I have been distant the last few days, dear readers, because I have been pensive. You see, a few days ago I received an email from a reader from UC Davis and I have been questioning whether it was a good idea to share with you. But, after reading an especially lame post today at Science 2.0 about how women create gender discrimination in their own minds, and after verifying with this reader that it was alright to share the intimate details of the email with you, I have decided to share it and I hope that you will share it with others.
To be honest, I am a bit floored by it all.
As I mentioned, earlier in the week, I received an email from a student at UC Davis. I won’t directly reproduce her email here, but the back story is that she is friends with a veterinary student at the university and, as a result, became privy to a communication sent fro the presidents of the 3rd year students to the rest of the class. The note reads:
Dear Colleagues,
One of our classmates recently gave birth and will be out of class for an unknown period of time. This means she will undoubtedly miss one, or more, or all quizzes in VMD 444. Dr. Feldman is not sure how to handle this and has requested the class give input and vote. He has provided us with 6 options on which to vote and is open to any other ideas you may have. Most likely a CERE poll will be up next week and a voting will close no later than Wednesday. If you have other suggestions please email them to Dan or I ASAP. We will alert you to the opening of voting. Below are listed the options that Dr. Feldman has suggested. Please reserve comment on these options and provide us your opinion on them by voting when the time comes. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.
a) automatic A final grade
b) automatic B final grade
c) automatic C final grade
d) graded the same as everyone else: best 6 quiz scores out of a possible 7 quiz scores (each quiz only given only once in class with no repeats)
e) just take a % of quiz scores (for example: your classmate takes 4 quizzes, averages 9/10 points = 90% = A)
f) give that student a single final exam at the end of the quarter (however this option is only available to this one student, all others are graded on the best 6 quiz scores and the % that results)Please let us know if you have other thoughts on how to handle this situation and please keep your eye out for the upcoming vote.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
Your Presidents
In response to this woman’s pregnancy, the class has been given the option to choose this woman’s fate including 1) Just giving her an ‘A’ or 2) Giving that careless floozy a ‘C’. If she had earned an ‘A’, why would the ‘B’ or ‘C’ be an option? The arbitrary nature of these options is baffling. I also fail to see how the issues related to this individual student are of concern to the entire 3rd year class of a veterinary school.
The Dr. Feldman mentioned in the note is Edward Feldman DVM, Chair of the Department of Medicine & Epidemiology at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. According to his biography,
He has taught small animal internal medicine for more than 25 years and authored
more than 50 book chapters, authored or co-authored more than 140 peer-reviewed
scientific publications and more than100 scientific abstracts. Dr. Feldman is a
cofounder and former president of the Society of Comparative Endocrinology, a
special interest group open to all veterinarians. He is the recipient of
numerous awards, including the Norden Distinguished Teaching Award, the
California Academy of Veterinary Medicine’s Award for Teaching Excellence, and
SmithKline Beecham Award for Research Excellence. He has co-authored two
textbooks, the Textbook of Veterinary Internal Medicine with Dr. Stephen
Ettinger, and Canine and Feline Endocrinology and Reproduction with Dr. Richard
Nelson.
Yet, despite his extensive teaching experience and awards, textbooks, and research publications, Dr. Feldman simply could not figure out how to deal with a the academic status of a pregnant student.
Figure 2: “What should we do with that pesky knocked up student, Rover? Just give her a ‘C’?”
From subsequent emails that I have exchanged with folks about this:
A friend showed me a class-wide email the student recently sent, stating that Dr. Feldman had not spoken with her before he asked the class presidents to send out the poll (I’m pretty sure this is really, really bad…). Another friend of mine reports that the professor asked the class to participate in the poll, while the relevant student was sitting in his class and that he basically ignored her when she pointed out that she was present and absences wouldn’t be an issue.
In my mind I imagined Dr. Feldman swaggering in to class one day, frowning, and saying…
Alright, kids. We got a dilemma. Jolene done gone and got herself knocked up. What are we gone do about it, now?
And, I have to admit. Although I could see the name and affiliation of the person that sent me the email, I thought at first that someone might be messing with me. It was unbelievable to me that someone would treat a pregnant student this way, leaving her fate to the whim of her classmates. So, I emailed Dr. Feldman for comment. He replied promptly…
Dear Isis, thanks for your note. i have no comment on the email you received which was to be sent only to members of the UC Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, current 3rd year class.
Regards,
Edward C Feldman
…thus confirming that Dr. Feldman had indeed asked his 3rd year class to set up a poll to determine this woman’s fate and that Isis the Scientist was most certainly not supposed to have read the emails related to this woman’s delicate condition. I have asked the presidents of the 2012 class for comment, but have not received it. Should I receive comment from them, I will publish it here in its entirety.
Several at UC Davis have been upset by the treatment of this veterinary student and, with the agreement that I not share the name of the university official with you, I have been given this private email sent from a high ranking university official in response to a voiced objection. I feel comfortable sharing this with you because this official was warned that I might write about this:
Thank you very much for your concerns. I certainly do not agree with the manner in which Dr. Feldman dealt with this issue, and can think of many other more suitable ways. However, the issue is much more complex than at first it seems for both the student and the faculty. Within a professional school that has a very intensive and lock-step curriculum, there are many issues to consider in these circumstances.
Which sounds to me an awful lot like, “Sure he could have been more tactful about it but she did go and get herself knocked up. It’s not our fault that she went and got pregnant. After all, we didn’t put the bun in her oven. If she wanted to be a serious professional, she’d have been more careful. We have a rigorous program here with no room for reproduction from anyone but the farm animals.”
Online resources for graduate students and postdocs starting families were difficult to find on UC Davis’s website. What’s interesting is that UC Davis has a Faculty Training and Development Program with Work-Life Faculty advisors. Dr. Phil Kass of the veterinary school writes:
The Faculty Work Life program began after I became a full professor, so I
wasn’t in a position to take advantage of its opportunities. Nevertheless, I
strongly support its existence for a number of reasons. For one thing, about 80%
of the vet school’s graduating class is women, but the gender distribution of
our faculty hasn’t come close to catching up. We need to do everything we can to
make academic careers much more appealing to the next generation of
veterinarians – a generation that will predominantly be female. And on another
level, the idea that young faculty should have to choose between family and
career is antediluvian to me. It’s a moral issue: the University should be doing
everything possible to encourage faculty to achieve their academic potential
while not forcing them to sacrifice their personal and family lives as well. I
see the Work Life program as the first – but not the last – step in moving
toward a more enlightened policy towards a family-friendly academic life.
So, maybe UC Davis, and specifically the veterinary school, only support reproduction after you’ve become faculty.
There are two pieces of this that relegate it all to a special category of crazy. First, it appears that there are policies in place at UC Davis that could have guided Dr. Feldman’s decision without involving his students. According to the UC Davis website, a student with passing grades in a course may ask for a grade of “Incomplete” and finish at a later date. The medical school has a very reasonable formal planned educational leave policy in place which allows students to suspend their studies and return a few weeks to one year later (although apparently this student asked for no additional time).
The other part of this that bothers me is that it is not the responsibility or privilege of students in a graduate program to determine the fate of their peers. This is why there are graduate faculty and if Dr. Feldman was truly so baffled about what to do with this student, he should have turned to his peers or more senior university officials for guidance. My heart breaks for this woman to have been shamed in front of her peers this way. To have been presented as a problem that must be voted on and dealt with. I can’t imagine what she must have felt like to know that her peers were given the option to assign her an ‘A’ or a ‘C’, depending on what they thought she deserved. How are her peers in any position to determine her performance in a course in which they have no expertise?
Figure 3: At UC Davis, we don’t need no stinkin’ graduate faculty. We just give each other grades!
Certainly her performance in the class to that point should have been more important than the opinion of her peers. The fact that the choices include “You can reward her with an ‘A’ or punish her with a ‘C’ for getting herself pregnant” is nothing more than shameful. There is no situation I can realistically ponder where an ‘A’ would be given as a choice if she did not in some way deserve it.
Truly, truly shameful, and this situation absolutely broke my heart. I believe that Dr. Feldman’s actions reflect a failure of the most senior leadership at UC Davis to educate their faculty in the treatment of pregnant students. As such, I would ask something I rarely ask of you. I ask that you write the chancellor at UC Davis, Linda P.B. Katehi (an online form is available here) and ask her office to further investigate Dr. Feldman’s actions.
Women should not be discriminated against, punished, or shamed for their decision to reproduce. No matter how “intensive and lock-step” the curriculum is.
OMG! It’s because of fuckwittery like this that we keep lawyers around.
Soon-to-be-Emeritus Professor Feldman is being a vindictive jerk and has likely violated student privacy policies. Right? How can he bring up a student’s performance with the rest of the class?
Ah, Dear Isis… you make the classic educator’s mistake of thinking grades are about *performance* or learning, or some other such polyannaish nonsense. No, the role of the university is to Evaluate the students. The Purpose of grades is to Compare and determine Who is Best. Therefore, it would not be fair for the professor to just adopt any old policy. It has to be palatable to the other students who will SUFFER from the INJUSTICE of this student receiving a grade using any different guideline than the others.
My guess from the insane letter from the university official is that they are in the midst of changing the curriculum, or absolutely will not have enough space in next year’s class, or some other such issue. If the student wanted to take the course next year, even though she has the right to do that according to university policy (that was probably designed mostly with undergrads in mind), it would create a logistical nightmare. High ranking university officials tend to hate that sort of thing. That doesn’t excuse the douchecanoery; but I’m trying to find some semblance of logic in the statement.
Seriously, how is it that Dr. Feldman is still employed and not fined under FERPA?
Sidenote: apparently, Dr. Feldman was the chairman of an endocrinology seminar that took place at The Westin St. Maar ten Dawn Beach Resort & Spa, Netherland Antilles. Apparently, he is not a disciple of St K3rn for *himself*, only the stupid students who get knocked up.
That is a very, very good question DrugMonkey.
I am so appalled that I am speechless, a rare condition for me! I’m with Pascale — thank goodness for lawyers!
That’s got to be one of the dumbest responses to a situation that I’ve ever heard. I’m a single man and never had a pregnant girlfriend and I could have handled that better.
Where I went to school there were written policies on how to handle a student’s absences due to illness or injury and allow the person to complete their courses. Pregnancy may not be either of those, but the same policies and rules could certainly be applied the same way.
The idea that a large, well known institution doesn’t have a planned policy and can’t handle this correctly is mind boggling.
Unbelievable. Cynical, unethical, offensive, against policy of any 21st century institution (even in academia). I would think a Faculty Senate censure would be appropriate, the student has to be protected by having a third party of equal or higher status as Feldman assigned as an impromptu advisor, an appropriate HR investigation (for several obvious violations) and … and blog the fucker’s ass!!!! (good start on that, Isis, thanks for the effort).
Wow. Just. Wow. That is so fucked up.
It makes you wonder though – did he think no one outside the fray would find out? Did he think there was nothing wrong with what he was doing? Did he just not care?
Is he an idiot or an asshole? Inquiring minds want to know….
Thank you for bringing this to light. I’ve written a blog post (linking back to you) that should publish tomorrow morning (when more people will see it, I don’t have the readership you do!) and I submitted it to Jezebel’s Groupthink/Tips. People are already outraged on Groupthink and we’re really hoping one of the editors notices and picks up the story.
Perhaps Dr. Feldman’s salary for next year should be similarly decided by his students?
Or, perhaps, his continued employment at UC Davis? Though I expect he has tenure…
I’m flabbergasted, and like JLK, am curious to know what led to such a thing happening. Idiocy? Assholery? Some type of encephalopathy? I wrote to the Chancellor expressing my dismay and retweeted this, because DAMN.
I’m flabbergasted like everyone else. Feldman’s behavior is so unprofessional that the whole thing sounds like a sociology experiment. It just doesn’t add up. How can a 25 year veteran instructor in a field with 80% females students never have had to deal with a pregnant student?
This is crazy! My best friend graduated in Davis’ 2009 vet school class and had a baby third year. It’s not like it’s never happened before! I attended vet school at U of Minnesota. I broke my ankle third year and missed two wks of class. The profs were more than accomodating. Several of my classmates had children during our four years. What was Feldman thinking?
Narc, that right there is an awesome idea.
Isis, thank you for outing this story, and thanks especially for giving us a way to channel our outrage in a productive direction.
I wrote a letter to UC Davis, as follows:
I’ve become aware of Dr. Feldman’s open-class discussion and poll to his graduate students on how a pregnant student should be graded. This is utterly disgraceful, and to tolerate such arrogant and ignorant treatment of a female student is reprehensible. The fact that he felt comfortable doing so reflects badly on the department and school as a whole, and calls for urgent policy change on your part. Dr. Feldman should be put on mandatory leave and be required to take basic sensitivity/ discrimination training, and to stand as an example to others who might share his mindset. The pregnant student deserves a formal apology. Once this issue becomes widely known in the media, you’ll be glad you have an action plan in place…
I’m a graduate student, mother, and currently 7 months pregnant. My professors knew I was pregnant when I enrolled this semester, and we have outlined a plan to accommodate childbirth while allowing me to successfully complete my semester. It was easily done, I was not shamed, nor did I expect to be. This is the norm, from what I’ve seen and heard. Time for Dr. Feldman to pull his knuckles off the ground…
Thank you for your time.
XXXX
Kansas City, MO
Time to write the Chancellor people!!! Politely, of course.
wow. this student is not only coping with a new baby and keeping her life together, but getting the inquisition/having her fate decided for her to top it off. not quite what anyone should have to expect. what century are we in again?
kudos, Prof Feldman, you have dropped the bar even farther.
i’m left wondering about the awkward middle place the class presidents have in this. what kind of pressure were they put under to be involved in this?
well shoot. FERPA at the UC is only a quick google away: http://www.ucop.edu/ogc/documents/ferpa101.pdf
IANAL but damn, I didn’t even have to get past page 2…
I’ve never written a letter like that before, I hesitate to relinquish my pseudonymity, but done Isis. So much in the blogosphere lately has turned my stomach. Please let us know if you hear anything further regarding this.
“And then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.” ~Martin Niemöller
I wish the timeline were more clear. If she was present after she had the baby there was no reason for him to do anything. Some women have babies and get back to work the next day (I don’t know how), maybe that was her plan and she succeeded? It just seems preposterous to go to students before discussing it with the student in question, in any case, male or female.
Listen Lady,
You have never seen in person how the University or the SVM deals with pregnant students. Guess what, this is not the first pregnant UC Davis Vet Med student, nor will she be the last. While this is a strange way of handling this situation, I can personally guarantee you that this is NOT the way these things are handled. And personally I think you are reading way too much into this, adding your comments about the professor indicating that she is a floozy or careless by getting “knocked up.” You are causing drama and slinging mud for no reason. Let the students and the University deal with this. Trust me if this was going on all the time there would not be 85% women in veterinary medicine. Don’t talk about s**t you don’t know about. Thanks.
And here come the comments from the vet students at UC Davis…
Drama and mud slinging for no reason? A “strange way of handling the situation”, despite the fact that Dr. Feldman clearly violated this woman’s FERPA rights? It is not the student’s place to handle this. Some day when you are a grown up veterinarian and a member of the graduate faculty at a university, it will be your place. Right now it is not the student’s decision what grade this student should be assigned.
You might claim that this is not the way things are handled, yet I have presented eviednce that it is.
Does the irritated vest student have something to be ashamed of. Its seems a bit like they doth protest too much. Evidence seems pretty clearcut, guess its just a case of douchesplaining on the part of irritated vet student.
Where “strange” = “actionable”, I guess O Irritated Couldn’t-get-in-Med-school-One?
Wow, El Picador, that personal/professional attack was only mildly inappropriate. By the way, veterinary school is far more difficult to get in to and the end salaries for a D.V.M. are much less than the average M.D. Becoming a vet is about compassion for animals and a desire to improve their lives, not a second route after you are turned down for medical school. Most of us wouldn’t even think about applying to med school and have dreamed of being vets since we were kids. Very rude.
@El Picador: Vet school is absurdly hard to get in to. There’s only 26 or 27 in the country. There’s an order of magnitude more med schools in the USA.
I’m not affiliated with UC Davis and I think this situation is appalling, but could we manage to not mock innocent vet students?
Well I stand corrected. Most vets have authoritah! complex so bad I figured they must just have issues…
So, now that you are playing, why exactly should we look the other way at clear discrimination that appears to violate not only local conduct codes but FERPA (i.e., federal law)? Way I see it, UC Davis Vet school folks like Insulted DVM need to get their shit in order, not complain that somebody notices the smell…
It’s not as if “Jolene” is suiting up to go on a long-term space mission or to a remote Antarctic research station. Except for really extreme cases like that, it’s bizarre to discover that pregnancy is being regarded as a mission-critical crisis. And the folks who can’t handle it are medical types in a vet school. You’d expect them to take things like this in stride. Weird!
@ El Picador: I actually didn’t go to, nor am I affiliated in any way with UC Davis (I’m not even sure how you surmised that), I was simply pointing out that your personal attack is inappropriate and misinformed. I also am not sure how you deduced that I was advocating that everyone “look the other way” at Feldman’s shameful behavior because I certainly wouldn’t. It seems like you’re looking so hard for an argument that you didn’t even read my comment.
I can personally guarantee you that this is NOT the way these things are handled. ..Don’t talk about s**t you don’t know about
Yeah, I don’t have any idea where I could have gotten the impression you were representing yourself as being affiliated with the program in question. Sounds like maybe you should take your own advice?
That was not my comment, you are reading postings from two different people.
I’m one of the 3rd year vet students, and I had to participate in this decision. First of all, I agree that this situation wasn’t handled as delicately as it should have been, but lets face it: not all things in life are handled in the best way possible. Secondly, all aspects of our veterinary education at UC Davis, whether it’s curriculum to grading policies, are decided via input from the student body and our elected representatives. It is not a unique thing to have fellow students, who are our brothers and sisters and NOT our competition, decide how to handle certain situations. Dr. Feldman, who despite being misguided, was only trying to be fair, and was merely looking to get advice about how we students would want to be treated if we missed part of our curriculum, which will be changing in the coming year so remediation will be even more tough. Missing out on part of the curriculum, for whatever reason, is very hard to accommodate for and UC Davis (which by the way has a majority of both faculty and students consisting of women) does a remarkable job and goes to great lengths in order to make sure that our needs are met. Obviously, this situation was handled poorly and the student in question was put in an awkward situation. Emails were sent out as soon as this poll went up talking about the absurdity of this, and a general consensus was agreed upon to choose option “E” and allow her grade to be based upon the average of the rest of her quizzes. None of us,man or woman, has gotten where we are at this point in our career without earning every bit of it, and we all respect and care for one another, and that includes the faculty. The author of this blog points out that the options for choosing “give her an A”, or “give her a C” were on the poll, but in all honesty no one in the class would have voted for those. It’s absurd to think that we would have thrown our fellow student under the bus like that. Now everyone seems intent to comment on an issue they know about because of a few biased excerpts, which were taken out of context, and agree that discrimination and no-good are taking place at UC Davis. Presenting facts and arguing points are hard to do if you weren’t a part of the situation in the first place. I do hope the administration learns from this, but I also hope the student body and people outside looking in learn from it too. That being said, after this is over we will still all graduate and get to join a profession we love, which we get paid less to do, which is dominated by women, and which is considered one of the most compassionate professions of all. So please, before you judge a whole school, a whole student body, or even a situation, take a breath and think about it a little longer.
While I agree the professor did not handle the situation very well, there has to be some part of the story missing. Last time I checked, pregnancy lasts 9 months. Why didn’t this student discuss the situation and develop a plan with the professors for her classes beforehand? I know I’m a male, but it seems pretty simple to do the math and realize that your pregnancy might interfere with your classes, and I can’t imagine being in such a rigorous program and NOT developing a rock solid plan with each of my teachers.
This situation should have been handled differently, no doubt about that. Firstly it should have never gotten into the hands of a gossip blog, and secondly what was between the school and the student should have remained private – both from your source and from you.
But there is definite truth to the fact that you have received this information 3rd hand (a friend of a vet student who knew only part of the situation), which makes your affirmations about what exactly is going on baseless. Unless you were there with Dr. Feldman or the pregnant student, you have no idea how this situation actually occurred – you are merely speculating.
What you are doing is baiting people. By making comments that lead readers into a negative mindset, you are falsifying the story by trying to state your opinion as what people actually involved have said. Neither Dr. Feldman nor the “high ranking university official” (sure sounds scandalous, huh?)ever took the tone in actual emails that it was the student’s fault for being pregnant or that she was being punished for doing so. Not one hint from any of the emails alluding to punishment for the student or that she has done wrong or that she deserves it. Seriously, read them again and tell me exactly where anyone blames the student or goes ‘tsk, tsk’ at her. You are twisting their words to suit your fight, you are putting words in where there are none. Shame on you for so tactlessly mongering.
The intensive and lock-step curriculum is referring to the fact that every lecture in the 4 year program is scheduled out. There are no incomplete grades in veterinary school, there is no chance to take a course in a different quarter, and any leave of absence means dropping to the year below unless otherwise planned. Every student has all 4 years planned out for them from the beginning and everyone has the same course schedule. The University does not dissuade or discourage veterinary students from taking a leave of absence, however it is something that needs to be addressed early on and planned for (the veterinary school is extremely accommodating and works to keep students on track). Since the pregnant student had 9 months warning of this absence, I would not be surprised if she had already had her leave scheduled and you have seen only part of the situation. Perhaps the Professor had arranged this with the student, perhaps the student didn’t know what to do herself and left it to her peers (the veterinary classes are extremely tight knit families; this is not a trial or shaming of the accused as you try to portray it as), maybe the student failed to arrange it herself, we don’t know. Your “emails that I have exchanged with folks” have no basis as they are anecdotal evidence, which is to say useless. You need to back up your claims better than quoting mysterious “folks” and “sources”. For all we know you’re making those up or twisting words as you tend to do.
What is known is that the professor sent a poll about class opinion (with no statement of whether the input would/would not be implemented), which is something that could or could not have been perfectly appropriate, but we simply don’t know because we weren’t the ones talking with the student or professor. I know that I as a student would not feel comfortable participating in such a poll unless the student had arranged it herself (even then I’d hate to do so), but regardless of whether it was planned or poor call on the Professor’s part, we do know that the student will have the last say in what happens with her education, and not the class if she so chooses. Have no fear that the Professor will be informed about proper procedure with scheduling students for extended absences, and have no fear that veterinary students are not ruthless wolves that would decide the fate of their colleague; I’m sure the students would have chosen to refrain from decision and let the student arrange it herself(or at the very least chosen the fairest option, E)
Fact is that you and your readers are not privy to this situation and do not know if/what plans the student made with the school. What you are speculating on is just that – speculation.
