive nitrogen species: implications for multiple sclerosis.
Bishop A, Hobbs KG, Eguchi A, Jeffrey S, Smallwood L, Pennie C, Anderson J, Estévez AG.
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama 35899, USA. bishopa@uah.edu
Depending on its concentration, nitric oxide (NO) has beneficial or toxic effects. In pathological conditions, NO reacts with superoxide to form peroxynitrite, which nitrates proteins forming nitrotyrosine residues (3NY), leading to loss of protein function, perturbation of signal transduction, and cell death. 3NY immunoreactivity is present in many CNS diseases, particularly multiple sclerosis. Here, using the high flux NO donor, spermine-NONOate, we report that oligodendrocytes are resistant to NO, while motor neurons are NO sensitive. Motor neuron sensitivity correlates with the NO-dependent formation of 3NY, which is significantly more pronounced in motor neurons when compared with oligodendrocytes, suggesting peroxynitrite as the toxic molecule. The heme-metabolizing enzyme, heme-oxygenase-1 (HO1), is necessary for oligodendrocyte NO resistance, as demonstrated by loss of resistance after HO1 inhibition. Resistance is reinstated by peroxynitrite scavenging with uric acid further implicating peroxynitrite as responsible for NO sensitivity. Most importantly, differential sensitivity to NO is also present in cultures of primary oligodendrocytes and motor neurons. Finally, motor neurons cocultured with oligodendrocytes, or oligodendrocyte-conditioned media, become resistant to NO toxicity. Preliminary studies suggest oligodendrocytes release a soluble factor that protects motor neurons. Our findings challenge the current paradigm that oligodendrocytes are the exclusive target of multiple sclerosis pathology.
J Neurochem. 2009 Apr;109(1):74-84. Epub 2009 Jan 13.
Mitigation of peroxynitrite-mediated nitric oxide (NO) toxicity as a mechanism of induced adaptive NO resistance in the CNS.
Bishop A, Gooch R, Eguchi A, Jeffrey S, Smallwood L, Anderson J, Estevez AG.
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama at Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama 35899, USA. bishopa@uah.edu
During CNS injury and diseases, nitric oxide (NO) is released at a high flux rate leading to formation of peroxynitrite (ONOO(*)) and other reactive nitrogenous species, which nitrate tyrosines of proteins to form 3-nitrotyrosine (3NY), leading to cell death. Previously, we have found that motor neurons exposed to low levels of NO become resistant to subsequent cytotoxic NO challenge; an effect dubbed induced adaptive resistance (IAR). Here, we report IAR mitigates, not only cell death, but 3NY formation in response to cytotoxic NO. Addition of an NO scavenger before NO challenge duplicates IAR, implicating reactive nitrogenous species in cell death. Addition of uric acid (a peroxynitrite scavenger) before cytotoxic NO challenge, duplicates IAR, implicating peroxynitrite, with subsequent 3NY formation, in cell death, and abrogation of this pathway as a mechanism of IAR. IAR is dependent on the heme-metabolizing enzyme, heme oxygenase-1 (HO1), as indicated by the elimination of IAR by a specific HO1 inhibitor, and by the finding that neurons isolated from HO1 null mice have increased NO sensitivity with concomitant increased 3NY formation. This data indicate that IAR is an HO1-dependent mechanism that prevents peroxynitrite-mediated NO toxicity in motor neurons, thereby elucidating therapeutic targets for the mitigation of CNS disease and injury.
Toxicology. 2005 Mar 15;208(2):193-205.
NO signaling in the CNS: from the physiological to the pathological.
Bishop A, Anderson JE.
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama at Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama 35899, USA. bishopa@uah.edu
Nitric oxide (NO) is a free radical gas that has a Janus nature. As indicated by the literature and by our studies, in the cell, NO can either function as a beneficial physiological agent utilized for essential functions such as differentiation or neurotransmission, or as a pathological agent that causes or exacerbates central nervous system (CNS) disease and injury. Whether NO is helpful or harmful depends on a variety of factors, such as the cellular environment in which NO is released, the rate of NO flux, as determined by which NOS isozyme is activated, and what array of second messenger cascades are available for utilization by NO for beneficial or toxic cell signalling. Understanding the mechanisms by which NO is salutary in one set of circumstances and toxic in another is critical and will offer therapeutic targets for the mitigation of NO-mediated damage seen during CNS disease and injury. In fact, we have utilized the duality the NO to, in motor neurons, induce adaptive resistance (IAR) to toxic doses of NO. Understanding how the actions of NO are transduced in the cell will lead us to more targeted application of therapies such as IAR.
I cannot confirm it. I was a student there (for refresher education courses) in 1999 and I think it was a university policy but I can’t confirm.
There’s not a Circle K anywhere near the Field now.....There’s a BP on the corner of Old Shell & Hillcrest...I live at the end of West Road, Anders Book Store is on the corner.....
But...but...guns are banned from campus. She couldn’t possibly have a gun in a gun-free zone. That would be against the law. It’s a good thing the law-abiding citizens weren’t carrying guns on campus, or they might have stood a fighting chance. Can’t have anybody using those evil guns to protect their own lives. Thank God our elected officials are wise enough to know that gun-free zones are the best way to protect the innocent. What with guns being so bad and all.
Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out right now for this particular situation. I understand that one can carry there. Do you know about this particular location, one way or another? See Post #18
Thanks... that would be a key point to this discussion as some have been saying here... so I’m hoping someone with that information can come forward. I appreciate it... :-)
You can always try for a job at some other place. But I think that times are tough for that.
Before a someone can start a faculty position at a research university, they have to earn a Ph.D. (typically 5-6 years), and in the sciences may have to work a couple of years as a ‘postdoctoral’ researcher. Then if they get get an appointment as an Assistant Professor, they are evaluated for tenure in their 6th year at most universities. So by that time, they have 10-12 years invested in their career.
Tenure for faculty members is an ‘up or out’ decision. So the decision that a faculty member won’t get tenure not only means that they won’t have a job for life, but also means that they will have to look for a new job, almost always at a smaller, less prestigious university.
Sadly, a lot of people who pursue academic careers invest their entire lives in their ‘research’ which consists of writing obscure papers that are read by a handful of people worldwide. They completely lose perspective that they what they are doing is just a job, or that the main point of the job is to teach students.
I don’t know. But here in Colorado, we can carry openly with no restrictions except in Denver’s county. In this case, we can’t carry on campuses, thus making a prime crime area due to the law abiding not being allowed to carry.
Dreadful. RIP.
Of course it’s her! But the link took me and wouldn’t let me navigate back.
That's the one...
Author of #18, did the policy change recently? This letter David B. Williams President indicates that concealed carry is not allowed.
“They completely lose perspective that ... the main point of the job is to teach students.”
Ha! It doesn’t matter how good a teacher the person is. In academia it’s publish or perish .. their published writings are FAR more important, pretty much the deciding factor, in getting tenure.
I have the feeling this particular woman wasn’t a very good teacher; somehow I don’t see anyone who’s a gifted teacher pulling a gun and offing her colleagues. She was probably very strong on the research end. And, in the sciences, the deck is often stacked against women.
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