Police: female faculty member kills three on UA-Huntsville campus

WLBT ^ | 2-12-2010 | WLBT

[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.

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

or maybe not.
Unless her husband is a dyke.

[john in springfield]

I don't know, but your source CONFIRMS that it IS INDEED Amy Bishop (the professor whose page I pulled):

Shooting suspect Amy Bishop is taken into custody. She has not been charged with a crime.

HUNTSVILLE, AL -- A biology professor is in custody in connection with three fatal shootings on the University of Alabama in Huntsville campus Friday afternoon, according to a UAH official.

Dr. Amy Bishop, a Harvard-University trained neuroscientist, was taken into custody, and her husband has been detained. They have not been charged with a crime.

According to police, three people were killed and three were wounded when the shooter opened fire during a biology faculty meeting on the third floor of the Shelby Center for Science and Technology. The three injured people are being treated at Huntsville Hospital.

In June 2006, The Times published a story involving Bishop, biology professor and her husband, Jim Anderson, chief science officer of Cherokee Labsystems in Huntsville.

Bishop is quoted in the story as co-inventor of "InQ," a new cell growth incubator which promised to cut the costs, size and maintenance involved in the mechanics of cell generation.

From the story: InQ co-inventor Amy Bishop credits the coming together of a group of people with certain skills and crossover knowledge in a series of highly fortunate events fueled by Huntsville's evolving entrepreneurial spirit.

"It's great to actually see it hit the market, and the sooner the better," Bishop said. "My colleagues think it will change the face of tissue culture. It will allow us, as researchers, to not live in the lab and control our tissue culture conditions, including the sensitive cultures including those like adult stem cells.

"The conditions to differentiate those have to be exact, and the incubator will help that."

Tired of applying 1920s science to the rapidly advancing work of biotechnology, Bishop approached her husband ... about inventing a portable cell incubator. Together, she and Anderson designed a sealed, self-contained cell incubation system that is mobile and eliminates many of the problems with cultivating tissues in the fragile environment of the petri dish.

It also has its own on-board computer that maintains and regulates the incubator, allowing tighter control of the cell environment.

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

* Tenure

Tenure commonly refers to academic tenure systems, in which professors (at the university level)—and in some jurisdictions schoolteachers (at primary or secondary school levels)—are granted the right not be fired without cause after an initial probationary period. Tenure systems are usually justified by the claim that they provide academic freedom, by preventing instructors from being fired for openly disagreeing with authorities or popular opinion. Such systems may also have an economic rationale, similar to the rationale for senior partner positions in many law and accounting firms, in that employees who cannot be replaced may be more likely to give accurate assessments of more junior colleagues who might otherwise threaten their positions.

Academic tenure is politically unpopular in many places, where opponents charge that it removes incentives for its holders to be productive and unfairly relieves professors of the economic uncertainty felt by other workers. For these reasons, tenure was officially abolished in public universities in the United Kingdom by the Thatcher government in the 1980s, and has repeatedly come under attack at state universities in the United States. Many universities have also moved to supplement tenured professors with non-tenured adjunct professors, who teach classes on a contract basis for relatively low wages and few benefits.

How tenure is awarded

In most cases, tenure is not given immediately to new professors upon hiring. Instead, open jobs are designated eligible for tenure, or “tenure-track,” during the hiring process. Typically, a professor hired in a tenure-eligible position will then work for approximately five years before a decision is made on whether he or she should be awarded tenure. The academic department will then vote to recommend the candidate for tenure based on the tenure-eligible professor’s record in teaching, research, and service over this initial period. The department’s recommendation is given to a tenure review committee made up of faculty members or university administrators, which then makes the decision whether to award tenure, and the university president approves or vetoes the decision.

Professors who have earned tenure at one institution are often offered tenure along with any new position (as “senior hires”); otherwise, tenured faculty would rarely leave to join different universities.
http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Tenure/

[prairiebreeze]

I’m so sorry to read about your son and your ordeal. God bless you.

[Doomonyou]

You could, but I still wouldn’t hit it.

[exit82]

A prayer of blessing upon you and your family.

I can’t even imagine what you have had to endure.

[Lazamataz]

From trying to get tenure, to trying to get (only) ten years.

[WayneM]

How about just accepting the fact that she will just have to work a 40-50 hour work week - with NO GUARANTEED JOB SECURITY - like so many of the rest of us degreed scientific professionals.

[Lazamataz]

But she said she likes you.

[john in springfield]

Her future is secure now.

[john in springfield]

Laz would obviously hit anything.

I'd hit it, though...

...with a two by four.

[La Enchiladita]

I know what it is, having worked in universities and community colleges, but I never understood it as an entitlement. It’s comparable with Congress giving itself pay raises. Anyway, most of the Ph.D.s I worked for were dumber than doorknobs.

[Jemian]

WHO DIED? WHO WAS SHOT?

I have some friends who work there.

[Eaker]

Fivesome?

[B-Cause]

HIGH SCHOOL -- 1955 vs. 2010

Scenario 1: Jack goes quail hunting before school and then pulls into the school parking lot with his shotgun in his truck's gun rack.
1955 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack's shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack...
2010 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.

Scenario 2: Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school.
1955 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.
2010 - Police called and SWAT team arrives -- they arrest both Johnny and Mark. They are both charged with assault and both expelled even though Johnny started it.

Scenario 3: Jeffrey will not be still in class, he disrupts other students.
1955 - Jeffrey sent to the Principal's office and given a good paddling by the Principal. He then returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2010 - Jeffrey is given huge doses of Ritalin He becomes a zombie. He is then tested for ADD... The school gets extra money from the state because Jeffrey has a disability.

Scenario 4: Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.
1955 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college and becomes a successful businessman.
2010 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy is removed to foster care and joins a gang. The state psychologist is told by Billy's sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison.. Billy's mom has an affair with the psychologist.

Scenario 5: Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.
1955 - Mark shares his aspirin with the Principal out on the smoking dock..
2010 - The police are called and Mark is expelled from school for drug violations... His car is then searched for drugs and weapons.

Scenario 6: Pedro fails high school English.
1955 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English and goes to college.
2010 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist.. ACLU files class action lawsuit against the state school system and Pedro's English teacher.. English is then banned from core curriculum.. Pedro is given his diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.

Scenario 7: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from the Fourth of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle and blows up a red ant bed.
1955 - Ants die.
2010 - ATF, Homeland Security and the FBI are all called. Johnny is charged with domestic terrorism.. The FBI investigates his parents --and all siblings are removed from their home and all computers are confiscated. Johnny's dad is placed on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Scenario 8: Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
1955 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2010 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy

[BamaDi]

No but my brother and nephew are....I live right on the edge of the campus - across from Stanky Field.....and a friend of mine’s son has just gotten a football scholarship...my brother has season tickets but every game conflicts with Bama so I didn’t get them.....and yes, just in the four years I’ve lived here the campus has grown....

[dragnet2]

It is a class system traditionally designed to keep the “best” faculty at the school.

LOL...It's all about PC, cultural diversity, and all that other government sponsored insanity....

Tenure, does not happen in the private sector...Yes it might be used in a few private universities, but for the most part, tenure, (a job forever) is a government employee benefit that is all but unheard of in the private sector.

This isn't even debatable.

[Lazamataz]

No I wouldn't.

I wouldn't hit Helen Thomas.

Oh wait, I would.

[Star Traveler]

You were saying ...

...and the gun control laws made sure no one else was armed and able to shoot back.

Post #18 says that they can carry there...