@El Picador: You’re really digging yourself a hole here. Instead of insulting our entire profession, perhaps you could focus your ire on the parties involved. This is a UC Davis problem, and (most likely) the result of a faculty member doing something stupid that puts the university in a tough position rather than an outgrowth of institution-wide sexism. Vet student at 1:48 AM’s testimony appears to corroborate that.
That “authoritah complex” that you perceive might arise from your treating highly trained clinicians and scientists as intellectual inferiors.
What absolutely vile handling of the situation.
She got pregnant. She wasn’t found plagiarizing all her assignments.
To me what should happen is the prof gets verbally smacked upside the head and put on warning if this is his first cockup and let it be made clear to everyone there are much better ways to handle it if it needs handling at all. I wouldn’t go as far as booting him if it is his first cockup in this sort of thing because we all do stupid things and should be given the chance to learn.
Hell, my personal near relapse of clinical depression probably affected my grades more than this person’s pregnancy did with her grades with what is put forward in the post.
Hopefully the woman has been treated fairly since and hasn’t suffered any permanent damage to her studies because of it.
What a terrible, exploitative, drama-mongering piece. You have no idea of the context of this e-mail, no idea of the student in question’s involvement or opinions. You have nothing but the text of a solitary e-mail, removed from context and have set about playing with a man’s career by putting words in his mouth and embarking on baseless speculation about his motives.
Perhaps his motives WERE questionable, but no attempt to investigate that had been made here. You could have stayed your hand and gathered more information about the context (some of which has been offered in this thread, making it seem quite a lot less like the heinous discrimination you make it out to be) but you’ve leapt straight for the drama and mudslinging.
This is tabloid junk and I’d expect better.
To add to the above, two pertinent questions might have been:
1) Was the poll result actionable or was it simply establishing the mood of the class?
2) Was the pregnant girl aware of the situation? Was she involved in this situation?
3) Is there a precedent for this kind of thing in cases of unavoidable absence in either the faculty or the wider school? If so, how do students feel about it?
I understand that the admin person emphasizes UC Davis’s rigor. After all there might be some doubts about the grading standards if they are decided by students’ vote instead of, oh, I don’t know, actual mastery of the material or stuff like that.
To Respond to Gordon:
1) Doesn’t matter. Student feedback should have no effect on each other’s grades. Grades should be based solely upon that students performance in the class.
2) Reading what the friends of the student said, she was in the class and saying that it would not be an issue. She was not consulted about it prior, nor was it apparently necessary with regards to her attendance.
3) Do you honestly not grasp the severity of the duck up here? There damn well better be no precedent of asking students to determine another’s grade because said student gave birth. This is the sort of screw up that gets someone fired, even if It’s the first time its ever happened. It is literally a lawsuit waiting to happen.
As for the idiot vet students trying to defend their program at the university, really? I mean, really? The man fucked up, he should have never involved you, vet up and admit that.
@rich
The point is we don’t know if the students were being asked to decide a colleague’s grades. Only that their feelings were being sought. It’s the kind of thing that’s debated in student representative boards all the time and often a gamut of options are considered – doesn’t mean that they WILL be actioned if voted on. Often these things are done to give students a chance to think about ethics, diplomacy and the like.
And I was wondering about a precedent involving any unavoidable absence, not just pregnancy.
He may well have been being an asshole. Point is, we don’t know what happened given the information we have. All we have is speculation and a summary communication with the prof, who very sensibly declined to discuss a personal matter regarding one of his students.
“He may well have been being an asshole”, yeah exactly, and he probably was but this horribly over-written piece emphasised lots of things we don’t actually know happened.
Wow. I am amazed at all these comments from, apparently, UC-Davis vet students.
And really, really glad that the vets who tend my own critters, went to Tufts.
I particularly enjoy Gordon’s assertion that “this is not a poll, it’s a….a…well, it’s something completely NOT a poll, OK?” Although Irritated Vet Student’s dramatic flouncy note about the evils of dramatic flouncy things on teh Intarwebz is also precious. It’s one of those, “But Honestly Monica” openers that makes it so special.
@big blue
Actually, if your reading comprehension was up to scratch you’d have realised that nowhere did I say that it “wasn’t a poll” but, rather, that we don’t know to what use the results of the poll were to be put. Gauging feeling among students does not equate to handing over responsibility for the decision to them. Maybe the decision was being handed over to the students (personally, and having been involved with student committees on numerous occassions, I doubt it was that simple) in which case the incident is highly questionable. My point is WE DON’T KNOW, and little attempt was made to find out the context. This piece is speculative, tabloid trash.
For a science blog, not much science is going on here. Granted, at face value this looks pretty dumb (of the prof). But… as it was quoted here, the email to the class from the prof does not mention the student by name. So, no privacy issues were apparent. Also, there is nothing binding the prof to follow the advice offered by the student body here. On the other hand, this would be an interesting way to find out more about the tenure of the class one is teaching in a way that would be difficult otherwise… What about the null hypothesis I.e. that the email is unrelated to the student in question?
As bizarre and outrageous as the original fucke-uppe was (what is this, 1911, and not 2011?), the wagon-circling is even more pathetic.
BTW, nice gossip blog you got here! AHAHAHAHAH!
Vets are “scientists” are they? What a friggin joke.
There is nothing that prevents one from *becoming* a scientist but training to be a vet sure as hell isn’t training to be a scientist. Despite what vets seem to think…
El Picador….as comment 31 pointed out, you attacked the wrong poster. I’m sure you just overlooked it since comment 31 is a one-liner and easy to miss as you scan the comment section. You don’t want to lose credibility by refusing to admit an obvious mistake.
Wait, wait, wait. Seth. Dude. There was one person in the class who was pregnant. And the email was about a pregnant classmate. And you’re actually positing the idea that the email didn’t violate that student’s privacy? What, did the students think she was smuggling a watermelon into campus every day? I hope you’re not a lawyer. And, if you are, I hope you’re not my lawyer.
As to the vet students here, no one said you couldn’t make a responsible choice in this case if you were given the choice (and, if these comments are accurate, it sounds like you may have). The point is that you shouldn’t have been put in the decision to weigh in on how this situation should be handled. The prof in question was clearly in the wrong, violating a student’s privacy and Federal law in the process. And he made you accomplices to that.
Finally, I’d point out that Isis did due diligence in terms of investigating here. She contacted the professor in question, the school, and the class presidents but was (perhaps understandably given their shaky legal ground) met with “no comment”s and silence. That’s their right, but it should not stop the public airing of this story.
mariana, WTF does it matter that I confused which authoritah! Two different vet types were attempting to assert? Careful, you wouldn’t want to lose credibility by bringing up irrelevant distractions from the point at hand.
I’d like to point out one logical fallacy from our lovely veterinary students. Having a field or a class that has a lot of women, does not make it impossible to engage in discriminatory behavior.
Aside from the FERPA issue, I want to get back to the discussion of sexual discrimination. There is no doubt there are grounds for that accusation. Is this how the professor treats all medical leave? Or any excused absence?
Those other students from the class can respond: have you ever been asked to weigh-in on the grading fate for anothher individual who missed a graded exercise for any reason? Not just “here are grading policies” but specific to a person’s case.
If not, then the either there has never been a case of anyone missing, or it is a case of sexual discrimination.
Seth, aside from the FERPA issues, what possible purpose did the professor have in handling it like this? And what was the purpose of using the class president(s) as a proxy? I say his only purpose was to shame and intimidate any who might be contemplating getting pregnant in the future. And he used the students as proxies in a cynical attempt to shield himself from liability.
I’m so sickened by this, but sadly, not surprised. The first technical staff at my company to ever become pregnant was laid off last year. At my company, babies are only acceptable if you’re male, and if your wife stays home and raises them.
I did, however, e-mail The Chancellor and urge her to take action. This kind of thing should not be allowed to take place.
Surely the prof has had students be injured and be unable to attend class before.
Why not pretend she was male and was stompled in the danglies by a Holstein, and was in hospital for an indefinite period.
What would school policy be for that?
Surely the prof has had students be injured and be unable to attend class before.
Why not pretend she was male and was stompled in the danglies by a Holstein, and was in hospital for an indefinite period.
What would school policy be for that?
********
And I’m wondering why the professor was taken aback by the birth, shocked and surprised. Unless this was a sudden premature birth, surely the student looked at her due date, her expanding waistline, and the academic calendar and went to chat with the prof to set up “plan B”.
It’s not like it was a surprise to her.
The vet students on here need to learn not to take this personally. Not sure if anyone remembers the racially insensitive incidents that were occurring at UC San Diego not so long ago. I wanted to pipe up initially and say “hey, we’re not a racist school! We have more asians than anyone else!” And then I realized it wasn’t about me, or my pride for my school. It was about what was doing best for a minority that clearly felt there was an atmosphere of hate on campus. And it doesn’t matter that vets are scientists or how many women they have there. Minorities and not being located in the south did not automatically mean there was not a discriminatory atmosphere at UC San Diego.
Also that first “article” you linked to really pissed me off. Moreso than this. I assume these vet students would agree discrimination still occurs, you know just not in their backyard. But that asshat who wrote that article…makes my blood boil.
Gordon:
True, we cannot assume that the professor would have abided by the results of the vote. That doesn’t make it right; it is completely, totally, and utterly none of their business what grade she receives, except perhaps in the sense of wanting to know what will happen to them if they should become disabled for a short period of time (e.g. the example of being stomped on by a Holstein). Their opinion on what grades she gets are irrelevant, or should be. If they think there’s a possible injustice, they can bring it up with the dean, but that’s the extent of it. Their opinion should absolutely not be solicited on the matter.
And this is not merely an issue of sexism. It seems hard to escape the sexism charge, since short-term disability is not exactly an unheard of situation, and every school worth its salt has a policy in place. The only possible reason for bringing it up is that the professor didn’t consider this to be a short-term disability situation, and there aren’t a lot of possibilities for why he’d think that.
But that aside, this is massively wrong from an educational standpoint as well. This reminds me very much of the elementary school teacher who recently was in the news for having her class vote on whether or not to expel an autistic child from the classroom — even forcing the child’s only friend to vote as well. That friend ended up being the sole “no” vote, the child was humiliated, and although the teacher had no authority to expel the child, he absolutely felt he was no longer welcome in that classroom. There was, of course, a lawsuit. That was a similarly inappropriate thing; you simply do not ask the students for their opinion on such things, because it is not their place. In this case at UC Davis, it not only devalues the student herself (by giving her peers an authority over her which normally is reserved for the professors) but it devalues the grading process by even *suggesting* that an automatic A or an automatic C could result from what amounts to a popularity contest.
This horrifies me on so many levels. It boggles the mind that any professor with more than six months of experience would deem it appropriate.
As a current university instructor and a former high school teacher, I can say that regardless of whether the “poll” was decisive or merely advisory — regardless of how disruptive it might be for a class or an individual to miss multiple quizzes at the UC Davis vet school — regardless of what else might have been said or done by students or professor before, during, or after this email — it is an egregious FERPA violation to send an email like this, and it is in poor taste regardless of the sender’s intentions.
My first reaction was “Is this a hoax?” but you quickly established that this is an entirely serious and legitimate issue.
I’m at a loss for words for the incredible lack of professionalism (not to mention humanity, sensitivity, etc.) of this so-called “Professor.” I hope the student in question hires a good lawyer and sues the crap out of him and the school. That kind of treatment has no place at a university or in the workplace.
I’m beyond appalled. I’m not a professor or an educator, but I fail to see how any reasonable adult could treat another adult in that humiliating manner.
(For the record, I’m a 52 year old male)
What. The. Fuck.
This is so wrong on so many levels. I have no idea where to begin dissecting all of them, but thankfully there is *supposed to be* a nice umbrella under which all of this should be kept dry.
Hey, UC Davis, FERPA!?!?!??!
UC San Diego … not being located in the south
Can we have a moment of silence for the state of geographical education in the US?
*reads #32* *preens*
Got it in one.
Look, I didn’t have any of the information you provided, but I read between the lines. None of what you have to say surprises me.
However, I’ve also been a pregnant grad student and want to tell you this- before you judge a situation like this, remember not just to make sure you have all the facts, but you have all the feelings. Try walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. The reason we are getting up in arms isn’t because we believe UC Davis to be anything other than a fine institution, and nobody has said anything against the students (indeed, some expressed sympathy for the awkward situation). BUT I remember the hormone-fueled fear and anxiety and self-loathing pregnancy brought on- and it was in large part because of social disapproval far less severe than what this poor student has had to face. We are concerned for her, and you should be too. This isn’t just a non-optimally handled situation. If it violates FERPA (and I can’t say for sure, but it sure seems to violate the *spirit* of the law), it’s a criminally handled situation. It is, in any event, a morally outrageously handled situation. The fact that you are not morally outraged is deficiency in your ability to empathize with others and see what the consequences of this kind of practice could be. Even in the event this particular student is strong enough to not be hurt by this, we want to make sure it never happens again.
“Often these things are done to give students a chance to think about ethics, diplomacy and the like.”
AHAHAHAH. Yeah. I really hope all the students are thinking about ‘diplomacy’, because their prof has provided one fan-freakin-tastic object lesson in how to FAIL at diplomacy.
(sidenote: “Unless this was a sudden premature birth, surely the student looked at her due date, her expanding waistline, and the academic calendar and went to chat with the prof to set up “plan B”.”
Ouch. Awkward. Phrasing. Attack. The morning after pill is aka Plan B.)
Oh my, it’s not about the preggers (mainly) imho. It’s about “putting the fellow students to decide what should happen with their class mate with a VOTE”. The Faculty should deal with it, unless the professor in question can’t decide on his/her own.
It’s never appropriate for fellow students to decide in one SPECIFIC case what should happen with one specific student. Student reps can be appropriate to help decide outcomes in cases, which is why they have been consulted in FERPA and other legislations on a general basis.
However, that a professor would even be thinking for one second that “her peers should decide what grade she should have” and then send out an email baffles me to silence.
And this guy is a department chair?
@Picador: vets can be scientists. There are several PhD/DVM programs around. You clearly know nothing about the profession. You are being incredibly distasteful and pointing your finger in the wrong direction.
Good to know. El Picador not only lacks reading comprehension but is a judgemental asshat.
San Diego is in the west. The south is Virginia and below and east of Texas. To educate you on geography of the US, here you can see the states that are in the south:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_United_States
Maybe you should quit while you are ahead. Your mouth must be tired from your foot constantly being in it.
For those of you who say the student “had nine months to plan”: fuck you. How is anyone who is pregnant early on supposed to know whether she will successfully carry the baby to term? Some people withhold news of their pregnancy from their own families until the 2nd trimester. How much notification is needed anyway to handle this situation?
DWH, are you a vet by any chance? SD is at about 32 deg N, Mason-Dixon at 39 deg N. That makes SD in the south. Now, if you mean it isn’t in the Confederacy of Traitors to the United States of America, just say so.
Michelle, try reading for comprehension. I said they could be scientists if they trained as such. Vet school doesn’t get the job done though. Nor does mere employment at a research University. See comment #35 for the context of my remark.
Email sent to Chancellor. I’ll reproduce over my blog later along with some thoughts on this asshole and his asshattery.
To all of the vet students and others trying to mansplain this guy’s behavior:
IT DOESN’T MATTER what your opinion is of what the prof did. The FACTS are that he violated the law, in fact, the very law that is put in place to prevent this kind of discrimination and breach of privacy.
End of story.
What. The. Fuck. I’m absolutely baffled that anyone could be such a dumbass. What a disgrace. If I were a student at UC Davis, I would be horrified. I’m off to write to the Chancellor now.
@El Picador
I like how you didn’t deny being a judgemental asshat.
Nope not a vet.
Oooh, just read some more of the comments. Zuska coined “mansplaining”, can we coin ‘vetsplaining’…whereby children try and defend their profession from the FERPA violating, patriarchal sexism displayed their faculty…”It’s not our profession! We’re totes the compassionate types! Look we even make less money than MDs…”
you fucking morons.
funny how el picador tells michelle to try reading for comprehension when, as mariana pointed out, he attacked the wrong poster straight away… i guess screen names aren’t included in this person’s ‘holier than thou’ approach to this thread
Funny how callum makes a completely pointless troll-type comment that adds nothing to anything about this thread.
im sorry, this thread seemed to be nothing but pointless personal attacks on the other posters anyhow… exactly what you’d expect from a sensationalist gossip blog like this
Answer to #68, ought to be: none.
Hypothetical student gets hit by a car, and will be out of school the rest of the semester. This is a medical disability, and any school/professor/program must have policies to accommodate legitimate student absences without unduly penalizing the student, no matter how ‘rigorous’ the program. Perhaps students could have some influence on what that overarching policy is, but in no way should students have any influence on the outcome of an individual student’s situation on such a case by case basis. That is clearly an ethical, if not legal, violation of the student in question’s privacy (FERPA, as others have pointed out). If the facts of the story are as outlined (and no one seems to contradict this), the professor clearly erred in his handling of this situation.
To single out a pregnant student could be construed as gender bias, and is in fact illegal in many states. The fact that pregnancy apparently allows for some advance planning is irrelevant. A pregnant woman could become incapacitated at any time due to complications or give birth prematurely, there goes your plan. The fact that most of the other students are women is irrelevant.
Perhaps there are other facts that we are not privy to that would change the apparent gist of this episode, though I have difficulty imagining what scenario could make the apparently legitimate email poll above seem reasonable.
Letter sent.
Isis, thanks for using “the best disinfectant” on this case. It’s incredibly shocking. I’m feeling very lucky that my own department has been nothing but supportive of my pregnancy. (I’m a grad student in a very male-dominated field, no less.) I’d love to hear any follow-up information you get.
Also, fellow commenters, remember that feeding trolls only encourages them.
I will give you all one guess as to the locations of the IP address associated with the comments calling this a “gossip blog.”
I’m a UCD alumna from a graduate program in the College of Biological Sciences. You can claim this is single bad apple, a single bad incident but trust me when I say the University has a history of these types of problems. I had two friends that were students of the Vet program while I was there (2003-2007) one male and one female. Both related incidents of sexism from the faculty.
My own College was far from immune, even in my program which had several strong female faculty members (full Professors as well as Asst.) and about equal gender ratios for the grad students.
Anecdotes are not data, but it only takes one incident to spur a nasty lawsuit. I can think of three incidents (off the top of my head) when I was there where the University response was to Cover Up and Lawyer Up. Including one that may lead to an actual criminal trial in the future (that one is a doozy).
That said, I don’t hate my degree, my program, or UCD overall. There are some definite issues that need to be addressed however, especially in the ranks of the Old Guard that are likely to be department chairs or otherwise influential. UCD needs to spend some time educating these folks instead of calling their lawyers.
This story highlights that more institutions (such as UC Berkeley, USC, others?) should have explicit policies for graduate students starting families. Then it would be clear how to legally and ethically address the circumstances of being pregnant and/or having a new baby. As a UCD grad student and new mom I was disappointed in the lack of such policies to aide me in negotiating leave as a new mother. In addition to urging Chancellor Katehi to deal with this gap in official policy, I suggest those of you who are outraged do something constructive to improve support of graduate students with children at your institution.
I am one of the third year vet students that received this email. For the record, I am female. At this time I have no children, nor am I pregnant.
This article was obviously intended to be inflammatory, as I suspect all articles by this author are intended to be. Due to its intent, it fails to examine the entire situation. Dr Feldman asked us for our opinion because he regards us as his colleagues and the future colleagues of the student in question. He felt that our opinion was relevant regarding grading for a student who had to miss class. This is important to all of us. After all, missing a significant portion of a medicine class could impact our ability to treat our future patients, and the grade assigned to the student affects their ability to progress to future classes and clinics. I am fairly certain that Dr Feldman’s response to this question would have been the same regardless of the reason for the student’s absence.
Because grades in this class are assigned based on pop quizzes, having the student miss an unknown number of classes put Dr Feldman in a unique position where he needed to design an entirely new grading scheme for a single student, or failing that, the entire class. If he felt that the majority opinion of the class, as well as the opinion of the student in question and the administration, were needed to help him make the fairest decision possible then I don’t feel we should criticize him for it. Personally I feel that Dr Feldman, the administration, and the student in question could have resolved the issue. However, I still respect his decision to consult her future colleagues, if not his execution of that decision.
I would also like to point out that it would be impossible for the student to just take the class next year, and not only due to curriculum changes. She is a third year student, and next year she will be required to spend her time in the hospital and not in the classroom. Her only option for taking the class next year would be to delay her education until winter of next year, when she could finish her third year and then proceed to the fourth. As she chose not to proceed in that manner, an alternate grading scheme was required.
Given the difficulty of raising a newborn in school, I’m surprised that more of the class didn’t simply choose to give her an A. However, as we felt the need to put the safety of our future patients ahead of her family life, the vast majority felt that the best idea was to assign her a grade based upon the average of the quizzes she was able to attend or to administer a comprehensive final to her.
The veterinary profession, and the UC Davis Veterinary school, is extremely sensitive to the needs of women. This is true regardless of whether they are pregnant, new mothers, childless, menopausal, or in any other phase of their life. We have people in our class that were mothers when they came in as well as people who have been pregnant or had a pregnancy in the family during their schooling. Some have taken a year off and others have continued after a brief leave. Additionally, various students have had to take a year off or brief leave for other types of medical or family situations. Under these conditions, the professors, the student, and the administration have had to decide how to handle the missed class. Dr Feldman’s approach to the issue was different from what we have seen in the past, but this does not mean it is a sign of wide spread misogyny in this profession or this school, and it certainly does not reflect on Dr Feldman’s reaction toward women in general or motherhood.
I am not sure which student released this email to the general public, and to inflammatory feminists with little understanding of the situation, but personally I hope they are ashamed of themselves.
@3rd Year Student
And yet…
How was Dr Feldman in such a unique position if there have been pregnant students in the class previously?
Additionally, various students have had to take a year off or brief leave for other types of medical or family situations. Under these conditions, the professors, the student, and the administration have had to decide how to handle the missed class. Dr Feldman’s approach to the issue was different from what we have seen in the past…
3rd Year Student, why do you think this case was treated so differently?
(Also, I’ll reiterate what others have said, that the approach he took was not only different, but actually most likely illegal under FERPA.)
Dr Feldman’s approach to the issue was different from what we have seen in the past, but this does not mean it is a sign of wide spread misogyny in this profession or this school,
And yet, 3rd Year Student, your attempts to explain that his approach was acceptable are a pretty damn good sign of your own misogyny here.
sensationalist gossip blog
GASP!!! Zomg, it’s the “OK” of teh science intertoobs!! Damn, I’m glad we all know now that blatant discrimination against pregnant female students is just a little petty, gossipy issue that we don’t really need to concern ourselves about.
There are federal laws and university policies in place for good reason. It’s really not OK for individuals to decide that those laws don’t apply when it’s not convenient for them. “Future colleagues” or not, having fellow students determine grades or advise on a grade scheme is NOT appropriate. As a UCD PhD graduate, I am appalled that this situation occurred. Clearly, the vet students involved are besotted by Dr. Feldman’s bizarre approach to education. I have written the chancellor.
@ #84 3rd year student
“Dr Feldman asked us for our opinion because he regards us as his colleagues and the future colleagues of the student in question. He felt that our opinion was relevant regarding grading for a student who had to miss class. This is important to all of us.”
Ehh.. NO. You are, as students, NOT collegues with the professor in terms of deciding of educational matters on behalf on another studend who happens to be in your class. You are students. Your professor is having a place of Faculty collegues (like the Dean or other regular Faculty hired lecturers and professors) who, in case he doesn’t know what to do, are in place to help and guide him with this descision.
Very simple actually. It works in most other unis over the world.
For those saying “student had 9 months to plan” or “should have looked at the calendar”, let me womansplain something to you.
When you are pregnant, you do not know month to month, whether you will be able to carry out your normal activities. You do not know whether you will be subject to horrible nausea that leaves you nonfunctional, to “normal” semi-controllable pregnancy-related nausea, or to none at all. You don’t know when the pregnancy will end, and what that end will be. Until week 12-15, you still have a fairly high risk of miscarriage. You don’t know up until birth whether you will have frequent doctors visits or end up on bed rest due to complications, whether you will give birth at week 36 or week 42 (all “normal”), whether that birth will be easy or hard or surgical.
You also don’t know how recovery from that birth or the first few months of the child’s life will go.
It is just not that simple.
To 3rd year student:
“Given the difficulty of raising a newborn in school, I’m surprised that more of the class didn’t simply choose to give her an A.”
Comments such as this serve to illustrate that apparently you 3rd year students in question – or at least those that have commented here – completely lack the maturity to understand why Dr. Feldman’s actions were wrong. And that’s just one of the reasons you shouldn’t have been polled on this in the first place.
Being someone’s “future colleague” is just a turn of phrase: some of you may turn out to be future colleagues of the student in question, but that doesn’t give you any role in deciding her grades now. I hope and trust you will grow up and mature a lot before you actually become someone’s colleagues, or part of a teaching staff at any institution.
This may be one of the douchiest things ever written on the internet. You know you are comparing your future care of some dude’s terrier to the charitable treatment of one of your classmates, right?
What justifies any of you to label this incident as sexism? The situation was handled clumsily, but the same mistakes could’ve been made if a male student had to take medical leave.
As you were. Sorry to interrupt the vitriol.
Although he may regard you as a “future colleague”, you are not one of his current colleagues. You are a student and he is a member of the graduate faculty. There are reasons that the graduate faculty assigns grades and not students. Because you are students.
Students.
I’ll say it again. Students.
To all the whining UC Davis Vet students: Sure, it’s great that your program has a history of student input on policies such as these. What should *not* have happened is the professor blatantly pointing out the individual in this manner, nor should have the assignment of specific grades be mentioned even as a joke. All the prof had to do was “It has come to my attention that this course lacks a specific policy on dealing with extended absences due to medical issues or family emergencies. I have come up with following options, and would appreciate your input on them…” Is that so freaking hard? And the fact that school doesn’t already have policy on the matter is a whole other manner of scandal.
I can agree he didn’t handle this thing in the best of ways but the principal is the same. It’s not like she woke up one day and was suddenly giving birth. There was nine months of gestation. Plan ahead. If she chose not plan ahead than she should get what ever grade she gets for missing her class work.
For the record, 3rd year, it is typically the stonewalling, nonpologizing, defensive response that draws charges of entrenched misogyny, not a single event. Isis got two responses from people in charge and then there’s the not-getting-it vetsplaining in this thread for us to view.
Now as to your substance I see a logical flaw. Either the program is totes unrelenting in pace and it is totes important to the lives of the cats and dogs y’all are gonna be spaying for the rest of your careers (you know many of us scientists have experimental surgical procedures we’re trained in, right?) that this course is completed with unrelenting vigor and zero variance from ThePlan OR …not. The fact that you relate contemplating some option other that “Fail, retake later” suggests all your hyperbole about how important it is to ace this particular class and to stay.on.schedule. is not quite honest.
I agree with everyone else that it wasn’t tactful and Dr. Feldman’s actions were wrong. The administration, I would hope, will set up new measures for students who have take a leave for any extenuating circumstance regardless of the type of situation (death in family, pregnancy etc.) But I also agree with the Vet Students in comments 32 and 84, which I hope people will have a look at in addition to all the other comments & the post. Especially 32’s last remark, “before you judge a whole school, a whole student body, or even a situation, take a breath and think about it a little longer.”
No one’s saying it was right what their department head did, but it’s unfair to assume what anyone involved is thinking. From comment 32, it appears Feldman had good intentions (fact of the matter is, some academics don’t give a rat’s ass about students in their classes and sometimes even their grad students). While it’s important to draw attention to discrimination, it feels a bit preemptive for not including the response from actual members of the student body involved. I know an effort was made to interview elected student reps, but they were unresponsive. But what about consulting other students or asking for their response before firing everyone up?
And yet, I @ 94, somehow they never are when a man’s issues are involved. Unless it is some girly-prob like depression.
“This article was obviously intended to be inflammatory, as I suspect all articles by this author are intended to be.”
funny, since this commenter, and so many others who claim “gossip” are saying not to judge the situation without all the details, but seem to make judgments about this blog without reading any other posts.
We don’t need to know all the details to infer wrong doing. That is why people are requesting an investigation, to see what wrong doing may have occurred. And that is not privy to UCD vet school only, these things are brought to the public eye to be aware of situations that occur, and how to prevent and handle them elsewhere. Colleagues do not decide critical aspects of ones career, the aspects that are school/work related should be between the individual and her/his superiors (teachers, administrators, bosses, etc.).
“as we felt the need to put the safety of our future patients ahead of her family life, the vast majority felt that the best idea was to assign her a grade based upon the average of the quizzes she was able to attend or to administer a comprehensive final to her.”
My mouth is open at the audacity and self-importance of this quote. Let me put it this way: if you seriously think that your input in this matter protected future patients from harm, then you are in effect saying that your school has no other mechanism in place, aside from student polls, to prevent grossly unqualified students from graduating. That would mean very bad things about your school, and graduates thereof.
I seriously doubt your school graduates grossly unqualified students. To avoid it, the professors and administration simply must have policies for dealing with students in special circumstances – and pregnancy is hardly unusual. When I taught pre-nursing, pre-med and nursing courses, I had to make special arrangements for pregnant students, students with sudden deaths in the family, and other difficult situations. It often required extra time and effort on my part to make alternative arrangements, particularly when labs and lab quizzes were involved. But I can say with certainty that in no case did I give a student a grade that was unfair to their classmates, or put future patients at risk. When necessary, I consulted other faculty; we applied university, departmental, and course-specific academic policies. It really wasn’t that hard.
The ethical problem here isn’t with giving students a say in their education. I often polled my students on the date for a make-up class, whether we should reschedule the final – anything that affected all of them equally. And asking professional students to think through the social consequences of graduating an unqualified physician, scientist, nurse or veterinarian, and inviting them to contribute to the development of generally applicable policies in the abstract, is not a bad thing. But when you take the issue out of the general and make it personal, thereby stigmatizing an identifiable student in a current class, it is simply unacceptable. Would I be surprised if action like this prompted a lawsuit? No.
(Of course, if the student did sue, we might then see another poll: “one of your students has, by being enrolled in school while pregnant, exposed us to ridicule on a “gossip blog,” and further chosen to sue the university. Her actions bring down the value of all your diplomas. Should we graduate her or not? Your choices are. . . “)
Easy Funkster, you know them vet schools are like 62% ARA nuts these days, right? Don’t take the health concerns of ol Scrappy lightly!
Just realized I missed comments in posting mine. I know students are students..but in a report concerning them, I should like to think their/our opinion is also valued (for the situation they were beset with, not necessarily anything else).
I know students are students..but in a report concerning them, I should like to think their/our opinion is also valued (for the situation they were beset with, not necessarily anything else)
Linda, opinions like the ones you are trying to defend will be valued when they stop being douchey and discriminatory. Non-pregnant, non-post-childbirth students have absolutely no valid basis for judgement of their pregnant or post-childbirth classmates. So the “explanations” are really just privileged whining.
While I probably should not bother commenting on this, as I tend to think I will be dropped to the bottom of your consciousnesses immediately, I just want to point out a few pertinent facts that may not be coming across from the OP:
– The e-mail reproduced in the OP is from the class presidents, not Dr. Feldman, although it is apparently at his request.
– The class presidents did not say that the outcome of the poll would be binding.
– The presidents said that Dr. Feldman supplied them with 6 possible solutions, and “is open to any other ideas you may have”.
– None of the options would lead to a direct failure of the year (option “d” comes the closest, with the potential for failing the class should she miss the quizzes), indicating that the school is interested in helping the student in question continue with her studies, where a strict reading of policy would seem to suggest they should say either “Tough cookies. Get to your classes or sit out a year.”
I am largely unfamiliar with the demands of graduate school curricula, but it does seem to me from my discussions with veterinary students that the curriculum does not tolerate interruption very well, and so it looks as if Dr. Feldman is looking for advice from the student body on how to best deal with the situation.
VMD444’s course description states:
Letter grade will be based upon quizzes. There is no final exam. The quizzes may cover material in readings, websites, handouts, and lectures, including unwritten lecture material that is presented verbally, visually or by other unwritten instructional presentation. No make-up quizzes will be offered.
https://secure.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/public/curriculumHandbook/syllabus.cfm?ID=123462
It also notes this is a Core class, not an Elective, quite possibly pre-requisite for many other core classes which will disrupt the student’s track for a whole year if they were to take leave; not because of an anti-family mood at the SVM, but because of the sheer logistics of course scheduling.
The OP seems to be carefully (or carelessly) crafted to give people the idea that Dr. Feldman (who I do not know and have never heard of before now, despite I guarantee closer-than-your association with the SVM) is a patronizing sexist tyrant, gleefully turning the cohort against one of their own. I doubt this caricature applies to very many people in the world, much less the Chair of Medicine & Epidemiology of the world-renowned UCD SVM.
As to some other points brought up in the OP:
A friend showed me a class-wide email the student recently sent, stating that Dr. Feldman had not spoken with her before he asked the class presidents to send out the poll (I’m pretty sure this is really, really bad…). Another friend of mine reports that the professor asked the class to participate in the poll, while the relevant student was sitting in his class and that he basically ignored her when she pointed out that she was present and absences wouldn’t be an issue
Both of these also sound damning, until we realize that they’re all “friends told me” stories. Anecdotal and secondhand claims are not to be accepted as fact in establishing a primary claim. We as scientists (and science-friendly laypeople) should remember this before rushing to judgment. Can we not imagine a scenario where the friend was sitting closer to the student than the teacher and the teacher did not hear the student? What was the content of the e-mail the student sent out, and why do these friends feel they cannot disseminate that e-mail, but they can disseminate e-mails from their friend’s class presidents?
Humans evolved to see patterns where they don’t exist. To see purposeful action in the unknown movement of bushes in the wind, or to see religious icons in grilled cheese sandwiches. My advice (and you are free, and likely, to completely disregard this) is to stop, count to ten, breathe, and then re-examine this whole controversy with an eye towards the question “Am I seeing real, conspicuous sexism or am I seeing the Virgin Mary in a piece of toast?”
I had a student with mono this semester; I dealt with it. I’ve had students get cancer and other students leave the country… I dealt with it. When my fellow teachers had students go to detox or jail and miss class time, we discussed grading policies and we dealt with it. It is not appropriate to devolve decision-making to students. You are paid to be the teacher and make such decisions. Getting input is fine: get it from your peers. Especially in the case of something as commonplace as pregnancy — just deal with it like a normal adult! We all are related to *someone* who was pregnant once upon a time.
The students from UCD who are trying to explain this away here really are missing a few things.
* It is inappropriate for them as students to be involved in decision-making regarding another single student’s grade, period. Input on general policies — fine. This was not input on a general policy.
* Making this fuss about pregnancy as opposed to all the other life events that come up is simply discriminatory.
* Emailing students about one student’s situation like this violates FERPA.
I understand that it is hard to disagree with someone you might like, or with someone whose opinion you rely on, but this is part of growing up.
@103 (Duschene) –
What’s your source for that claim, or are you just being colossally ignorant, inflammatory and disrespectfully flippant for your own amusement?
Arlenna, Okay..so maybe they could be “douchey” etc. Not going to argue with you on those points..Really what I’m trying to put out there is what about the other students in the class? How about the pregnant student herself? It’s great we’re all concerned about what’s going down with the Vet Students at USD (I think we can come to the consensus that no one’s happy). Even better that you want to take action on their behalf. But it’s almost like no one cares about how the students they’re trying to help actually feel about it… (moot point, some comments imply that students don’t have the mental capacity to have an opinion, let alone help themselves. I know they don’t have experience or credentials to tell a university how to run itself, but don’t they have some say on their education too, esp. when they’re paying for it?)
Oh yes, and #108 can be applied to Funky Fresh as well. My apologies.
FERPA allows information from a student’s educational record to be released to the following:
-School officials with legitimate educational interest;
-Other schools to which a student is transferring;
-Specified officials for audit or evaluation purposes;
-Appropriate parties in connection with financial aid to a student;
-Organizations conducting certain studies for or on behalf of the school;
-Accrediting organizations;
-To comply with a judicial order or lawfully issued subpoena;
-Appropriate officials in cases of health and safety emergencies; and
-State and local authorities, within a juvenile justice system, pursuant to specific State law.
Note that it does NOT allow release to “future colleagues,” “fellow students” or EVEN “class president” (the person who sent the initial e-mail). Surely the vet students are familiar with HIPAA, but it’s unfortunate that they seem unaware of their own personal right to privacy.
It really doesn’t matter how things are “usually” handled, or how far in advance this student had notified the school, or if the results of the poll had been implemented. Private information about a member of a vulnerable population was given out without that person’s consent.
#111 (Itchy Feet) –
Could you enlighten me exactly where FERPA comes into this? I’m not sure how this equates to a release of an “Educational Record” as defined by FERPA.
“The students from UCD who are trying to explain this away here really are missing a few things…”
The thing that baffles me the most is the line of argumentation these students (and some others too) are relying on: “Sure, the situation could have been dealt with better, but in the end it’s not ALL wrong that other students were polled. You people need to take mitigating circumstances into account.” (My paraphrasing.)
Well, no. The gist of the matter is, simply, that other students shouldn’t have been polled on this in ANY circumstances. There are no external factors we need to know to conclude this. A student’s right to privacy was violated, as well as her right to be treated according to school policies when it comes to grading. Anyone failing to see this is missing a huge point indeed.
It also boggles my mind that someone allegedly does not see the sexism involved in this case. However, even if they did not, it should be clear to them on all other accounts that a student’s privacy and her rights should not be violated like this. Surely it shouldn’t be done based on any motives, sexist or not? And the very fact that there doesn’t seem to be a consensus even on this makes me even more convinced that sexism really is at the bottom of the issue.
Can one of the students explain to me how this student’s situation directly affects them?
#114 – Isis, that doesn’t matter. They are defending their school against charges of “Shameful Gender Discrimination” (as your post is titled) that they do not see.
The issue of the poll and its validity and/or plain weirdness is completely separate from this point, and I’m sure you’ll get more nuanced and varied responses from them on that question, divorced from the “sexism” charge.
Sure thing, AA. The term “educational record” doesn’t simply mean transcripts or report cards, but includes information related to a student’s grades, attendance, or behavior.
So yes, reporting to the other students that a student (who can easily be identified by the information given) will be absent for an “unknown period of time” and that she will “miss one, more, or all of the quizzes” violates FERPA.
Safety of our future patients?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
#113 (PhD Student) –
Just because it “boggles your mind” that others don’t see the sexism there doesn’t mean it is there. Just as the fact that others can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
The issue is that the OP leapt to a conclusion unsupported by thoughtful analysis of the evidence presented, an understandable and entirely human mistake.
#116 (Itchy Feet) –
Thanks for the clarification, but I’m not sure that a future, possible action qualifies as a record protected under FERPA. From my reading (provided above by DrugMonkey, http://www.ucop.edu/ogc/documents/ferpa101.pdf):
So I’m still unsure what “recorded information” was distributed without the student’s permission?
#117 (ttcc) –
Once again, I must ask:
Are you just being colossally ignorant, inflammatory and disrespectfully flippant for your own amusement?
Dr. Feldman screwed the pooch on this one. I find it impossible to believe that he (and/or his teaching colleagues) hasn’t encountered a similar situation in his teaching career-I encountered this exact situation as a professor and we worked it out in a brief private conversation after class. This strikes me as a colossal abdication of his responsibility in setting clear course policies and in determining who has mastered the material to a sufficient degree to move on to the next courses. And that’s not even getting into the potential FERPA issues.
That said, the podium pounding about this being an example of shameful gender discrimination or as evidence of Feldman’s condemnation of the student getting pregnant is just pure vitriolic speculation at this point. The fact that you have to make up quotes (specifically referring to those in the paragraph following Fig. 3) doesn’t make your case any more compelling.
Funny, I bet if she had gotten pneumonia or some other serious medical illness or injury that prevented her from going to class, she would just be forced to drop it with no credit for work completed and no refund if it’s after the drop date. But because it’s a pregnancy, it should be treated different? Does someone injured in a skiing accident get the option of having the class vote him or her an A without doing the work?
In all of the training I’ve received on how to not violate FERPA, yes, sending an e-mail to other students regarding a student’s future potentially failed and/or missed quizzes counts, as does disclosing information about a student’s health (having recently given birth).
#123 (Itchy Feet) –
How do you reconcile your training with the document I referenced?
#122 (Darryl Mott Jr.) –
Forgive the demagoguing (and I actually mean this in half-jest), but are you seriously comparing pneumonia or skiing accidents with pregnancy?
Perhaps I’m a bit obtuse, but from my perspective as a former med student and a human being I can’t imagine how anyone can defend this incident.
It is never OK to single out a student in this way and to ask the class to give input on the grade of this student. it’s a no-brainer. Seriously. Even without examining the obvious misogyny, this is educational malpractice.
Oh, and here’s an idea since no one’s bothered to look it up. http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/studentprograms/class_2013/Attendancepolicy08.pdf The professor in question was actually HELPING the student by giving the other options since the policy (which the student would’ve been informed of when she first registered) requires that she drop the course entirely and, if planning to be absent more than a year, re-enroll and only if approved by the Assistant Dean.
It’s quite simple, isn’t it? If she misses, she gets a zero, just like anybody else. If she fails, she fails.
In reply to AtheistAcolyte:
It’s a bad comparison, I know. One cannot predict illness or injury. One can predict and prevent pregnancy. And unless UC Davis goes by something longer than a semester or quarter system, the student knew she would be giving birth during the semester. Arrangements should’ve been made at that time. And if this was a premature birth, should she be given any more consideration than the student stuck in the hospital due to an injury or illness?
@128 (Schlicka) –
Perhaps the simplest route, yes. But then, just a couple of slightly different e-mails from “friends” and this blog post would have been about the unyielding SVM making a poor new mother drop out of vet school after having taken on tens of thousands of dollars in debt to get there just because she had to miss a couple classes to tend to her child.
@126 (PalMD) –
I don’t think you’re obtuse, for what it’s worth. I wish there was some way I could magically make you understand, or at least view the situation from a different angle. That said, it’s disappointing that it’s a lack of imagination that prevents you from seeing this from a different angle.
And a quick question…it’s January 13…There are two public and at least five private colleges or universities (off the top of my head) in my city, and none of them start the spring term until next week. How old is this non-story?
@ Post #85
I am sorry to cause confusion, when I said class I did mean two different things. There is the class of 2012, currently in its third year of veterinary school. There is also a specific class discussing the diagnosis and treatment of patients with endocrine disease. While we have had pregnancies and medical leave in the class of 2012, the school has not (to my knowledge) had a pregnancy or any other medical or family issue occur during this endocrinology class, which only spans 17 lectures and takes about 4 weeks. Most classes at the veterinary school are graded based on scheduled midterms, finals, and laboratories. The endocrinology class has traditionally been graded by pop quiz.
@post #93
Yes, I am saying that the ethical medical treatment of a hypothetical terrier is of paramount importance to me. That is why I decided to enter the veterinary profession. And I do not feel that the intent of the email was to be uncharitable to my classmate.
@ post #95
Isis, you are correct. We are students. I would like to point out that we were not assigning grades, but simply informing him of our opinion. Personally, I feel it should have been requested under more general terms, but he was not the author of the email in question. And before you accuse the authors, our class presidents, of misogyny, you should know that two out of three of them are female and all of them are advocates of women’s rights.
@ post # 109
I am not judging my classmate. I am, however, saying that Dr Feldman had only the best intentions when he asked the class presidents to consult us regarding grading for a student that would be absent. The class responded by consulting the student in question to see which option she would prefer, and most recommended that option to the professor.
Some additional thoughts:
I don’t necessarily agree with the manner in which the class presidents email was written, it would have been better if they had said that we had a student that would be needing leave for an indeterminate amount of time due to medical or family concern. I would like to reiterate that the wording of the email was done by my classmates, and not Dr Feldman.
As to a privacy violation, I personally suspect that this is a moot point. There are only about 130 of us and we all knew the student in question and that she was pregnant. In fact, after the birth a notification email was sent out by the class presidents, and there were plans for a congratulatory card to be sent around so we could all sign it. Perhaps this is a bad idea as it may constitute a privacy violation.
I acknowledge that as a childless, non-pregnant student many of you feel I am not entitled to an opinion regarding what transpired. I feel my friendship with the other students and my ongoing interactions with the professors and administration at this school does, in fact, lend some validity to my claims. And I feel all students are entitled to have input regarding grading policy during an unpreventable period of absence from class.
#129 & #132 (Darryl Motts Jr.) –
UCDavis is approximately a week and a half into the Winter Quarter. You, however, touch on a very important point: when did this actually happen? The comments from students make it sound like it happened a fair amount of time ago, and the VMD444 course description says the class’s term is “201001”, which could suggest this class actually took place months ago, and the poll could have been even longer ago, so perhaps this was the “early arrangement making” process for this class.
We will also note that in the class presidents e-mail, they only specifically mention VMD444 as the course in question, when vet students have many different classes in a quarter. Perhaps arrangements were made or policies already in place for the other classes, but this one class presented a logistical problem for the SVM? If, as is possible, they never had a situation like this for a class like this (short-term class graded on quizzes), I could see consulting the class as to their opinions on what the policy should be before making the policy would be a valid action.
UC Davis is on the quarter system, and Spring Quarter began on Jan. 3.
I feel so bad for this student, I want to give her a hug. If you are reading this, vet student/new mom, please accept my sympathies. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how I would feel if one my professors publicly solicited opinions from my classmates about an alternative method for determining my grade, regardless of reason (pregnancy/childbirth, mental illness, physical illness, family emergency, etc). I would be so completely humiliated. I’m sorry that she has to go through this.
You’re not obtuse PalMD. I totally agree with you that it is educational malpractice.
Reading comprehension fail! I feel sorry for the professor getting blamed for an email he didn’t even write…
@AA:
Fine, let us remove the sexism aspect and the literal interpretation of FERPA (which, by the by, both graduate schools I attended interpreted as Itchy does–that is to say, very broadly).
The professor’s judgment in his handling of private information, and the judgment of the class officers who sent this poll, and the judgment of the students here defending the stoopidity thereof, is unacceptably poor.
Hypothetical situation 1:
My pet has cancer. New UCSD grad has seen other pets with cancer, but for some reason feels compelled to ask my neighbors (not other vets, *my neighbors*, who may think my pet is adorable or think it barks too much and craps on their lawn) whether my pet should receive chemo or be euthanized.
Hypothetical situation 2:
New UCSD grad is a member of an IUCAC at ControversialPharma, Inc. One day, the ALF folks are picketing the front door at CPI, and a lawyerly-looking person demands that all the animal experiment notebooks be made public. New UCSD grad, without consulting the CPI legal team, asks scientists working at CPI’s competitors, EvilPharma and MegaPharma, what they think about the situation.
Hypothetical situation 3:
New UCSD grad is treating a star racehorse, Supersonic, for what are clearly steroid-induced side effects. Supersonic is owned by the Russian Mafia. New UCSD grad, uncertain whether or not she should turn the owners in for rigging the races, asks the Irish Mafia and the Triads what they think she should do. After all, organized crime is all tight-knit and family-like, right?
Do you see what I mean about poor judgment yet?
Wow – the arrogance and tone-deafness of UC Davis seems to run straight through the faculty and down into the students!
Someone’s sure doing a good job of instrucimating over there!
I wonder if we get to vote on Dr. Feldman’s future. That would be at least as fair as voting to give a student a grade, right?
I’m sorry Darryl, did you miss the part where the professor directed the class presidents to poll the rest of the class with specific options about how they think he should handle the status of a completely identifiable student, or were you deliberately choosing to ignore that? The problem is not with how the email was worded, but that it was called into creation at all.
A revolting incident, being followed up by equally revolting behaviour from the UC Davis students posting.
What a world.
As I understand it, The UCD SVM does have a well-established policy for this type of situation. Because of the rigorousness of the curriculum, the official policy is that ANY student who is unable to complete ANY of their coursework for ANY reason whatsoever will be given an incomplete for the quarter. Since specific courses are only offered during certain quarters, this means the student will essentially have to take an entire year off and resume the following year.
The consensus of these comments seems to be that they should have just stuck with policy and give the student an incomplete. However, either the student or the professor (we don’t know who) wanted the university to make a special exception to the official university policy to allow the student to complete the coursework. Is considering such an exception really something we should be calling “shameful discrimination�
This is a closely knit community of students who look out for each other. It’s not like no one knew she was pregnant. They probably went to her wedding and visited her in the hospital. It’s not like no one realized the implications of her missing classes and quizzes. The entire student body knows the university policy and knew that she was getting an incomplete for the quarter.
Has anyone considered that maybe it was the student body who initiated the poll? For all we know, they approached the Prof and said, “Hey, Dr. Feldman, we know the university policy, but she’s our friend, and we don’t want to lose her. Can you make an exception?â€
Of course this puts him in a difficult position, “I can’t make an exception for just one student, it wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the class.â€
So the students say, “Well, what if we poll the class, and get their opinion, would you consider our input?â€
It’s really a stretch to call that shameful and sinister.
Even if the poll was his idea, it would have been more shameful to change policy that may have affected the grades of everyone in the class in order to accommodate one student without consulting the rest of the students whom it directly affects.
Dr. Feldman didn’t send out the email. Nor did he create the poll. He merely commented on a poll that was created by the students, about a topic that everyone already knew about. In what way, shape, or form, does that violate FERPA? Is it really a federal crime to state the blindingly obvious?
If the poll was created by the students, the only comment from Dr. Feldman should have been, “this is inappropriate and will be referred to [ombudsman, disciplinary panel, etc].”
Democracy: The tyranny of the majority. Not far removed from Communism.
#138 (Big Blue) –
Here’s my question to you:
Where is the direct firsthand evidence that Dr. Feldman inappropriately handled private information about this student?
The e-mail (from class presidents, not Dr. Feldman, mind you) did not name names or provide any identifying information. N.B.: Having “recently [given] birth” is not identifiable. If I present you with a classroom of 130 students, 80% of which are women, and said one of them had recently given birth, could you identify that person?
Furthermore, you are suggesting that the class presidents gave out private information, not Dr. Feldman. All other statements on the OP are hearsay.
Despite the fact that I disagree with your premise, I would like to comment on your Hypotheticals, if only because I don’t quite get them at first blush. Perhaps you’d like to elaborate?
Hypothetical 1: Here, the new UCD (see below) grad is Dr. Feldman. The pet with cancer is the primigravida student, and the neighbors are the classmates.
In reality, Dr. Feldman was consulting the class of 2012 on grading policy for students with excused absences with regard to this specific class. The ramifications of such a decision would affect all the students, not just the one. Your analogy would only hold if all the neighbors were required to make the same decision should their animals develop cancer. Then, the situation changes a lot.
Hypothetical 2: I really struggle with this one. I can see who Dr. Feldman is (the UCD grad), and the classmates (the other scientists with EPI & MPI), but is the student the lawyerly-looking person making demands of CPI, or are they the information being sought by the ALF activists, or are the the ALF activists? There are too many entities to keep track of, so if you could clarify that, I’d appreciate it.
Hypothetical 3: In this, Dr. Feldman is (surprise) the UCD grad, the student is the Russian Mafia (her recent childbirth being equated to the steroid-enhancement of the horse), and the classmates are the Irish Mafia and the Triads (who, I assume, also have their own perfectly normal horses). The uncertainty of whether to turn in the owners is equivalent to the uncertainty regarding the grading policy.
This seems to break down because steroid enhancement of horses is illegal, whereas pregnancy is decidedly not. This also assumes the crime organizations have a positive relationship with each other, similar to the students in the class. I am not an organized crime expert, so I will not comment on this possibility.
Finally, I would beg to remind you that UCSD (UC-San Diego) does not have a veterinary program, and we are discussing UCD (UC-Davis).
After reading all this, I think it’s a gossip blog. For one, it doesn’t seem quite impartial if you can pick and choose which comments go on the blog and which do not. Here’s to hoping mine makes it! I’ll be so excited cause I’m putting a lot of work into it!
Topic #1: Gossip about those shoes that tone your legs:
Did you know that though they’re made to simulate walking on sand and grass, that it’s actually hard to walk on soft grass or sand? That seems like product mis-information for them to not include that in the product description. I mean what you bought them specifically to walk on grass because your neighborhood isn’t paved? Seems like a legitimate problem don’t you think?
Thanks a lot folks! There will be more goodies for tomorrow about as interesting as the rest of the article.
Why is that sexism? He’s just a jerk.
Let’s try some multiple choice questions.
1. I have a blog and I wrote something on it. Is it:
a) Fact
b) Opinion
2. Based on question 1, What should be my response to this information?
a) Look for another blog to confirm or deny it
b) Yawn and go back to studying some real information
c) I’m now completely convinced and will begin to take action
d) Ponder this for a few days and be open to other information
e) Look it up on wikipedia or yahoo answers, the definitive sources
@142
Really? The policy is that if a student misses any work for any reason whatsoever the student is given an incomplete, the result of which is having to take a year off until same place in the curriculum the following year? And the policy is routinely and consistently applied? You come down with the flu, miss a test, and you’re toast for a year? People who graduate from the school have never – not a single time in four years – ever missed any work whatsoever (or at least have extended their time at the school by as many years as times they have missed)? Not a single late assignment? Not a single missed class? Really?
I thought my program was rigorous, but I guess nothing can compare to the rigor that is the veterinary school at UC Davis. At least we were allowed to, say, attend funerals for our parents, tend to our serious illnesses, and even occasionally procreate.
If that really is the policy, and if it is applied routinely, what percentage of students have to suspend their studies for a year or more during the program?
Maybe you guys can help me out.
I would like to study but there’s this blog that says that shameful studying leads to less personal connection to others and discriminates against making friendships. I’m really torn. A blog is the same thing as an evidence based peer reviewed journal right? I’m really beginning to think that studying may be a bad thing.
Hey vet students! A note from your Chancellor.
Thank you for sharing with me your concerns about a female student in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and the manner in which a faculty member reportedly handled the student’s brief time away from school for childbirth. I have received numerous e-mails expressing concern about this matter.
I want to assure you that I take very seriously any allegations that a student’s welfare, dignity or academic rights have in any way been compromised. And as a woman, who has experienced firsthand the challenges of melding academic and family life and has experienced discrimination, I am especially sensitive to this issue. This alleged action, if found to be true, would present a serious deviation from the values and principles that guide our campus and our School of Veterinary Medicine, and I would be profoundly disappointed if the reported events did in fact transpire on this campus.
I have asked Ralph Hexter, UC Davis’ provost and executive vice chancellor, to initiate a thorough review of this matter. He will ensure that all appropriate procedures are followed and that the appropriate campus authorities will make a final determination as to whether any campus policies and procedures were violated and, if so, what steps need to be taken. I expect rapid attention and response from the provost.
Our veterinary school, with an enrollment that is 85 percent female, has a long history of providing accommodations for the health and well being of its students and their families. During a student’s pregnancy, the school customarily works with her to help catch up after being away for childbirth or to arrange for an extended leave after which she can resume her academic program. And for mothers of infants, the school provides a lactation room so that students can continue breastfeeding their babies.
I am committed to taking swift and appropriate action, should it be warranted, for any finding of faculty misconduct. Again, thank you for your note and please do not hesitate to contact me on this or other matters of concern.
Sincerely,
Linda P.B. Katehi
Chancellor
Regardless of where anyone stands on this issue, can we please take an aside and agree not use “UC Davis vet students” or “vet students” as such an insulting term when you write replies to each other’s posts. Some of us worked hard to get in and work long hours every day, and I’d like to think it’s an admirable or at least encouraged thing to be.
In the future when making replies, please use a positive or at the very least respectful “tone of e-mail” or “tone of post” or choose to call us something else so you’re not marring the whole idea of being a student.
Sorry you dislike the opinions of “vet students” being expressed here. You don’t have to get all snippy about it. I haven’t called you “blogger” have I?
Dear Offended Vet Student,
You are a vet student. I do not have any other descriptors to elicit your attention. I am sure you have worked very hard. I do not think vet students are idiots, save for a few that have posted above. Welcome to blogging.
I’m jumping into the fray late in the game but I’m truly bothered by some of Isis’ comments and by many of the commenters. Yes a bad decision was made by Dr Feldman and the class President to create a poll, so I’m not defending that. But Isis you put some pretty harsh words in their mouth.
I understand that you cant show your audience all the pertinent emails, so maybe I’m missing a big detail. How exactly does “a) automatic A final grade b) automatic B final grade c) automatic C final grade” translate to “) Just giving her an ‘A’ or 2) Giving that careless floozy a ‘C’.”? Is it not possible they were just listing any possible option for the sake of being complete? Maybe the intention wasn’t to single out the student who was pregnant but as a commenter 127 mentioned, it was a way to find an alternative solution?
My point is we dont know their intentions. And the assumptions are poor form.
hey, i got the e-mail from The Chancellor too. she must have received enough e-mails she decided it was a good time to draft a response. hooray for us.
I’m sorry I’m done now. I had fun, but it’s time to go. I won’t be coming back to this blog because I think supporting it with replies (no matter how flippant) may be morally wrong. And in the future, I’m going to be much more wary and careful of what I read on the internet. I used to be a supporter of free speech but I can see now how much harm it can do to many well-intentioned people. I feel I’ve learned a valuable lesson about how much weight the internet carries in our generation, and it’s a bit scary.
Signed, Only I get my own humor
Sorry one more and then I’m done. I really promise this time. I’m glad many of you are excited you got responses from the chancellor. For those of you that were genuinely concerned, I’m really sorry that you ever had to worry about your professional/family life clashing because of this matter. That’s rough, and scary, and I hope you feel re-assured and better now. As a married professional student, I know it’s hard to balance family and work. But we’ll manage! Especially with how supportive UC Davis is. They really really don’t want us to fail because they’ve put a lot of work into us and believe in us.
For other people that just got caught up in the excitement and wanted to jump in, please try to remember that as empowered as you feel, someone’s day is going really horribly right now. And I know for a fact, it’s probably closer to many people. And those are nice decent caring people who really don’t deserve it. So try to remember what’s at stake besides your own anger- legitimate or not.
UC Davis does not have a policy for pregnancy and childbirth among graduate/professional students, part from taking a year off? Really? And vet school is 85% female? Seems like a serious concern right there, apart from any issue of poor judgement from the professor’s part. A policy should have been in place a logn time ago, as it is in med schools, etc. For shame.
I also received the form letter, CoR and I for one am very impressed with her response. No beating around the bush, a simple “if this is what it looks like, this is bad. and we’re gonna find out”.
We couldn’t ask for a better (initial) response.
What a stupid, stupid, post. The professor is asking the class for input on what’s the fairest way to deal with the situation, that neither penalizes the student excessively nor gives her a grade that others will consider unfair to them. Personally I’d pro-rate her on work done and say her grade was nobody else’s business. Note that he did not promise to follow the poll results, and he asked for additional suggestions. This whole post and the responses sound like a perfect vindication of the Science 2.0 article.
@ 149 (Baffled) –
Attendance policy for the class of 2012 at the UCD SVM can be found at this link:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/studentprograms/class_2012/Attendancepolicy08.pdf&pli=1
Some relevant portions reproduced here:
Under Emergency Absence:
Under Extended Leave:
Since this particular course only comes up in the course catalog once a year, and it’s required to graduate to the next year, it puts everyone involved in a tricky position. Given that the assessments are pop quizzes, and no make-ups are allowed as written in the course description, a new policy would have to be made for this student. As Darryl Motts put it above, the school is actually going out of its way to accommodate this student’s situation and let her move on with her education.
I don’t know if the comment posted above purporting to be from the UCDavis Chancellor is real, but everything I know about the program tells me that they’re more than willing to help students avoid the PELP, or one year absence, scenario.
@Dm: ‘Xactly.
Usually I’m fine with the world of blogging. In this case, people don’t seem to know it’s a blog. And therein lies the problem. I think it’s the word “Science” before it that has people confused. I’m going to write a letter to the server and get that cleared up.
sound like a perfect vindication of the Science 2.0 article.
Which should be a nice broad hint that your perceptions are in error. That Science 2.0 dude is an established dumbass.
Women can choose to have babies. Women can choose not to have babies. Women who decide to make a dedication to school cannot also make a dedication to have babies.
I’m sorry, life’s not fair :-(
I got the reply, too, and I agree with DM–couldn’t ask for a better (initial) response.
it’s interesting that you allow your personal feelings about the subject to fly away unhindered. witness this in the constant interjection of words like “knocked up” or “pesky,” which neither in word or spirit were in the original letter. aside from that, you expand on the request of what grade to give her on singular exams and suggest this will set her fate for the entire course. are you yourself sexist and assume that 1 missed exam, if graded a C(the lowest possible option), will fail her for the entire course? it seems that you assume this student is teetering on the bring of failure based on her own previous work and the two facts you have. one, she is female; two, she is a parent. maybe again that is based on your failings as a mother in the education system. your supposed deduction and subsequent incorrect analysis of things which are not apparent in the original letter makes you a fairly horrid scientist. i’m someone concerned that the professors democratic approach has bothered you. it’s obvious to anyone else that he was not going to go ahead with the winning poll marker right or wrong. someone sought the input of the person’s peers and this strikes you as egregious. try to be less bitter about your situation when overlaying it onto other peoples lives.
Give her an ‘F’, since that’s what it took for her to not be able to attend your class. If she does attend, give her the grade she deserves…
The discussion, itself, shows that you are ready to give her preferential treatment, which, equals reverse sexism.
… and provide us your OPINION …
I guess the blogger’s point is that asking for advice is SEXIST? Or, who knows, maybe this the professor means this to be a thinking exercise, and only SEXIST PIGS ask their students to think?
The blogger is the offensive person here.
obviously i meant brink, and somewhat, where they apply. your lack of personal integrity had me seething and muscle memory kicked in when necessary.
Isis:
Kitchen. Back to it. There’s sandwiches to be made.
You folks crack me up.
If instead of a woman, this had been an infirm man, normally he would simply receive an F.
In this case, to be sensitive that some students may want to give special treatment to this woman who is missing class for health related reasons, the teacher asks if the class would like to give something else.
And, if a choice of C was not on there, wouldn’t that be blatant sexism in her favor? In order to be neutral, all reasonable grade options must be present.
” One can predict and prevent pregnancy.”
“Women can choose to have babies. Women can choose not to have babies. Women who decide to make a dedication to school cannot also make a dedication to have babies.”
Wow, nothing like a post about sexism to bring out the sexists.
Thank you for doing this post. This is what blogs are for, open and honest discussion. It also most likely expedited an investigation, which if left up to the complacent students who have commented here, may never have happened.
Isis, nice trollish post, I give you +10.
I am curious, did you have a control post we should compare this post to?
Many years ago my ex was applying to med school where I happened to be a grad student. By chance my advisor heard a story directly related to her application which he shared with me. One of her letters of recommendation was from the affiliated head of cardiology at the attached VA hospital who gave her some glowing praises regarding her skill at open heart surgery (she worked for him as a research associate) in rabbit models, better than any of his cardiology residents etc. but to the point, he also praised her time management skills regarding how much she packed into a day while still being done in time to pick her kids up from day care. And the point is that somebody on the admissions committee picked up on the fact that she was a mother with kids and so gave her a low rating based on this letter bemoaning how medicine would become a profession of dabblers if they start letting mothers into med school. The source of the story was appalled but was awaiting tenure decisions, the jerk was near retirement. The ex got wait listed, never applied again. Yeah, feminists make it all up.
Your advisor shared you a story about your ex’s application?
Did you tell your advisor how completely inappropriate and most likely illegal that was?
Did you report your advisor to the authorities?
Yeah, el cid makes it all up.
What they don’t tell you is that the professor is the father.
Joking, Joking! Um, I think, um, who is the father?
@149
I’m a first year, now second quarter student at the UCD SVM. We have had two students who have had to leave the class for personal or health related reasons using the PELP program. It happens.
I’m also a student with a learning disability, so I know the way that these sorts of things (and yes, I am calling pregnancy a temporary disability) are usually handled in courses that have more scheduled exams. Students needing accommodations for whatever reason are required to self-identify to the campus student disability center. An advisor there reviews documentation and notifies professors of the accommodations and then it is again up to the student to arrange for the specifics of the accommodations with the professor. So there are policies in place for handling things like accidents or health problems.
#178 anon
Yeah, my advisor shared the story with me, we were close friends. Our kids were the same age. He was not on the med school admissions committee. He heard it from a fellow faculty member who he would not name. He didn’t do anything illegal. The woman who talked to him about it may have but she was discussing an ethical dilemma with him. Though she didn’t tell him my ex’s name, the identity was clear from circumstances. It wasn’t UC Davis but it was a different UC with a more prestigious medical school.
“And in the future, I’m going to be much more wary and careful of what I read on the internet. I used to be a supporter of free speech but I can see now how much harm it can do to many well-intentioned people. I feel I’ve learned a valuable lesson about how much weight the internet carries in our generation, and it’s a bit scary”
Well, at least Nonspecific learned something from this.
Does anyone else think it’s weird how many people posting on this thread seem utterly unfamiliar with blogosphere norms?
The author of this article needs to leave the computer alone and get back in the kitchen.
so…what was the given grade? perhaps i should ask the student?
what’s that? no grade was given? no name was announced?
perhaps we should have invested in a jump to conclusions mat before beginning this conversation.
grow up kids…if this is really an issue, it is not an issue for you or i, but an issue for those students approached, the faculty involved, and the professionals at the university.
unless you’re the baby daddy…then it’s probably your issue as well.
To morons like “randy”:
If you’re not making the sandwich yourself, you run the risk of someone lacing it with rat poison.
Especially with your attitudes.
If you can’t go to class, and you can’t take the quizzes required to pass the class, drop the class. This isn’t rocket science. This isn’t even veterinary science. This is common sense.
I used to work in college admissions doing database work. The university worked pretty hard to make sure we understood FERPA. Among other things, FERPA would prohibit professors posting grades on a test, posting everyone’s (or anyone’s) class attendance records or habits. It would prohibit a professor handing out tests in order by grade.
And because, in this case, a student’s health condition is postulated by the professor to affect her attendance and quiz grades, this is also protected by FERPA.
Laws like FERPA don’t just mean whatever a layman wants to think the text says in plain English. Laws mean what the case law in court from prior lawsuits says they mean.
Legalese is *not* plain English.
Even if the student involved does not wish to sue over the privacy violation, a future student could use this incident along with something that happens to her to establish that UC Davis had shown an ongoing pattern of discrimination.
The chancellor “gets it” that this is a violation of FERPA, based on the way the courts have interpreted FERPA to date, and that it is also a violation of Title IX.
This body of knowledge (applicable federal law) and mature judgment applying it is why the chancellor is the chancellor and the students are not.
The law is what it is, not whatever you in your juvenile immaturity think it ought to be. If you want to think in terms of “consensus” then realize the “consensus” of the whole country as expressed in federal law is You Can’t Do That.
Good to know. El Picador not only lacks reading comprehension but is a judgemental asshat.
San Diego is in the west. The south is Virginia and below and east of Texas. To educate you on geography of the US, here you can see the states that are in the south:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_United_States
Maybe you should quit while you are ahead. Your mouth must be tired from your foot constantly being in it.
As a physician, I must remind some of the commenters that pregnancy is not a “medical problem”, but normal physiology. It’s pretty much how we get more vets, and apparently more douchey students as well.
Amazingly, this entire situation is actually your fault.
Yes you. The author of this article. You are responsible for the entire situation at UC Davis regarding this girl.
If you think I’m trolling, think again and listen up. It’s people like you that believe women who choose to have children should be treated equally with those who work hard in school, and that academic performance shouldn’t dictate their grades.
You’ve successfully perpetuated the nonsensical concept that having a baby is some kind of right that is so important, it supersedes academic standards and fairness.
This virus of an idea you’ve perpetuated is so bad, it’s infected even the brilliant minds of professors to being unable to deal with a simple situation like this. I’m certain his gut response was, “I don’t care if she’s pregnant. If she doesn’t show up, pass tests, and do as well as the others, she fails. But wait. All the mommy bloggers and women’s rights activists are going to get all up in my business, so I can’t do that…” at which point his poor mind melted trying to balance the logical decision of just letting her performance dictate her grade, against the incompatible “reasoning” of mothers who believe they should pass without showing up because they decided to get pregnant. So he tried a compromise, albeit a stupid one, especially given that she said she would be able to attend class anyway, but that’s not the point. Apparently he didn’t believe she’d make it to the end of the year regardless of what she said, so he had to come to a solution.
Academic performance results in grades. The End. Get pregnant? Fine. I don’t care. Show up, do the work, you pass. If you leave, you fail any class you can’t make. Or Incomplete with option to retake it. But any notion of an automatic anything other than Fail or Incomplete is total BS and every logical person knows it.
Again, I agree this professor screwed up, just not in the way you think. Girl said she could make it to class, he should have dropped the issue there instead of sending out a ridiculous poll. But it’s still your fault.
Don’t make me ask my female vet, dentist, or doctor if she has kids, so that I can find a better one that is held to higher academic standards.
#133
3rd year,
I agree that some issues are being conflated and I’m sure the Prof. wanted what was best. However, well-intentioned paternalism does not excuse his behavior.
Additionally, your legal right to privacy exists apart from actual fact – your school couldn’t publish your grades, I think you would agree, even if everyone has “knows” where everyone else stands. But really, he can’t do that.
Here’s the point all the vet students seem to be missing, and what makes this so disturbing:
Familiarity, mere familiarity, does not give you rights over anyone else.
Even asking students for their opinion regarding this individual is abominable – it simply shouldn’t matter. The school should have just applied their standard disability rules, including any exceptional accommodation terms. Disregarding individuals’ rights because we feel the formalities can be done away with is a form of tribalism…perhaps more accurately, anarchy.
I suggest you read “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson.
Hopefully the new vet momma can at least be amused by all the nutbaggery, best of luck to her. It will make a great story to tell the kid!
And who the fuck is the douchey pedant arguing that a SoCal city isn’t in SoCal?
If you’re interested in emailing the school about this, I found some email addresses publicly available on the UC Davis faculty directory:
Dr. Feldman – ecfeldman@ucdavis.edu
Dr. Osborne (Dean of Veterinary Medicine) – biosburn@ucdavis.edu
Dr. Katehi (UC David Chancellor, also a Womens’ and Gender Studies Professor) – chancellor@ucdavis.edu
When the rest of us in the country, as reflected in elections, think something some of our fellow citizens do, see no problem with, and want to continue doing, and think we just don’t understand—-when we think some kinds of behavior are really effed up—we have the Federal Government pass laws against it.
We know you think what you’re doing is fine and dandy. We don’t. We think it’s really effed up. By “we” I mean your fellow American voters as represented by our members of Congress, Senators, and President.
Because we think it’s really effed up, and we know you think it’s fine and that you’d keep doing it if we let you, we made it illegal.
That’s the whole reason the rest of us passed FERPA and Title IX.
Thus endeth the high school civics lesson in which you folks aren’t the only people in the country who get a vote.
To put it in context: There is voting of peers that is relevant and important in this situation.
We, your peers, the voters. We get to vote, we already did, we made it illegal to do what he/you did. Gee, we also set the penalties for what happens when people break those laws.
We voted on your grade. FERPA and Title IX say you are full of fail.
It’s great that the students at Davis voted for the last option on the poll but that isn’t the point. There were other option there that they could have voted on.
I would view this sort of thing as a slippery slope sort of thing. Maybe this isn’t so bad and everyone made the right decision in the end and everyone is ok with it becuase it turned out in the end so shut up already. However, how about the next time when some gets cancer and misses the majority of the semester. Is that up for a poll or is that different? What about someone who gets called up for military service and has to leave in the middle of a semester? Is that up for a vote? If the last one is up for a vote does that compromise national security if his/her detachment is going into active combat and the entire student body now knows his/her deployment date?
The disposition of grading schedules should be decided by and worked out between the student and administration or the faculty member. Period. To do anything else is at the very least irresponsible and very likely much worse.
Um, if you want us to take you seriously as an intellectual, why are you posing splayed out on the floor?
I’m missing the part about if she really was absent for much of the class. From my own experiences (or my ex’s) it’s possible she missed less than a week but the prof freaked out. How much of the term did the student actually miss? If the prof freaked but the student only missed a week, he’s pretty clearly an unforgivable idiot. And it is clear to me from the story that she ever asked for any special treatment at all.
#187 (Julie Cochrane) –
In which case, please inform us all as to the relevant case law.
Also, please point out where Dr. Edward C. Feldman, DVM, DACVIM distributed any record covered under FERPA. Cite precedent case law and applicable sections of the Act.
Otherwise, you’re just like me and trying to make as much sense of the legalese as you can. At least I’m making a conscious, positive effort to construct relevance from original text rather than naysaying. And you claim to have some experience with it, so you must know how to back up this claim.
If she was doing “A” level work, why were other students given the option to give her a “C”?
If she was doing “C” level work, why were other students given the option to give her an “A”?
There is something very broken here.
It is irrelevant whether you take me seriously as an “intellectual.”
@ 182, I know!
#194 & #195 (Julie Cochrane) –
Here’s what you need to prove to say that a FERPA violation occurred (in my layperson’s eye):
1) That childbirth is private medical data which is protected under FERPA.
2) That Dr. Feldman passed the news of the childbirth to a person or persons (the class presidents).
3) That that disclosure was not approved by the student.
That would seem (again, to my layperson’s eyes, and correct me if I’m wrong) (preferably with citation) to be the way to prove Dr. Feldman acted against FERPA.
Should you be trying to say that he released her grades, substitute that for “childbirth” in the above proof statements. But also add the following:
4) Dr. Feldman posted his final decision, which was simply to assign that student a specific letter grade.
Although, since the course is probably being taught this quarter, posting her grades may be difficult.
For what it’s worth, I think FERPA is a fine law, which protects good and valuable data. I just don’t think this instance is a clear-cut violation.
And the “You’re a layman, you don’t know what you’re talking about” argument cuts both ways.
As someone said above, nothing like a post on sexism to bring out the sexists. Clear FERPA violation here, glad to see the Chancellor of the school is taking it seriously.
Vet students posting: Would you be comfortable with your fellow students voting on how you would be graded? Just out of interest.
I don’t understand how her pregnancy became an issue in the first place. When I was in vet school (albeit not at UC Davis), I had several classmates that experienced pregnancy during second, third, and fourth years. Scheduling issues were dealt with by the faculty with none of this kind of uproar. This woman is by far not the first woman to have a baby while in vet school, and Dr. Feldman should (and probably does) know this.
I feel there’s a lot of confusion here, so I’ll repost the original e-mail from the OP:
(emphasis by me)
It seems fairly clear that Dr. Feldman did not write the e-mail that we have in the firsthand evidence drawer.
Would someone claiming “clear FERPA violation” PLEASE tell us the legal basis for that claim? If it’s CLEAR, it shouldn’t be hard to find the section of the law that says “Don’t F-ing Do This!”
Maybe this will help:
Text of 20 U.S.C. § 1232g:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/20/1232g.html
And one more- We have moved the goalposts so far from the initial claim of “Shameful Gender Discrimination” in order to keep this argument alive, can we at least agree that that claim was wrong?
From the tail end of the OP:
Can we not agree that this is not the prevailing zeitgeist anymore?
WOW, as a pregnant female student myself… I am appalled and even scared at the stupidity of this professor. It’s not like a woman’s brain shuts off during pregnancy and she is unable to think or study! I plan on taking my classes straight up to my due date. I will be taking time off work when my baby comes, but I still plan on finishing my semester. To be so publicly humiliated in front of your peers and have your GRADE be in their hands is ridiculous! My heart breaks for this woman and I hope it does not defer her from accomplishing her goals in school.
Okay, “clear.” My employer–and I mean the institute as an institute and not just my immediate supervisor–was pretty clear about the kinds of things that could get the institute sued, probably on the losing side or having to settle out of court, and me or any coworkers dumb enough to do such fired.
Release student information to other students or parents or anybody, even obliquely if the student is readily identifiable = get the institute sued = it’s your ass, expect a pink slip.
Got tenure? Ve have vays of makink you behave.
AA dude, I don’t really give a crap whether you think I’m “right” or you’re “right” and I have long outgrown the “Cite! Cite! Cite or you’re Wrrrrrroooooonnnng and shaaaaamed!” Bullcrap.
People sent email to the chancellor. The chancellor knows the rules. The chancellor is taking care of it.
I don’t even know you so I couldn’t care less what you think of me—not enough to spend twenty minutes digging through case law when I could be digging through a pile of Zzzzzs.
Reality is what it is, regardless of cite! Cite! Cite!
You wanna win? Okay, genius. You win. Yay you. Go get yourself a cookie from the kitchen.
The chancellor’s fixing it anyway. The rest is just noise.
I am currently a veterinary student at UC Davis, and I do not agree with Dr. Feldman’s approach to this issue. However, I feel that people have twisted the meaning of this article, and are using it as a platform to insult veterinary students and UC Davis. This letter is the doing of one man only, and does not at all represent the general opinions of my school or my profession. It is unfortunate that this had to turn into childish name-calling and mocking.
#209 Jessica, wish you the best and all but, you might want to speak confidentially with a few women academics who have been through it to prepare yourself. The brain is a complex organ and not completely remote from the rest of your body. Men drop their intelligence in their own way but women have reported changes during pregnancy. It would be nice to think we are all free of bodily influences but if you look at things from a physiological point of view, and note the preeminence of gut hormones over neurohormones, you might be better prepared for the actualities of your future.
Glad the Chancellor is looking into this. I can’t imagine being put into such a situation as a student in ANY program. Feldman was totally irresponsible and obnoxious.
#210 (Julie Cochrane) –
Thanks for the cogent reply and thoughtful analysis. Having been educated as to the error of my ways, I’ll go have my cookie. And some milk.
For all the grown-ups reading, please remember that rational discussion takes work. If you don’t have the energy or time to get involved in one, don’t assert your opinion as fact.
#211 (anothervetstudent) –
The letter was not actually written by the professor, nor was it written by a man.
Comment #133 (3rd year student) says:
The body of the email states:
Simple logic tells us that unless one of the two women acting as class president is named “Dan”, the author of the e-mail had to be a woman.
I see you point, you prefer that the student retake the class and lose the time and money, than to likely get a grade and pass, and perhaps the students in the class will provide a better grade ?,
you guys need to get a real life and some real problems to deal with,
@216 No, we’d rather that the UCD SVM actually address this in its absentee policy, by changing the emergency-absence policy to include pregnancy and requiring that instructors administer makeup tests to people absent due to pregnancy. Jesus. It’s not that hard to figure out. The rest of the UCD Schools, and for that matter the other 9 campuses of the UC system, manage absenteeism due to pregnancy and childbirth without putting it to a class vote. (And there are dozens if not hundreds of programs in the UC system that are tightly time-bound. This is not a novel problem.)
Yes you can argue this was unprofessional. Yes it is sad and embarrassing for the student on leave. And I agree this email should not have been sent, either by the professor or by the presidents to the class.
However, the saddest part is the arguments about UCD SVM and the profession of veterinary medicine. Because 1 person wrote 1 email that is deemed unprofessional and disrespectful, and 1 other person decided it was a brilliant idea to send it to this blog, and the 3rd person who posted it here, there is a lot of negativity being felt towards UCD SVM. An institution that produces some of the finest doctors in the world. And now, people are here, tarnishing its name. Why? Because there was a discrepancy, a miscommunication, and an unprofessional act. But is that reason enough to bring an entire student body, a hospital that has some of the finest veterinarians who work day in and day out to save the lives of YOUR pets? Here students go to school all day every day, go home and study all night, why? So that they can serve you, the public. So that they can spend the rest of their lives working for YOU. Saving your family members, keeping people whose livelihoods depend on their animals on their feet, and working with MDs to prevent the spread of infectious disease, among about a million other things.
And yet because of one email that was leaked, that believe me will be dealt with within the school, the future of the students, the School of Veterinary Medicine, are being questioned? I think that if this was such an upsetting thing for students, the administration should have been notified far before this email was leaked recklessly to this site. So now we are claiming discrimination against women, when most of you have never set foot inside a vet school classroom at UCD. Where students are treated with RESPECT. Where each class has students with their own special circumstances that are accommodated in ways that go above and beyond.
Why this one email was sent, none of us here are sure. And if you want to start a fight, if you want to make a statement go right ahead. But do it with some respect and dignity. Go after the direct source if you feel you must lash out at someone. But don’t bring down a whole University, a student body, and medical professionals who work too hard to be talked about in such a negative light.
I am sure some of this post will be taken out of context and someone will argue something I have written, but if we can throw down our arms and just try to remember that you are dealing with the futures of more than just a couple people here.
I have a friend who intended to study Archeology at UC Davis. She was accepted, but when she got there, she was told Archeology was a man’s major, and she should major in Anthropology. She was floored by this overt sexism… and she was hitting a critical point in her personal life. She dropped out rather than be forced into a major she didn’t want or fight the system, even though it was late 80s/early 90s and should never have happened.
I’m hoping maybe she’ll go back to college when her girl is a college student herself– it’s never too late to follow your dreams.
This is documentary evidence that, in at least one instance, a student’s course grade at UC Davis is being determined by another student. I would assume that the standards for an accredited university would require that students’ grades are determined by professors with an appropriate degree since they certainly require that the classes be taught by professors with an appropriate degree. Allowing grades to be assigned by students would seem to violate the standards set by the accrediting commission and could place the university at risk of losing its accreditation.
The University of California, Davis is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges985 Atlantic Avenue, Suite 100, Alameda, CA 94501 (510) 748-9001.
As a UC grad student (not Davis- glad it just got struck off the postdoc list last month for an unrelated reason), I’m totally ashamed of the professor and of the students defending him- doubly so if the comment that he did all this in class in front of the student without talking to her turns out to be true.
I certainly hope none of the students who think this is ok get hurt on a trip to Tahoe or something similar in the next couple of weeks- they might find their classmates taking a poll on what their grade should be, and they’ll probably like it a lot less from the other end.
Yeah, you know, I forgot that UCD SVM had its accreditation limited in 1998. It’s all fixed now, but that accounts for at least some of the weirdly defensive stance the students are taking here.
(http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=7305)
@AtheistAcolyte – The second, more important, part of the question was whether it is applied consistently.
Why do posters here keep referring to the student as a “girl” – is that some new slang term for “woman”?
seems to me there is some over thinking going on here.
1. Professor does dumb thing.
2. OMG it must me sexism! rather than just a case of the dumb.
It seems to me there has been a massive jump to a conclusion about motivation without anywhere near enough evidence. Very surprising in a “Science blog”
This blog has assigned a deliberate motive to something that may easily be just a temporary laps in judgment with the best of intentions.
@AtheistAcolyte
Yes, the original email in question was written by the class presidents. And their decision to do so was questionable. But perhaps it was understandable given that they a) are students who would not know much about FERPA and privacy laws and b) they were being asked to do so by their professor. However, you seem to continually skip over Professor Feldman’s role in asking for the email to be created and for supplying a ready list of options regarding what should be done about this particular student.
Finally, most of the people here are not lawyers (thank God), they probably can’t cite the case law to you. However, several have told you how they have been instructed to interpret FERPA by the lawyers of their institutes, universities, and private companies. If you would like the specific case law, I suggest you Google it, as you seem to have a computer handy and are currently engaged in its misuse.
Basically I figure the professor should treat her the same as the rest of the students. If she does not keep up or fails that is the price, if she passes give her the grade she earned. Her getting pregnant was her choice which is fine, but if you are in a graduate program I really do not feel like the world should revolve around the student. I know people will be outraged about this but really, couldn’t wait a year or at least try to time it when birth would be given when school was out. Most graduate professors I have known over the years would basically treat her the same and if she fell behind, her choice.
Interesting that whenever Dr. Isis brings up a topic having to do with potential (or cut and dry) sexism, her competence as a science blogger is questioned. As if one who is concerned about unequal treatment between the sexes couldn’t also be someone involved in science. As if the two things are mutually exclusive. As if the two things should be mutually exclusive.
Times are a changing peeps. Get a clue.
@some guy, could you entertain the thought that perhaps temporary lapses in judgement regarding women stem from a bias that one does not realize they hold? Consider it for a minute, entertain the thought before simply dismissing me here. Learning is painful, but I think you should try.
My first reaction was “This cannot be real.” My second was “Yo, class prez: Grammar!”
I still cannot quite believe this is real. If it isn’t a scam, I feel justified in being sexist and saying Dr. Feldman needs to man up, grow a pair and do his effing job. Unless specifically stated in an assignment, it is not the job of students to evaluate the academic performance of their classmates. This is despicable behavior.
At every institution, there are formal policies in place for requesting accommodations due to disabilities, illness, and other extenuating circumstances. If the student in question is requesting accommodations and has gone through proper university channels, Dr. Feldman should be working with the powers that be on campus to provide the appropriate accommodations, just as one would for any other student who has become ill or hospitalized during the term (not that I believe pregnancy and childbirth should be viewed as an illness but I do believe new mothers and their babies do need some time to recover from the rigors of birth, establish nursing, bond with each other, and generally get the newborn off to a good start).
If the student has not requested accommodations, then Dr. Feldman needs to shut his trap and do his job, which is to teach and evaluate students. If the student in question feels she can perform adequately without accommodations, she should be allowed to succeed, or fail, according to her wishes. If on the other hand she has not formally requested accommodations through the dean’s office or some other established procedure on campus and is asking for special treatment, that’s a different matter. In that case, instead of polling the entire class to arbitrarily assign her a grade, refer the student to the dean’s office. It’s not rocket science, my dear Professor Feldman.
I am finding it hard to believe that people are arguing out of both sides of their face over this. #226 seems to think that asking for equal treatment would upset the people who are protesting how the UCD student that was pregnant was treated. The whole point of removing gender discrimination is to be treated like everyone else.
s for controlling when she’d give birth, I am going to assume that you’ve either never been around pregnancy or you simply don’t understand what is involved when it comes to giving birth. If this was a planned pregnancy, even then it is not easy to plan when the birth will occur, she could be late, she could be early, she could miscarry. And then, of course, there is the unplanned pregnancies that can and do happen even with birth control. Which are just as much the “fault” of the father as the mother, though truly there is no fault in such situations, just unfortunate timing.
Honestly I would love to hear from the student who not only was the subject of this poll, but apparently the subject of an intervention by her fellow students. While they may have seen this as simply caring what happened to her, it comes off as if they were doing this because they didn’t think she could handle deciding how she wanted to proceed with the class. If she didn’t ask for help, but needed it, it was the professor’s job to intercede and assist her however he could. If she didn’t ask for help and didn’t need it, then this is an even more gross violation of her privacy. The professor made a mistake asking his students to send that letter. Period. There is not but in that statement, he made an error in judgment.
I am glad to see the thoughtful response from the chancellor, that they are investigating and are taking the concern seriously, in appearance anyway, is a good first step.
As for controlling when she’d give birth, I am going to assume that you’ve either never been around pregnancy or you simply don’t understand what is involved when it comes to giving birth. If this was a planned pregnancy, even then it is not easy to plan when the birth will occur, she could be late, she could be early, she could miscarry.
Finally, to the vet students, I am sure those of you that were directly involved in this had the best of intentions. But did it not occur to you that it’s not your place, nor the professor’s to intercede in such a way? Would you want your fellow students to suggest what the future of your schooling would be because you were deemed to be unable to manage attending classes?
And for the record, I do not feel anyone here who was actively debating this subject is stupid. To even be a vet student takes a great deal of intelligence. Though I will say to the trolls that you require some training, perhaps visit /b/ for ideas.
There are quite a few holes in the story due to missing information because it was either 3rd hand or the main people mentioned had no comment. Regardless, if such a situation did happen, it’s clear to me that it wasn’t handled properly. The protests of this not being gender discrimination ring a bit hollow to me. Until a man can actively give birth like a woman does, it’s pretty clear the professor was being biased against the female student because of her condition. Would it have been done if the woman had cancer? Or if it had been a male student with cancer? Though perhaps his bias was not against her being a woman, but for her becoming pregnant? Like I said, we’ll never truly know without answers from the main people involved, but it certainly seems to be leaning in that direction.
Yikes, that’s what I get for not proofreading, double posted a paragraph. My apologies for the long post as well, I didn’t think I’d gotten so long winded.
Hey Isis and others, I know this may come as a shock to you, but the fact that a regrettable incident happens to a WOMAN does not automatically make it sexist. Was the poll a really dumb way to handle this situation? Yes. (Does the SVM have more discreet typical ways of dealing with missed work for whatever reason? Yes.) Do we have any evidence that this student was being singled out on any basis other than missing work? No. We have no negative language about her being pregnant, either–you put words and thoughts in Dr Feldman’s and others’ mouths. Had this poll been sent out regarding a male student’s absence, you wouldn’t have cared. Get over the sexism already. It doesn’t fit the experience of the 80+% of veterinary students who are women, and who have some clue about what these programs are like, as you do not. And as a mother myself, I sympathize with this student’s difficult road, but choices have consequences and if she wants to have a baby while in vet school she has to take the risk of lower grades, missed work, incomplete classes and repeating a year.
Have children so know exactly what goes into it and timing etc. Here is a thought, wait until you are done with you graduate studies that are insanely hard before trying this. Secondly getting pregnant is a choice for the most part unless you are raped and is much different that being told you have cancer or some other life-threatening disease. The later is usually not a choice unless you are a prolific smoker or maybe like to drink benzene. So basically trying to compare pregnancy to a disease is an odd angle at best. If she did not ask for help or request some kind of assistance then the professor is completely out of line, but only then. The people in her class are in direct competition with her and how she finishes in the class rank wise effects everyone and what job/fellowship/intership they might get. Whether it is med school, vet school etc, someone should not be given a break because they feel the need to breed while in a program. Went to graduate school also know a little about time constraints.
Interesting, if the student didn’t give him permission to share the news of her pregnancy the professor just violated the federal HIPPA act and could face jail time.
Honestly, I do not see sexism here. What I see, as a female teacher, is a difficult grading situation in a highly competitive program that was handled poorly. When ANY student misses an undetermined number of quizzes, especially something that may add up to over 25% of the student’s grade, their final grade comes into question, especially if the student has not been vigorously trying to make contact with the professor about the situation.
Was it handled poorly? Yes. A grade is not the sum of your colleagues opinions, but how well your professor believes you know and understand the class material with respect to the rest of the students. But I suspect the professor hadn’t come up against the situation before, and that the student didn’t hold up her end of responsibility about contacting the professor either to resolve the situation. You know what timing issues you are getting into when you get pregnant, and therefore should be able to anticipate how they will affect your graduate program, thus arranging things before the birth.
Sexism does still exist. But this isn’t it. Please don’t put words into people’s mouths.
This was handled poorly. Any gender student can either complete the program, or not complete the program.
I would not feel comfortable taking my pet to a vetrinary professional that did NOT complete their degree program but was passed anyway.
@veterinarian
“And as a mother myself, I sympathize with this student’s difficult road, but choices have consequences and if she wants to have a baby while in vet school she has to take the risk of lower grades, missed work, incomplete classes and repeating a year.”
Why do you view this type of treatment as acceptable? Because it was how you were treated? That really stinks. Students should be given time off to have children just as professors are given time off, and just as any woman or man should be given leave. In fact, it sounds as if the Chancellor supports this option. Furthermore, it is in the student’s best interest to work with them, individually, to determine the best way to make up missed work due to childbirth — as professors, we are supposed to look out for the student on their behalf — to say that they should fit in with a system that does not bend for pregnancy is pretty old-fashioned.
You know you are right. You should be able to say go visit Europe for a month or maybe go on a cruise for a couple of weeks and still be able to pick up where you left off and given the option to make up whatever work was missed. It would be a choice and the school should accept it because maybe I needed to decompress and it is so oldfashioned not to do so. Please. This was a choice she made and part of what makes graduate school hard is finishing it in the time allotted. If you cannot, you can repeat the work or actually complete it next time. Grad school is cut-throat it it would be unfair for everyone else in the class if special considerations are given to her because of a voluntary choice she made and knew would cause a conflict to say the least.
I’ve never heard a woman complain so much. Just get back in the kitchen and STFU
Graduate,
I would totally feel comfortable taking a pet to a vet who had missed a few quizzes in one of many classes and extensive practical training courses. You are insane if you buy this idea that one can’t make up for this minor deficit in training. Yeah, yeah it is all “intense” and all that, we’ve heard. Nonsense, there is always a way to make it work, especially when we’re talking only part of one course.
FERPA covers student academic records. There were no educational records released here. Even if you feel it’s a violation of her privacy to discuss her pregnancy, that has nothing to do with her academic records. If he had released her previous grades to allow classmates to evaluate her performance or announced to the class what grades she earned or he had assigned as a result of any absences due to a medical leave, that would be more in line with a FERPA violation. I’m not saying the way he handled this isn’t horrible, just that people need to stop waving FERPA around because that can only serve to confuse the issue. I don’t even see it as a HIPPA issue because he is not a health care provider or insurer. He’s just an a$$, which has nothing to do with HIPPA or FERPA. It’s like saying you violate HIPPA if you point out someone has a cold when they are standing there sneezing, blowing their nose, and looking like a truck ran over them. Really?
I am trying to understand why the birth of this child would even be an issue. I understand how difficult professional school is in terms of timing of coursework, etc. but surely it came as no surprise to the student or instructor that she might miss some class time to have the baby. She had several months lead time, no? It’s difficult to imagine a scenario in this day and age (especially given the stats of the large number of women enrolled in this program) where a pregnant student would not make arrangements prior to the birth of her child to ensure her degree would not be put in jeopardy. I guess I don’t understand why a class poll would be required after the fact. Why wouldn’t the professor and student discuss a plan of action beforehand and consult the vet school’s policies on maternity or medical leave prior to the start of the class? It boggles the mind that this could even happen because normal adults make plans for a new baby and discuss things with their employers, instructors, graduate advisors, etc. Either the student was clueless or in denial or this man is simply mad.
As an instructor, the idea of having students evaluate their peers to determine final course grades is ludicrous to me. There are so many options… withdrawl, incomplete, make up quizzes with the same or new questions…if they were supposed to be pop quizzes, make them announced for the whole class for this term to allow her to come in those days and in fairness to the others… you could come up with any number of solutions that would maintain the integrity of the class, show a little humanity toward the student in question, and be fair to the remaining students. I cannot believe no one in this vet med program has never fallen ill, been hospitalized, been injured in an accident, given birth, been diagnosed with a serious illness, had a death of an immediate family member, or any other scenario which might have necessitated class absences. Was a poll done in those situations as well? Or has life simply never happened on the UC-Davis campus before this moment? Curioser and curioser.
People are railing on the net about how it would have been unfair to treat this woman differently but that’s exactly the point. She shouldn’t be treated differently – she should be treated exactly as you would for any other student that requests to be released from class due to medical or personal issues (and of course it is unclear whether she even asked for release time if the “friend of a friend” email quoted here is to be believed, in which case the whole thing is entirely moot). It seems like a no brainer, regardless of the structure of the professional program. The fact that this can happen in the UC system, probably one of the largest in the country and in what is often hailed as the most progressive state in the union, should make us all revisit our own maternity and medical leave policies on our campuses.
Transcript of email between myself and Chancellor Katehi:
Thank you for sharing with me your concerns about a female student in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and the manner in which a faculty member reportedly handled the student’s brief time away from school for childbirth. I have received numerous e-mails expressing concern about this matter.
I want to assure you that I take very seriously any allegations that a student’s welfare, dignity or academic rights have in any way been compromised. And as a woman, who has experienced firsthand the challenges of melding academic and family life and has experienced discrimination, I am especially sensitive to this issue. This alleged action, if found to be true, would present a serious deviation from the values and principles that guide our campus and our School of Veterinary Medicine, and I would be profoundly disappointed if the reported events did in fact transpire on this campus.
I have asked Ralph Hexter, UC Davis’ provost and executive vice chancellor, to initiate a thorough review of this matter. He will ensure that all appropriate procedures are followed and that the appropriate campus authorities will make a final determination as to whether any campus policies and procedures were violated and, if so, what steps need to be taken. I expect rapid attention and response from the provost.
Our veterinary school, with an enrollment that is 85 percent female, has a long history of providing accommodations for the health and well being of its students and their families. During a student’s pregnancy, the school customarily works with her to help catch up after being away for childbirth or to arrange for an extended leave after which she can resume her academic program. And for mothers of infants, the school provides a lactation room so that students can continue breastfeeding their babies.
I am committed to taking swift and appropriate action, should it be warranted, for any finding of faculty misconduct. Again, thank you for your note and please do not hesitate to contact me on this or other matters of concern.
Sincerely,
Linda P.B. Katehi
Chancellor
Linda P.B. Katehi, Chancellor
University of California
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616-8558
Phone: (530) 752-2067
Fax: (530) 752-2400
http://chancellor.ucdavis.edu
—–Original Message—–
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2011 7:17 PM
To: Chancellor Katehi
Subject: Dr. Feldman
Dear Professor Katehi
I was somewhat shocked and dismayed to read the following blog post:
http://scienceblogs.com/isisthescientist/2011/01/that_b_on_your_transcript_is_f.php
which discussed the conduct of Edward Feldman DVM, Chair of the Department of Medicine & Epidemiology at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. I do not wish to pre-judge Professor Feldman unfairly, so I will simply say this — I urge you in the strongest possible terms to investigate this incident with fairness, alacrity, and rigor.
If the portrayal in this web-blog is true, it makes me ashamed to be a UC professor.
Dear higher ed instructor,
While I appreciated your experience, prudent, and detailed response, and I learned a great deal from it, I am concerned that perhaps you are commenting at the wrong blog.
This is a poutrage blog. Totes!
Dear Anonomymous UCI faculty,
Thank you for reposting that form letter response from Chancellor Katehi that has already been reposted here and is the subject of its own blog post in the next post in the blogline.
P.S. If you have any other form letter responses you would like to share with us, perhaps you might consider creating a blog of your own to share those form letter responses with us.
Argh. Women really need to stop having kids when they’re getting an education. Yes I understand that it is your choice to squeeze out a lump of cute flesh the size of a football out of your genitals. What bothers me is that the education should be the focus and once you’ve put all your attention and effort into one thing and become the best you can, move onto the biological imperative of child rearing.
#225 (Mr. Isis) –
I don’t feel I have glossed over that particular point, but just in the interests of fairness, yes, I will agree that Dr. Feldman asked the class presidents to write the class of 2012 an e-mail. The content of his request is speculative and may not even be an e-mail itself.
Now, how can you judge the professor for an e-mail you can only guess at the content of?
I began looking up case law, and then I realized, it’s not my job to make your case for you. You think it’s a FERPA violation, I don’t. Fine. We’re both laypeople, and have better things to do than get law degrees from Google U. But leaving that question for the actual lawyers, can we at least acknowledge that we have moved the goalposts SO FAR from the initial claim of “Shameful Gender Discrimination” that we can say that claim is false?
You’re right, AtheistAcolyte. Discrimination against a pregnant woman because she is pregnant does not count as discrimination, it is not in any way gender based, and of course, it isn’t remotely shameful. Thanks for the mansplaining!
I stopped taking the vet students seriously at “Listen lady” and “gossip blog.”
A “female teacher” writes:
“Honestly, I do not see sexism here. What I see, as a female teacher, is a difficult grading situation in a highly competitive program that was handled poorly.”
I know, right? The UC Professor treats male students who get pregnant exactly the way he treatse female students who get pregnant.
Dear Sick of this shit,
Apparently, the options available to this woman by the written policy of the school are that she can: a) drop the course and take it a year later, or b) miss the pop quizzes that make up the grade and receive a zero for them.
The professor apparently was trying to find a way c) that she could continue with her education and neither drop the course nor delay her education for a year.
Which of the only available options a) or b) do you think the student should have taken?
For trying to explore option c) which arguably violated FERPA by disclosing to the class that their pregnant classmate had given birth and asking for their opinions on waivers, just how do you think we should punish the professor? Must we stone him? Couldn’t we just burn him to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws?
Thanks, I appreciate the femsplaining!
#246 (Sick of this shit) –
Thank you for proving that you don’t know what you’re talking about. The student had “recently given birth”. She was not pregnant any longer at the time of the alleged discrimination.
And before you get all over me, shifting the goalposts again by saying that she was discriminated against for having a newly-born child, the school was bending over backwards to allow this student to continue her studies without taking a year-long break due to the core nature of the class.
Of course, I don’t know why I bother responding. We’ll never hear from “Sick of this shit” again.
This is, in my opinion, exactly what blogging is about! Opinion! Well done, Isis!
Vets and vet students: Relax! This isn’t really a personal attack on you guys, it just so happens that it occurred in your area. The real issue is NOT that it happened in a Vet School, but that it happened at all!!
If it had happened in a Medical School, everyone would be medical student/doctor bashing. If it was in a dentistry school, the people would be criticising dental students and dentists and if it was in a Law School – well, you hope they’d know better, but the whole world would be ripping law students and lawyers a new backside! I was once a med student, and have heard it all. And in all honesty, have dished out to vet students and dental students (our biggest academic enemies in Oz) heavily in my time – but in GEST! I am utterly respectful of their ability to provide dental hygiene and medical care to my dog!
If we all took to heart everything everyone said about our chosen profession, the world would be a bitter and miserable place.
So cheer up people, take of your bonnets, let the bees out and hit beer-o’clock early this week!
And best of luck, Baby-mommy-vet!
And as for Dr. Feldman – fair chance you are gonna need luck too, Princess!
#239 (DrugMonkey) –
Like, say, coming up with a new grading policy for unknown absences in a class, considering input from the students who will be under this new policy as well?
I’m sure these concerned vet students would be totes OK with this whole scenario if their professor and classmates were publicly discussing the matter if the student in question had had to miss X # of classes to recover from an operation to remove a testicular cancer tumour.
I find myself grateful that I was a normal grad student in a normal program at a university where professors had policies in place to deal with pregnancies, illnesses, unexpected family duties, and so on…so when my dad was dying and I had medical power of attorney and had to be there to to make medical decisions (and, you know, spend some time with my dying father–I guess I wasn’t “professionally dedicated” enough for academia), I quietly arranged with my professors to do makeup work or take incompletes, as applicable. They did not feel the need to share my personal situation with the class and ask a bunch of students what to do about me without even checking with me first.
It is the job of professors to make decisions like this, period. If they want to solicit input from students on *general policy,* fine. But soliciting input from students on a *specific case* like is wildly inappropriate, period, no matter how much you like the professor or the student, no matter how good everyone’s motivations were. And an institution and a professor should darn well have a policy in place for each class, unless they were founded/hired yesterday. Surely this is not the first pregnant or sick or temporarily disabled student this professor has had.
Also, everyone who thinks women should wait until they’re out of grad school (and often in their 30s) to have kids–what do you think of women having kids while job-searching? While getting started in a new career? Before getting tenure? Aren’t all these things just as “bad” and “unprofessional”? A man can wait until he is 40 and well-established in his career to have kids; a woman is much less likely to be able to do so. According to a lot of commenters here, that means she shouldn’t be able to have a career if she wants kids.
Or is it that academic women shouldn’t have children at all?
Having kids in grad school is often the most practical time for people on academic tracks (I know men as well as women who did it–but women also have the issue of declining fertility and high chance of birth defects the longer they wait). Most graduate programs recognize and accommodate this. The burden, however, will always be greater on women because we’re the ones who have to physically bear the children and the health risks of pregnancy.
So yes, there will need to be greater accommodations for that…unless you believe academic women should not be allowed to have kids (but academic men can, because their wives and girlfriends do the physical bearing), which is sexist, or that having to provide a few accommodations to make it easier for academic women to have children if they want them is such a HUGE burden on the educational system that it wipes out all the contributions those women make professionally, which is sexist and also argued against by the vast body of academic and professional work done by women who–gasp–had the temerity to have children at some point in their education or career.
P.S. I have no kids or desire for them, and I also do not care at all if my vet had kids while she or he was in grad school. I care whether they provide good care for my pets.
Although if anything, judging by the graduate parents I knew, the experience of juggling schoolwork, assistantships, and parenting made them more disciplined and efficient, as well as better at communication and time management, than much of their non-parenting cohort.
“I’m sure these concerned vet students would be totes OK with this whole scenario if their professor and classmates were publicly discussing the matter if the student in question had had to miss X # of classes to recover from an operation to remove a testicular cancer tumour.”
What part of she’s a 3rd year student in a small cohort in a very selective program in her 8th – 9th month of pregnancy, suddenly disappearing in her 9th – 10th month of pregnancy in a group of vet students that study animal reproduction do you believe was private?
For that matter, if it was a group of 3rd year med students and one of their students suddenly had a cancer, do you think the students and professors would not address that?
“What part of she’s a 3rd year student in a small cohort in a very selective program in her 8th – 9th month of pregnancy, suddenly disappearing in her 9th – 10th month of pregnancy in a group of vet students that study animal reproduction do you believe was private?”
The part where her medical recovery is her own private business?
“For that matter, if it was a group of 3rd year med students and one of their students suddenly had a cancer, do you think the students and professors would not address that?”
Not as a cavalier, official discussion relating to grades. “Tom has large tumour on his balls, ladies and gentleman – let’s take a vote on what how that should affect the grade he recieves on this class, shall we?”
@243:
The message had not been posted here at the time I added it. It’s true, I didn’t realize there was another blog post with it, so sue me.
Your attitude is ridiculous. I added something relevant for the discussion, more so than many of the messages here.
Or: “John’s clinical depression has negatively affected his studies this year – let’s come to a consensus about HOW badly it should impact him, shall we?”
#257 (Anonymous UCI Faculty) –
You will notice that comment #151, posted by CoR at 8:34pm has that message.
#256 & #258 (RKMK) –
And you will notice it wasn’t the teacher who wrote the e-mail. Are you aware of how the teacher phrased the request to the class presidents? And if you really read the e-mail, you’ll see that there are many options there, but no “Give her an automatic ‘D'”, or “Give her an automatic ‘F'”.
I can only speculate, but I guess the teacher was just opening the doors of discussion as to what the students felt the appropriate grading policy for this particular class (which is structured to be graded solely off of quizzes, and no make-ups are allowed, per the course description) should be, since they may be affected by the change as well.
Could he have handled this differently? Sure, he could have said, “If you miss your quizzes, you’ll fail the class and have to wait a year to re-take it.” I hardly think what transpired is the harsher solution.
From the post:
“A friend showed me a class-wide email the student recently sent, stating that Dr. Feldman had not spoken with her before he asked the class presidents to send out the poll […] Another friend of mine reports that the professor asked the class to participate in the poll, while the relevant student was sitting in his class and that he basically ignored her when she pointed out that she was present and absences wouldn’t be an issue.”
“John’s clinical depression is affecting his attendance. Class, how should we handle this situation?”
“Professor? I’m RIGHT HERE?”
“I’m going to have the class presidents to send around a poll, mkay?”
@257 UCI Prof.
Ha! You’re being disingenuous. You thought you were a precious snowflake and had gotten a unique letter back from the Chancellor. You didn’t investigate the thread or the blog.
And you didn’t investigate the original email either.
You just poutraged.
Some professor you are…. if you are a professor.
Hey @RKMK 256, well I must defer to you, I don’t see anyplace where they discuss her medical recovery. But since “Sick of this shit” never came back, do you think you could look at response 248 and respond to that. Which of the available, written down, policy options would you have preferred: dropping the class and waiting a year, or taking your chances on the pop quizzes? Which would you have recommended the student take?
AtheistAcolyte – For some context, I’m a professional academic administrator who coordinates a medical rotation for actual human doctors for one of the largest and most respected medical schools in my country. Pregnant students crop up once or twice a year, because it’s life – this stuff happens. They approach the administration, a plan is laid out, sometimes involving leaves of absence, rotations rearranged, and accommodations are made to bring them back in if/when there are complications. You deal with it. And not at any moment of time is anything broadcast to or discussed with their cohort. Ever. Because it is none of their business. Same with any other medical condition.
Apparently actual doctors have more respect for medical confidentiality than animal doctors.
#261 (RKMK) –
And you’ll recall that Dr. Isis said that was from talking to subsequent folks about this, so let me amend this to provide context:
“A friend [of a friend of Dr. Isis] showed me a class-wide email the student recently sent, stating that Dr. Feldman had not spoken with her before he asked the class presidents to send out the poll […] Another friend of [a friend of Dr. Isis] reports that the professor asked the class to participate in the poll, while the relevant student was sitting in his class and that he basically ignored her when she pointed out that she was present and absences wouldn’t be an issue”
Tell me how this equates to concrete evidence that Dr. Feldman said anything along the lines of what you said.
Oh, I’m sorry, were you demagoguing?
Wow RKMK, well we are especially lucky you dropped by. The Internet is so great, this thread absolutely needed someone with your expertise, and look, you showed up!
So which of those two options a) drop the course and wait a year, or b) take her chances with the pop quizzes that the school had pre-defined and written down would you have taken, or would you have suggested the student take?
To Mr. Isis –
Because I’m something of a masochist, I’ve discovered that in Gonzaga University v. Doe, heard before the US Supreme Court in 2002, the Court decided that FERPA does not create a right enforceable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the Civil Rights Act of 1871, which is the section which provides a mechanism for people to sue public (and in some cases, private) institutions for breaches of their federal rights. This is because the language of FERPA does not create any such rights, in their interpretation.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=536&page=273
An interesting case. I feel sure that UCDavis will need to either revisit their current pregnancy policies, or sit down and explain them to Dr. F. Otherwise, they will be sued, which of course no university wants.
You could definitely make a case that UCDavis might be liable under FERPA. Looking at Falvo v. Owasso Indep. School District is instructive. In that case, the Owassa school district was sued because they had students grade each others’ papers and call out the grades in front of the class. The case was settled for the plaintiff. There are some interesting similarities here, but wait, there’s more. The judge in that decision references the “Rooker letter”.
http://www.wrightslaw.com/law/caselaw/2001/10th_falvo_owasso.htm
In the 1993 “Rooker letter”, sent by LeRoy S. Rooker, then Director of the Family Policy Compliance Office, to the Alabama Board of Education, Mr. Rooker states firstly that:
“When a student reaches the age of 18 or attends an institution of postsecondary education, the student is considered an “eligible student” under FERPA and all of the rights afforded by FERPA transfer from the parents to the student. 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(d); 34 C.F.R § 99.3 “Eligible student.”
Just to settle any jurisdiction questions, and then he says,
“A K-12 student’s health records, including immunization records, maintained by an educational agency or institution subject to FERPA, including records maintained by a school nurse, would generally be “education records” subject to FERPA because they are 1) directly related to a student; 2) maintained by an educational agency or institution, or a party acting for the agency or institution; and 3) not excluded from the definition as treatment or sole possession records, or on some other basis. 20 U.S.C. §1232g(a)(4)(a)”.
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/library/alhippaa.html
So, yeah, FERPA does cover health records. Formally divulging a students pregnancy to fellow students would, I think, violate the intent of FERPA.
#266 (DRK) –
The definition of “education records” reads as such: (20 USC § 1232g(a)(4)(A) )
Seems to refer explicitly to written or recorded documents of any kind.
An example of this kind of violation of FERPA in this context would be Dr. Feldman providing a medical record document to the class presidents establishing the pregnancy and recent childbirth of the student.
As far as anyone knows, and I admit I don’t even know, nothing like that has transpired. According to the “FERPA at the UC” document I referenced above (#119):
I think that a recent childbirth is something that can be gained by observation or personal knowledge.
#268 (AA) –
Bad AA! It was in reference to #267, not #266!
@244 (No, I’m not trolling.)
Hmmm ok. So let’s see. I’m in a combined MD/PhD program from which I expect to graduate at age 31. Then I’ll enter residency training for 3 years, followed by fellowship training for another 3 years. So once I finish my training, around age 37, I’ll start trying to get pregnant. Yeah right.
If a professor has to come up with a slightly different grading scheme to ensure that I have a solid knowledge of endocrinology (one which should exist for anyone having to miss class time for any reason), does that really put you, as my fellow student, out in the slightest?
Let me also point out that these “lumps of flesh” are men’s children too.
I just want to point out a few things:
The student in question is not pregnant and does not appear to have ever been treated differently for being pregnant. For those who are too stupid to understand these things, giving birth is one of a few different acts that results in the end of pregnancy. For the even stupider, it says in the letter that she already gave birth, so she isn’t pregnant.
When she signed up for the class she had to expect to miss some of her classes to give birth and recover, and she should have known the policy for missing classes, which for a 400 level class is probably something like: If you miss more than a couple classes you get your grade dropped automatically, and if you miss as many as she will likely miss it is an auto-fail. So she really shouldn’t have signed up for the class at all, or she should have gotten a formal agreement with the professor a/o school about how the situation would be handled within the first week of class.
They class is not being given any information on the students performance in class. They are just discussing how she will be graded on her performance given that she is going to miss part of the class. So that is not a valid privacy concern.
Anyone with an ounce of sense will realize that they are clearly trying to cut the student some slack by even considering using anything other than their standard policy. The only thing in question in the letter is how to deal with someone who has A REALLY GOOD EXCUSE for missing class. This shows they basically think someone who gives birth should get cut some slack. So they think her reason is valid, but they don’t want to man up and make their own decision about how to deal with the situation.
Personally I think the only “problem” here is why they would bring this up with the other students at all. They are in charge, they should make their own damn decision. Letting others vote on it is a complete cop out and shows they are not capable of handling the responsibilities that come with their position.
There has been no maliciousness in anyone for bringing the problem to public attention.
As many people have already said: Dr Feldman made a mistake and showed lack of judgment by not trying to resolve the problem at the right level. And this judgment error has created a malpractice precedent that needs to be appropriately addressed, corrected and prevented in the future. I am hopeful that the University will do so in a manner that preserves the dignity of Dr Feldman, the pregnant student and all the president class.
Dear ISIS,
Because of the professionalism and consideration of UC Davis administration/staff and all the instructors including Dr. Feldman, I’m glad to say that your unfair, caustic, and negative spin put on something that was probably a legitimate concern (but one that could have been brought to light in a much more professional and gracious manner) has been resolved calmly and easily. You haven’t had the enormous negative impact that I initially thought might come to pass, and people who have read this are using a lot more critical thinking and reasonable judgment than I expected.
So thanks for an interesting 24 hours are so, but I’d say your 15 minutes of fame are up. You might actually have to find a scientific topic to post on this ScienceBlog. A novel concept indeed. If you’re having trouble, I hear that PubMed has great new research being published all the time that’s peer reviewed and actually makes a positive impact on society.
Signed, Bye
An interesting thought–
Could the forwarding of the initial class president e-mail to an outside source (Isis) be a FERPA violation? It’s a written record, not gleaned by observation or personal knowledge, which personally identifies at least one of three students (Dan, one of the class presidents), and surely identifies in the full e-mail to ISIS the actual writer of the e-mail.
This would seem to lean towards being considered an “Education Record”, as in a “record”, “directly related to a student”.
You’ve been out of the game far too long if you fail to realize that this is the state of higher education today. Grades are issued on arbitrary bases every day. If they want you to succeed you cannot fail. And if they want you to fail you cannot succeed. It is a simple truth that objective analysis of student performance disappeared long ago. A popularity contest is all that remains. Success is punished and failure is rewarded ever since the far left union laborers took over power and control of the schools. We’re doomed.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I’m not sure what I find more disturbing–the fact that this happened in the first place or some of the responses to it here.
To everyone focusing exclusively on federal law:
The Constitution of the State of California establishes a right of privacy. Cal. Const., Art. I, Sec. 1. This right of privacy is quite broad, and includes involuntary disclosure of medical conditions.
California law also prohibits the infliction of emotional distress. While I haven’t researched the precise confines of this tort in the last few years, I have little doubt that the e-mail requesting that fellow students vote on the new mother’s grade would meet the criteria for negligent infliction of emotional distress (NIED).
The fact that the defendant is a state university makes no difference; the state has waived sovereign immunity for the commission of torts by its employees, including NIED and violations of constitutional rights of privacy.
There was no call whatsoever for the professor to humiliate a student in this fashion. I expect that the professor will suffer adverse professional consequences and the student, if she so chooses, can prevail in a lawsuit against the university.
[yes, i am a lawyer licensed to practice in the State of California. no, this is not legal advice.]
Lighten up, Francis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrllCZw8jiM
“About 80% of what Dr. Isis writes is the God’s honest truth. About 20% is total nonsense.”
http://scienceblogs.com/isisthescientist/about.php
It’s nice you totally put words into the professor’s mouth and completely discredit yourself. This is sensationalist nonsense, and the fact that anyone is even reading your blog is very disappointing. Do your research thoroughly, or shut the fuck up. If you don’t know what you are talking about, you are NOT entitled to your opinion.
It’s not like vets are real doctors anyways…can’t she just make up the missed work through an online class?
I mean they only play with kittens and puppies everyday…why do they even need to go to a graduate school?
….right…
homegirl knew the rules before she signed up for the class- she should have made arrangement well before her due date…
wanna be in vet school and have kids? FINE…but you may have to make a few more sacrifices (like not taking a required class and waiting a year)..guess what..I wanted to travel the world and work on a beach in Thailand…but I chose to go to vet school for 4 years….life isn’t fair…it’s hard to have it all…
Feldman is a great man who has helped contribute to the field of veterinary medicine…he made a silly mistake (and actually he didn’t even write the email..but it instead transpired from “suggestions”)….
no one should have been privy to this email except for our family (the family of UC Davis School of Vet Med)..shame on you for sensationalizing this situation..
hey blogger…..can’t you actually blog about something you have hard evidence of??? I mean if the goal of your blog is to raise awareness and actually MAKE a change in society (instead of WASTING your time on a situation that I am sure would have been resolved by both parties privately without the spotlight) then why don’t you do some research and form a story on factual-based evidence (not hearsay)….
People who keep saying stuff like “pregnancy is a choice, comparing it to leave for a disease isn’t a good comparison” obviously haven’t been around many sick people. A lot of disease and injury is completely preventable. People who break bones are rarely looked down on or told that they should have been more cautious (especially when they are college students, right?). People who are in the hospital due to car accidents don’t get a talk about it, even if they were at fault. There isn’t a real difference here, except that people don’t like it when women get pregnant without the approval of society (meaning that they are married and not doing anything else important at the time). A pregnancy isn’t seen as a sorta mundane life event the way a broken foot or rib is, and its because of sexism.
Does anyone get the sense that many of the “anons” are the same person? They keep harping on calling this a gossip site/a non science website. Its kinda obvious, eh? Can you see the IPs Isis?
Yes, Isis, reveal the IPs, that would demonstrate your devotion to privacy issues.
But skeptifem, I’ve written many of the anon posts, but not all, but I think this is the first time I’ve referred to this as a gossip site.) This IS a gossip site, or as I labeled it, a poutrage site. This post certainly is not about scientific issues, nor has it been analyzed scientifically.
It’s a poutrage post analyzed through the unfalsifiable religious lens of feminism.
I have worked at the Vet School for 11 years, what has been said and re-“blogged” by this professor to me is being blown way out of proportion (copied and pasted and distorted for sure!!!)(I was not there so I can only give my observation/opinion), and taken out of context ,I am sure, and angers me. I work with “Senior” Students every day, any students in “3rd year” might understand the concept of the impact on their Vet School Carrer, and impact on their classmates by an extended absence whether it be pregnancy, injury, family emergency, etc’ when they get to senior clinics. We all bend and mend and work harder when these things happen and try to be as supportive as possible. Dr.Feldman has been a phenomenal clinician for many many years and as a professor I cannot comment on him nor his performance. But having the news and the reporters “STALKING” our clients, students and employees in the parking lot of the VMTH all day today tells any person with any common sense that they are fishing for a story. I don’t appreciate the news (a highly regarded news channel with a big red van, nor the “Sac Bee”) questioning clients in our parking lot, the clients have no clue how the vet school works (and most are very worried or saddened about their pets and should not be bothered) and I am sure the questions directed at the clients are as juicy as they can word them. I can say the clients know the dedication love and hard work we all do to give their pets the best care as possible. WE ALL at the vet school pride ourselves in providing a service to animals, I am an RVT, my job is to be supportive of students, teach students and surgery residents, and do the best job I can to help clients and animals and provide the best care that I can give. This story is NOT an acurate portrayal nor deserving of the vet school in general. Just my opinion that I am NOT afraid nor ashamed of giving, after a long week (and years of experience) and tons of hard work at this hospital and speaking for an enormous number of technicians that do the same thing I do every day.
Any student who is unable to perform, report to class or take exams should be treated as such and be able to resume where they left off…period! I would not want a Vet attending to my dog/cat/pet if they did not deserve their degree… the truth is, being a woman is not easy, we have a uterus and have to carry our children, we are expected to change our lives and make sacrafices unlike men are expected. This is a fact of nature not a privilege or absolute choice in some cases… I can say if I had ever decided to go to vet school, I DAMN SURE would have chosen to not get pregnant at that time and jeopardize my carrer,or knowlegde base, this is a fact not an assumption regarding my own feelings about my body and my life choices and my carrer. If I was to bear a child during vet school I would expect at least a year to make up time, classes, labs etc’ for my degree …
No anonimity necessary! My Opinion is Completely independent of the University of California at Davis or the Veterianry Medical Teaching Hospital, or UCD Vet Med
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/01/14/3325027/uc-davis-investigates-claim-against.html#ixzz1B54MvaUZ
RVT~M, you know this isn’t about you, right? Or your “patients” and ability to care for them? This is about one man’s very poor choice to disobey the university policies around how to deal with students. It’s not about what this woman should have or shouldn’t have completed. It’s about the fact that this professor put it to a vote.
He should have given her whatever grade she earned end of story. If she took one quiz out of five and got one hundred percent on it that’s still gonna be failing. I’m sure that there is a cut and dry policy at UCD for handling this type of stuff. Best case scenario she should have received
an incomplete or NWS.
I honestly had no idea that the majority of vet students at UCD were such ignorant troglodytes. Thank god they won’t work with human patients.
She should have approached the prof about this before it ever became an issue. She was probably pregnant for more than 24 hours. Giving birth isn’t something that sneaks up on you all at once. Had she approached the prof (as is her responsibility as a student and a “PROFESSIONAL” student at that) I’m sure they could have worked a fair grading scheme out. And if not she simply shouldn’t have taken the class.
#286 (Funky Fresh) –
You do realize that this is now about them, because what should have initially been an internal matter now has people nowhere near the university writing the Chancellor’s office and reporters stalking the campus of the SVM and related hospital.
What should have been dealt with as a purely internal matter is now in the public spotlight.
If whoever spread this e-mail around was truly as aggrieved as they appear, is it the place of students to spread this to bloggers, or is it their place to bring it up to the administration, or even the Chancellor themselves? If the Chancellor herself does in fact “take very seriously any allegations that a student’s welfare, dignity or academic rights have in any way been compromised”, they should have nothing to fear from bringing it up to the administration.
I don’t think that anyone was thinking “let’s get that fucker Feldman” when they handled this e-mail (perhaps I’m giving too much benefit of the doubt here), but it really seems the forces of outrage here need to stop and look in the mirror before they viciously attack someone they don’t even know about a situation they don’t understand for being malicious and vindictive.
Physician, heal thyself.
#288 (MonkeyPox) –
Please refer to #120. Thank you.
I was asking if the anons are the same person, not for their IP addresses. jeez.
you won’t go complain to PZ myers or Ed Brayton about that though, will ya? I can guess why.
awhile back everyone got together on scienceblogs to do zombie posts. I guess the whole site is crap and you should just leave then? Or hey there was that time that people donated to charities of their choice and encouraged readers to give money. That way isn’t science. Its socially important, especially to the people who would otherwise sufer, but that doesn’t matter to people like you as much as complaining about how correct the domain name is regarding the content of any given post. GTFO you pedantic wanker.
Your last paragraph makes me think you are either very young or very privileged, and haven’t ever had to bring up discrimination at a place where you work or study. There is fear, because people do get punished for it. They get fired, their cases never get to court, etc. Its not all with good cause. Look at what happened to lily ledbetter.
You act like having a crappy record exposed is the real problem instead of the instructors behavior. Do you really think that when there is discrimination administrators always fix the problem the way that they should? If you had an ounce of lived experience in that sort of thing you would realize that it doesn’t generally work out that way. Public examples also serve to show other professors how discrimination is actually a big deal and that people won’t put up with it. It shows the student who was discriminated against that she isn’t alone and that there is support for her. It shows the shameful sexist actions of a man for what they are, and that even college professors with long teaching histories can be guilty of this stuff. If stories like these were never public then I am sure dudes like you would use it as evidence that sexism doesn’t exist anymore, when in reality I don’t know a single woman who hasn’t had some kind of problem with discrimination or harassment at work or school because of their gender.
remember how the vatican reacts when their abuses get uncovered? They act like the investigation and the allegations are the real crimes here, and want to deal with everything internally, as if an institution that is hurting people shouldn’t be publically accountable for it. If a university is discriminating against women, or people of color, or gays, or whoever, they should be held accountable. If a college does it over and over again then women deserve to know when they choose their college.
#293 (skeptifem) –
You make some strong points. Let me address them in order:
Re: institutional fear of reporting:
There is a reason there is an open chain of authority in Universities: if the first person you go to doesn’t respond adequately to a grievance, you go one-up, and include that the first person didn’t respond satisfactorily. Then if the second person doesn’t, you go to the next-up. Gradually you build a case for the institution ignoring your case. Finally, had whoever it was gone to the Chancellor and received the same response, despite the fact that five people all ignored the issue, then you have a good story about how the institution is ignoring your grievances. Then the outside media can be involved. The way this came out, UCDavis, the SVM and even the professor was blindsided by it. If the student who spread the email to Isis (and I don’t know if it was the recently pregnant student) was truly as aggrieved by Dr. Feldman’s lack of communication, why did they lack communication with him themselves?
And yes, look what happened to Lily Ledbetter. She exposed institutional arrogance and discrimination at Goodyear and had legislation passed through the United States Congress.
Re: Public Examples
I wonder where you draw the line with this slippery slope. Surely you don’t feel state executions should be televised or performed in a public arena. What about a public shaming of convicted felons, akin to the stocks of yore? How about as a form of punishment for misdemeanors?
We have courts and legal systems for settling our grievances. We don’t need to send up smoke signals from burnt transgressors to show we don’t accept certain actions.
Re: The Vatican
It feels strange for me to be defending the Vatican in some way, but I want to remind you that the Vatican is not responsible for a very few of their priests committing sexual assaults; what they are responsible for is covering up, transferring dangerous priests, and shushing up witnesses and victims. That is institutional arrogance in the service of evil. And that is not seen here.
==========================================================
I also want to re-post this comment that I made on another blog (please forgive the cut-and-paste), as I feel it relevant to some other discussions here:
I also find it odd that you seem to put down “making her the center of uncomfortable attentionâ€, and yet here we are, two grown adults who do not know her and (at least you) will probably never know her, debating her past and what should be done to the professor in her name. The original post on Scienceblogs has over 260 comments, a response from the Chancellor, and an open letter from some random anonymous blogger who doesn’t even know her but wants to give her a big ol’ anonymous hug. Over 6,000 people have read the Huffington Post article. Dozens, if not hundreds, of aggrieved unrelated persons have written to the Chancellor on her behalf.
That seems far more uncomfortable and embarrassing attention than ONLY involving 130 of her classmates, her friends, her colleagues, the people she walks into class with everyday, the people who would help her take care of her child, the people who help her study, who would help her catch up on any missed work, the people who care about her well-being now and will still care about it next week, when the next article of misunderstanding outrage comes out.
I agree this was an extraordinarily dickish move from the professor.
However, this opinion has gotten me shit upon at this blog more than once, but I’ll say it again:
One has a choice whether to have a child or not, and it is an extraordinarily bad idea to have one during one’s education.
Except women have the choice, in this day and age, of having a child or aborting it. It’s not like it’s a sickness that swoops down on them and they have to wait for it to work itself out.
A broken foot or rib isn’t something one can control once it happens.
This is sort of tangential, but I’ve always found it sort of intriguing how society has this bizarre relationship with reproduction: it is a burden on resources, yet some people have to do it to keep society going.
Gossip blog indeed…. if you ever wanted anyone to take your blog seriously this was a very inappropriate topic to attack so judgmentally. I’m split between laughing at this and horror, but given how ridiculously this thing has spun out of proportion, I’m left with horror.
Do any of you REALLY have enough understanding of what transpired to make such caustic and opinionated comments? NO! Could it possibly occur to you that there are lots of subtleties and details of the “story” NOT in that email? Do any of you understand the concept of “context”? I’m guessing that at least 90% of the posters here and Isis herself have never met Dr. Feldman, do NOT know what other communication the class and presidents and student had about the matter, and have really NO idea how this anonymous student even feels about the issue. Regardless of how she felt about it before, you people have certainly turned it into an issue for her!!!!!
Isis could be a reporter for Fox News when she grows up.
Anne
“you won’t go complain to PZ myers or Ed Brayton about that though, will ya? I can guess why.
awhile back everyone got together on scienceblogs to do zombie posts. I guess the whole site is crap and you should just leave then? Or hey there was that time that people donated to charities of their choice and encouraged readers to give money. That way isn’t science. Its socially important, especially to the people who would otherwise sufer, but that doesn’t matter to people like you as much as complaining about how correct the domain name is regarding the content of any given post. GTFO you pedantic wanker.”
Skeptifem, you should learn how the internet works, how links work, how people visit different sites, how I don’t visit pz because he’s way too often a wanker with a group of isis like sycophantic acolytes, and how I am not responsible for having to read and comment on every stupid blog post pz or ed or skeptifem shits out.
This post, skeptiboob, which I did read, is a poutrage.
Not surprised at all. fwiw: Until recently, bathrooms at the UCD VMTH used to be marked: “Men/faculty” and “Women”. I wonder if it was coed in 2000? In my experiences with Dr. Feldman, I found him to be arrogant and self centered, lacking the maturity of people with “real world” experience. Anyone trained in these hallowed halls of academia know professors like Feldman usually delegate the writing of their journal articles and books to students. Many of them are paid in grades. Time to replace Feldman and many of the others of his era and send them to the real “trenches” of veterinary medicine. Sad he lacks the emotional maturity to deal with student’s issues as they arise. We need some NEW MENTORS capable of teaching and modeling quality traits for students to aspire to.
#300 (DVM) –
One must ask what experience you have with Dr. Feldman, in what context, and how recently? yetanothervetstudent, in another thread (#12), has claimed:
On another note, it’s sad that you lack the emotional maturity to not attack a colleague anonymously.
I hope that in the process of obtaining permission to tell this story you asked the student in question if she minded you raising the question of the legitimacy of her child. From the correspondence you’ve provided in this article the legitimacy of the child was never questioned or mentioned….only your “hussy” comment did that. What should have been an article about a completely inappropriate choice by a professor to place the fate of student’s grade in the hands of her cohort has become a de facto announcement of the student’s apparently unwed status. You have, it seems, managed to engage in the (horribly titled) “slut shaming” that you intended to object to. I do hope that while you continue to investigate the inappropriate grade assignment policy in UCD’s VMD 444 you take the time to write a very, very necessary apology letter to the student in question.
Isis, I almost completely disagree with your interpretation of this event, and 100% am appalled by how you spun it, but there is some interesting stuff going on here that everyone should be aware of.
Isis got an email and did a little work to verify it. And largely she did verify it, though not all of the details. And that should be acknowledged.
Now go google Feldman UC Davis. Do this on google news.
Isis story has been picked up by HuffPo, InsideHigherEd, SacBee, and many other places. [Congrats to Isis, successful troll is successful!]
Read the stories and the comments.
I note that almost none of the official reporters at official news organs have added much of any actual reporting to Isis’ blog post. What are they doing beyond simple amplification and repeating? It’s not clear. Some credit Isis. They all strip the post of Isis’ bullshit (and then add their own.)
In the comments there are lots of people self identifying as students, professors, men, women, vets, mds, Zerg, almost none of whom have read the initial letters or this thread or the various analysis in this thread and all of whom are eager to jump to conclusion even if that means trampling others to death before they can jump to their conclusion.
Look how fast the media and the readers went crazy! Totes poutrage! And how little added value the media has been todate on this story.
Given its a weekend, and they can probably do no original reporting, does the media a) wait until Monday, or b) go total retard and just repeat the story?
Keep that in mind as we a) find out what actually happened at UC Davis, b) castrate and stone Dr. Feldman, c) read other stories from the media, and d) try to work with the media in our own endeavors.
BS like this is why men think we’re always looking for ‘special treatment’. The student did not ask for this, she was already attending class and assuring the prof that absences would not be a problem. Yet there will be people who think that women can’t be serious students and pull their own weight because of this incident. This asshat needs to be fired.
There is no reason for this other than slut shamming.
katherine
*headdesk* again, you don’t seem to know anything about how illnesses actually happen and are treated. There are things people do to complicate things, there are things they can do to improve treatment but don’t, etc. There are people with chronic conditions that they could in theory be rid of but don’t. They aren’t thrown under the bus this way. They get hospital rooms without dirty looks and bullshit from peers.
I also didn’t realize that the right to abortion meant that women should abort whenever other people tell her to, or because they will punish her for not doing so. Thats bullshit. thats not a choice. Thats a punishment for being knocked up in unapproved circumstances. If you were a consisten advocate of choosing to spend less time under medical care you would be for forced medical treatment in all circumstances, not just abortions. You either think that people deserve bodily autonomy and respect, or you don’t. Punishing people for utilizing it in a way you don’t like means you cannot possess either.
Obviously Feldman had no intention of allowing the students to decide this woman’s grade. His intent was to simply make his position clear, that pregnant women have no business in school. And it sounds as if he was delusional enough to expect the support of the vet students, at least in part. Looks to me that as 80% of the students (or so) are female, he couldn’t have expected a high number to side with his bias, but even some percent, would have given him, at least in his mind, more credibility, that he wasn’t the only looney with those thoughts.
I don’t know if the poll was taken, but I am hopeful that everyone refused to ‘vote’, and I am very glad so many students wrote to the chancellor to express their concern. I reallly hope Feldman is held accountable (and perhaps encouraged to go and teach in a place where his neanderthal values might be more appreciated).
The Department’s webpage shows that Feldman has served on SVM Student Affairs, Executive, and School Personnel Committees other than presently being the Departmental Chair. He is well versed on university and school policies. Perhaps his delusion was that he could ignore them and establish his own rules by having the “vote support” from the students ( or at least part of them). A huge misjudgment for a Professor training future professionals. Much bigger if one considers that he is in a Leadership position at SVM.
Onto something more interesting and more focused on science. I can’t take credit for this post because it belongs to FreedomToast on greenanswers.com but I hope you don’t mind if I borrow it.
Why do Panda have such a hard time breeding? And has it always been like that or do we have anything to do about it? Meaning are humans responsible of this in any ways?
Read more: http://greenanswers.com/q/182677/animals-wildlife/why-do-panda-have-such-hard-time-breeding-and-has-it-always-been-or-do-we-#ixzz1B9LlGGz6
There are some alternative views on the issues of Panda mating problems. According to Dr Li Shaochang, director of China’s Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, the issues facing the Panda’s reproduction is evolutionary and natural. There are some who believe that the Panda are ‘devolving’. Now this may be controversial, and outdated information, however it is interesting to consider.
In the article it states that Pandas do not breed well in nature, completely removed from human presence and influence. A list of problems reads:
-Males are not instinctive mating partners
-Females seldom come into ‘heat’
-Females show little or no signs of ‘heat’, therefore showing no signs of fertility to their male counterparts
-Females seem irritated by male advances
-which leads to aggression and fighting causing harm
Although these may not be concrete facts, it is difficult to place the blame solely on humans in this instance. Most species have a strong survival instinct, and this instinct leads them to two main purposes, food and reproduction. Pandas seem to show little interest in the latter in both wild and captivity. Our only option is to continue trying, so we soldier on…
Read more: http://greenanswers.com/q/182677/animals-wildlife/why-do-panda-have-such-hard-time-breeding-and-has-it-always-been-or-do-we-#ixzz1B9NKHoqy
Thanks for the link, SomethingMoreInteresting. I think I will go there and deride the blog for not talking about the UC Davis story, and then link to this post… Oh wait, I won’t, because I am no longer 5, and can bear the terrible tragedy of people blogging about what they want instead of what I want.
The fact that so many anons don’t seem to grasp that Isis wasn’t really calling anyone a hussy or a floozy is more evidence that its just one person doing a very poor job of sock puppetry.
AA@294
reporting discrimination:
So you are telling me, someone who has actually had to do the thing in question, what it is like, and how well it works. gee, thanks. I will just forget what actually happened to me and other women I know, since you explained that it really *does* work so nicely. You aren’t listening to people who have gone through it. Go read about what happens to women who speak up, then tell me how great it works. Look at how rapes are handled on campus (and I don’t mean read the procedure manual, I mean look for data about what actually happens when someone reports a rape on the average college campus). Again- are you young, or privileged? You cannot retain your stated world view without one of those components.
And lily ledbetter only got some legislation passed the important preventative pieces of the fair paycheck act didn’t get passed. If mccain had won the legislation would not have been passed. She had to rely on the favors of other people and the law was passed in 2008- women have had the right to equal pay for decades. If you think she is the first one to have this happen to her, you are wrong.
public examples:
you crafted a strawman, implying that I think that people deserve to know about these incidents in order to humiliate whoever did them. That wasn’t my point at all. There are concrete practical reasons that the public deserves to know about this- to plan their own education, to see that these things do in fact happen, that justice is served, etc. Executions don’t raise any of these issues (unless there is some kind of chance that the criminal really wasn’t executed).
re: the vatican
you were saying the crime was mostly their covering it up- when you are saying that the university should keep everything internal, how is that *not* advocating that they cover it up? “let us handle it” is exactly what the vatican was saying about the assaults. It keeps it away from public scrutiny. It keeps people quiet. It lets the people responsible for the wrong decide the remedy. You didn’t really present a counter point at all.
As an educator in higher ed, I was stunned when I learned of this event.
There has been a lot of discussion about FERPA, most of which has been interesting. I want to take a look at some issues that haven’t been touched on or have only been touched on briefly.
While I can’t confirm every aspect of this story, I am going to assume (yes, I know, what a horrible thing for a scientist to do) that the unconfirmed aspects of the story are correct FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT. I have no way to verify certain aspects of this event and, FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT, will assume that unverified claims are accurate while also acknowledging that my opinion may change if/when info becomes more concrete. Some of the issues don’t need to be verified in order for interesting discourse to occur.
1) How students are graded is up to the professor, within the rules and regulations of the college. Any accommodations that a student needs is to be discussed between the student and her/his professor; if additional input is needed, that input comes from other campus faculty/staff, not from other students.
2) One of the reasons I find Dr. Feldman’s decision so disturbing is that he violates what I believe to be one of his core responsibilities; he forgets that education is more than grades. By creating a poll in which a class can vote to give a new mother an automatic A says that he really doesn’t value that student’s learning process or the student’s education. This automatic A option insults this woman’s intelligence.
Providing an automatic B or C may be imposing a penalty on the student if she earns an A (or B but is given the C instead).
An automatic grade is just plain lazy and violates the primary job of any professor, which is to educate. Willingness to give a student an automatic grade demonstrates a lack of value on learning. I AM NOT saying that Dr Feldman is being lazy and doesn’t care about the education of his students. I AM saying that following through with such an option if the class votes for an automatic grade would be lazy and in conflict with the primary responsibility of any professor, which is providing a challenging learning environment.
3) There is absolutely no indication that this student missed any classes. The email makes an unreasonable assumption; the class Presidents are assuming that the student will miss lectures and quizzes. Unless the student told Dr Feldman that she would be missing classes, there is no reason to assume she will be absent.
“One of our classmates recently gave birth and will be out of class for an unknown period of time. This means she will undoubtedly miss one, or more, or all quizzes in VMD 444.”
According to some, the student for whom the class was asked to create a plan for was in class on the day that the poll was being discussed in class. Why are students being asked to create a grading plan for a student when the student may not need any accommodations? This is one of the areas that screams sexism to me. The assumption is that the woman couldn’t possibly make adequate arrangements for her child’s care while she is in class. That simply isn’t true. Perhaps the student’s partner is a stay-at-home parent. Or the partner is self-employed and can arrange his (maybe her) schedule around any unexpected needs of the infant, such as illness or childcare problems. Perhaps the student has plenty of family in the area that can handle anything that might otherwise keep a new mother from attending class on a specific day.
4) There are 7 quizzes for the entire 17-18 week semester. It is entirely possible that even if the student misses class, she may not miss a single quiz. Since Dr. Feldman drops the quiz with the lowest grade, the student could miss one quiz without experiencing any decrease in her grade.
5) Dr. Feldman has been teaching for over 20 years. This can’t be the first pregnant/new mother he has had in his classes. Even if it were his first pregnant/new mother student, he should discuss this issue with her, and if necessary, with other faculty and/or his department head. Dr Feldman was out of line, IMO, in bringing this to the attention other students. Even if this is Dr Feldman’s first pregnant/new mother, this isn’t the first time he has had to accommodate students who need some flexibility due to illness, injury or family situations that require the student to be out of class.
I can appreciate that Dr. Feldman may have thought he was doing this student a kindness. Perhaps this was a mistake made based on good intentions. However, after teaching for over 20 years, I would expect him to have better judgment.
6) While this email wasn’t sent by Dr Feldman, he obviously violated student confidentiality by asking that the email be sent out in the first place. The class Presidents have no business being involved in this process. They are students, not Dr Feldman’s peers or colleagues.
IMO, Dr Feldman was frustrated to have yet another pregnant/new mother in his class and was tired of dealing with the issues that new parents have to cope with as students. While Dr Feldman may not have intended to be insulting, he was insulting.
Part of my job as an educator is to do my best to make sure that capable students are able to learn even when their life is complicated. Sometimes this means sitting a student down and discussing how realistic it is for that student to try to be in class that term when their kidney is failing. Perhaps that means that I allow make-up exams even though I have a no make-up exam policy (except for illness and emergency). There are all kinds of ways I can create a class experience that is educationally challenging while also meeting the needs of students who need accommodations.
Women have every right to get pregnant when they want to become pregnant just as every man should have the right to become a father if he and his partner decide to do so. While planned pregnancies are ideal, only 50% of pregnancies in the US are planned. No woman should have to abort a pregnancy just to keep from failing a class or to avoid delays in her education. Accommodating pregnancy is as logical as accommodating a surgery, injury or illness. Heck; last year some students missed weeks of class because of the H1N1 virus. Many missed more class than the typical new mom grad student would miss. Based on some of the responses here, some would support accommodating students who missed class because of H1N1 but not for childbirth. Why? Some attribute morality to childbirth in this situation; the H1N1 virus has no moral issues attached to it. And H1N1 strikes each sex, but pregnancy and childbirth only occurs in women.
I believe that Dr Feldman’s actions deserve investigation AS DO the actions of the class Presidents who sent the email. I look forward to hearing the results of the investigation.
Video interview regarding Dr Feldman and the poll:
http://www.news10.net/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=117660&catid=2
Recent vet school grad interviewed and states that she was appropriately accommodated by her professors; no mention of Dr Feldman as having been one of her professors.
“The fact that so many anons don’t seem to grasp that Isis wasn’t really calling anyone a hussy or a floozy is more evidence that its just one person doing a very poor job of sock puppetry.”
That you can’t understand what Isis was doing is another demonstration of how women’s studies harms critical thinking skills.
What a shame that this veterinary instructor is being vilified based on such biased and limited information. After reading the coverage and responses on this blog, even the limited amount of information this story is based on has been further warped.
I see no evidence of gender discrimination and a great deal of knee jerk reaction which certainly seems to be a sign of our times. This appears to be an attempt to spare a student the possibility of a very costly set back by her peers. No good deed goes unpunished.
Shame on the student who exhibited terrible judgment by breaking confidentiality and sending the internal class letter off to some blogger rather than bring it to the attention of the school administration. This was no act of valor but cowardice and perhaps a little ax grinding. I sincerely hope this student is identified and expelled for malicious intent. In the meantime, this well respected veterinary professor is being seriously slandered by the Huffington Post and the ISIS blog who can hide behind their first amendment rights. Does that seem right?
The ISIS blog should be embarrassed for not practicing even a small modicum of due diligence concerning this situation before posting it. Knowing about veterinary curriculum and how the process works would be a small start. Read the intelligent responses from those who know on this blog.
I sincerely hope this veterinary instructor is spared further embarrassment and more erroneous publicity over an action by his students. Numerous assumptions are being made about him with no basis of fact. UC Davis needs to “grow a pair”, drop the ridiculous PR approach to handling this over dramatic public reaction, and stand behind this veterinary professor.
Spinning this as a feminist issue is absurd and an embarrassment to those of us who have worked over the past several decades to have a serious voice on the issues.
Lisa,
FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT, in which you assume the worst about Dr. Feldman and assume the truthfulness of every aspect of this issue FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT,
Can you tell us what you teach?
I am not in academia, I find that your taking a real case with real people and then FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT assuming the worst case about every scenario and naming a real life person that you have assumed the worse about FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT to be somewhat disgusting if not unethical and hardly a fine example of pedagogy.
FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT
Hi Anon;
You obviously didn’t read what I posted. If you had, there would be substance to your response. There is no substance to your post.
I am happy to engage in an honest conversation with you. To do so, you will need to actually read what I wrote though. You have no clue as to what I said or didn’t say about Dr Feldman because you didn’t read my post.
Feel free to take a read about this around the web. It has hit several news sites now.
xoxoxox
Let me just say, what happened to “liberal” institutions?! I was in the military, a group of folks often considered quite intense and self sacrificing for a common cause….yet, this would NEVER have happened in the military. If you get pregnant, perhaps suspiciously, right before a 12 month deployment to Afghanistan someone would have to take your place at last minute, perhaps someone who just came back from a deployment. However, no supervisor would ever EVER in any way malign the pregnant service member to her peers without suffering harsh consequences from the military institution. Sure, they might grumble amongst themselves at the “great timing” but no one in any kind of supervisory role would stoop to that. People get pregnant all the time in the military, and certainly at the most inopportune times, and they are always granted their medical rights and right to discretion. What is wrong with our liberal academic institutions? Denying a student who has a medical issue(pregnancy included) dignity is a slippery ethical slope.
Marj,
Certainly you’re going to post your rant at Huff Po and the other news organizations who have reported on this story. A great place to start would be at the Inside Higher Education website.
Could you elaborate on why you believe the college should take a stance supporting Dr Feldman when, as you say, there is so little info? I have seen faculty accused of wrongdoing when none has occurred. I have also seen students treated unfairly and unethically. As a responsible Univ, the administration is now investigating the issue, which protects the rights of faculty and of students.
I have no doubt that UCD will better explore ways to provide services to students when students have life changes that might impact their academic performance or attendance. Certainly no harm can come from such discussions.
Also, everyone who thinks this ISN’T shameful: just replace “just recently gave birth” with “just recently had a medical complication” ….or does someone disagree?
“Also, everyone who thinks this ISN’T shameful: just replace “just recently gave birth” with “just recently had a medical complication” ….or does someone disagree?”
leeleebee,
The question isn’t if it’s shameful, the question is if it’s true.
Lisa, the Academic, said she was assuming the worst case for the sake of argument.
Isis, certainly spun the worse case.
But what we actually know leeleebee is squat.
We do have 300 comments plus all suggesting we go out and snuff Feldman and his career and his ancestors in the name of women’s rights.
And we do have several people claiming to be vet students in the class saying what we are claiming to be true is NOT true.
What we actually know is nothing.
Does that help you understand why some people are saying Woah!
I’ll let Lisa feel you in on the let’s castrate the guy position.
Sexism is rampant at the Vet Med school. This guy is one of the more mild ones. Welcome to the never ending, EXPENSIVE, never ending hell that is vet school.
After taking the last hour to read through the many comments made on this blog, I have to respond.
I graduated from UCD vet school several years ago and had the privilege of being on Dr. Feldman’s service for several weeks during my senior year. He is a great professor and clinician who cares about his students, although he is tough and expects hard work, he is fair. I am not supporting or arguing against his actions, just stating my opinion.
For those of you who are not lucky enough to be a part of the veterinary profession, let me tell you about our close knit community. We care about our colleagues and we try to help each other out. We don’t try to figure out how we can ostracize a member of our profession.
Regarding this particular incident, I suspect that all the uproar has to do with the fact that this is a student who is pregnant, and therefore female (gasp – did I just mention a student’s sex? Is this sexist, even though I am female?). Knowing the faculty at the school and the atmosphere of camaraderie present, I can almost guarantee that had the situation been “student in car accident”, “student had surgery and needs to miss some classes”, etc, that the attempted resolution (although not the smartest way to handle it) would have been the same.
Something that has been somewhat ignored in the posts is that this course is required for graduation. It is taken during the 3rd year. It is a short, partial quarter course graded based on quizzes. One can not simply drop it and take it later. The whole basis of the curriculum at the vet school is changing next year (search news archives).
If this student missed enough quizzes to fail the course, she would have to take all of the 3rd year again. It is possible that with the curriculum changes, this would be a very difficult task.
Vet students currently are graduating with very large debt loads and lower than all other professions starting salary. Taking another year of vet school, with the associated student debt, may make completing vet school not possible or very difficult at the least. (How would you like $120,000 in student debt and an average starting salary of $60,000?) Why are we in this profession? Because we are passionate about what we do and take our responsibility of caring for animals seriously.
So back to the close knit vet community. If I were in Dr. Feldman’s position and in this situation, I would think that having to fail a student because that student had to miss classes (and therefore quizzes) for medical reasons would be very difficult to do. Would I have handled it similarly, no. Would I have wanted to sit down with the class presidents to get a feel for how I could come up with a solution to help this student to stay in the program that the rest of the class would be happy with, yes. Would I have sat down with the student to ask what would work for them, absolutely. Would I have talked to my peers to see how they would handle it, yes. Did Dr. Feldman make the best decision on how to address this issue, no. Do we know all the conversations that happened and whether any of the above occurred, no. So how can we judge this situation based on one email and hearsay.
What I find so disturbing is that so many people are making this a sexist or privacy related issue. Many of the posts on this blog make me very grateful to be a part of the veterinary community and not part of the other academia represented.
As for the media, how does harassing pet owners taking their sick pets to the clinic make you feel. Does their opinion of a faculty member make any difference? Really?? Do you think they want a microphone shoved in their face when they are going to an appointment that is most likely about a serious medical condition in their pet? Aren’t there more important things to be reporting on?? Didn’t we just have a mass shooting in Tucson? Isn’t California in a severe budget crisis? Just a couple of suggestions.
Everyone please get off your high horses and if you want to direct your anger at someone, how about the student that disseminated a private e-mail to a public domain? After all, if Dr. Feldman had not tried to be compassionate (in an insensitive way), and followed class and school policies to the letter, this student could possibly be facing another year of debt and school.
To the student at the center of this debate, I am sorry for the media circus that you are involved in. Good luck to you in continuing your education and I look forward to you being a part of our wonderful profession.
Now everyone, please go debate some other “real” issue…..
Iris,
The scumbag profe$$or might be doing her a favor. The vet profession is absolutely a festering toilet, gives you a worthless diploma in exchange for massive amounts of non-dischargable 8.5 interest loans. Hopefully “A proud UCD vet school grad” read her loan contract.
See:
http://news.vin.com/VINNews.aspx?articleId=17347
Also Davis is a crap, massively overcrowded commuter school. Likely keeps going up in news and world report because some stupid criteria like library investment.
Thanks Agent Smith for the link that raises a critical issue for the Higher Education US system. We need to face the issue in a more efficient way. Your link:
“In terms of expense, veterinary school is a microcosm of higher education as a whole. The cost of higher education has been rising ahead of inflation for most of the past 50 years, and educational-debt levels along with it. In June, student-loan debt in this country was $830 billion, exceeding credit card debt for the first time”….
Rather than discouraging people from getting a solid higher education, which should add potential to the future of the country instead of personal heavy debt, I wish we could come up with ideas and strategies as to how to change the present trend. Why are tuition fees so ever-growing high?.
What are the students paying for when they decide to apply for School? What are the incentives that Universities offer to their Professors when they are up to promotion and/ or tenure positions?. Which are the criteria that Universities’s Trustees use to fill and retain their high administrator positions? Public discussion accompanied by real data could give us a sense on why and how to proceed.
#310 (skeptifem) –
Regarding my youth and/or privilege: I am young and privileged, for some values of “young” and “privileged”. You don’t know what those values are, and I’ll thank you to not make assumptions about my background or even my sex (dude) based on my arguments.
Perhaps it might surprise you to know I’m female? Or handicapped? Or a gang member? Or I never graduated from high school? Or graduated from Columbia’s Women’s Studies program? My background is irrelevant, as is yours.
You have my sympathies for your experiences of discrimination in the past. I realize this may sound hollow to you, but it is how I feel. I am not “sorry” in the apologetic sense of the word, since I have not personally discriminated against you, but I empathize with your experiences.
That said…
Claims of “You’re not listening to people who have gone through it” sounds an awful lot like “You don’t understand religion, you haven’t had a personal revelation with God”.
I don’t accept the second argument, could you explain to me why should I accept the first, given that? Why is it essential that I live through it to be able to see it? I was never bullied for being gay in high school, yet I can see it when it happens today.
Perhaps there is some straw in my argument about public examples, but I feel it’s a valid point about where the slippery slope started down by your words:
If we accept that public examples send signals, and signals must be sent, where can we not use public examples?
And finally, do you not trust the Chancellor when she says that she “take[s] very seriously any allegations that a student’s welfare, dignity or academic rights have in any way been compromised”? When she says “swift and appropriate action, if warranted” will be taken? And why not, when she says that “as a woman, who has experienced firsthand the challenges of melding academic and family life and has experienced discrimination, I am especially sensitive to this issue”?
This is hardly the same as the Vatican situation. They refused to turn in priests when they discovered their crimes. They transferred them to other, out-of-the-way parishes where they could continue their crimes. They used money donated to the church’s coffers to hush up victims. How can you claim to be a skeptic on your blog and not see the differences here? I hope this is the last we have to deal with the Vatican. It’s truly non-germane and insulting to all the students and faculty at every level to compare it to UC-Davis.
This makes no sense. When a person has a broken leg or measles or a chronic condition they are essentially at the mercy of their body’s response to the treatment. You’re talking about a pregnancy as if it’s MS or a brain injury or something – as if a woman who was pregnant said ‘whoops, got pregnant, YOU MUST ACCOMODATE ME HURR HURR’.
Pregnancy is not an illness. Pregnancies can be willfully terminated If you’re going to get pregnant, you should be planning shit beforehand so things go smoothly. This just comes off as poor planning to me.
I do believe people deserve bodily autonomy and respect, but I also believe it is a really, really stupid idea to get and stay pregnant when you’re a student.
Katherine,
Are you saying that women shouldn’t get pregnant and expect to be treated fairly in the academic/work world? What you believe to be “stupid” may make complete sense to another woman.
The reality is that pregnant women do have legal rights which are granted by the federal and by states’ governments. One of these rights is to be treated fairly in their work/school environment.
This student’s rights were violated. Period.
A proud UCD vet school grad,
There is something that you are forgetting in all of this. The email is quite clear in showing that this poll is based on on what could happen, not what has or will happen. The email is assuming that the student will miss class and will miss quizzes. There is no reason for this assumption. As I noted previously; there are 7 quizzes in a 17 week class. The class must meet at least once a week; it likely meets 2 or more times a week. It is entirely possible that this student wouldn’t miss a single quiz; there isn’t even one quiz per week!
So why are students voting on a hypothetical? And why are students voting on this at all?
I personally believe that Dr Feldman was trying to find a way to accommodate a student. I personally do not believe he was trying to mess with this student. However well-meaning Dr Feldman was in this situation, his actions in this instance were professionally unethical and resulted in a student becoming a target.
If Dr Feldman was a newer faculty member and less experienced with accommodating students, I would still evaluate his actions as professionally unethical. But at least I could imagine why a new faculty member had engaged in such poor judgment. I cannot understand that a 20+ year faculty member could make such a professionally unethical decision and actually act on it.
I don’t know Dr Feldman and am not judging him as a person (although “Anon” certainly is working hard to put such words in my mouth). I am judging Dr Feldman’s actions in this one situation.
I am also not judging your graduate program. I am judging the actions of one professor in one situation. Are all the facts in? No. But we are certainly allowed to have opinions as info is being collected.
And won’t Professor Feldman be proud if the stress of all this causes a late-term miscarriage.
Katherine, thank you so much for your stupid, misogynistic comment:
“Pregnancy is not an illness. Pregnancies can be willfully terminated If you’re going to get pregnant, you should be planning shit beforehand so things go smoothly. This just comes off as poor planning to me.
I do believe people deserve bodily autonomy and respect, but I also believe it is a really, really stupid idea to get and stay pregnant when you’re a student.”
First of all, the question of whether pregnancy is a medical condition that must be treated by employers and educational institutions no differently from any other medical condition was settled legally back in the 80’s. To settle that, it took a female actuary pointing out that illnesses that disproportionately affect men (heart disease, alcoholism, injuries due to violent altercations and extreme sports and dangerous driving…) require them to take much more time off for medical conditions than women take off for all their illnesses and pregnancies combined.
Second, as a woman who postponed even attempting childbearing until I had a tenure track faculty member due to the extreme discrimination I most certainly would have faced in the 80’s and 90’s when I was a grad student and postdoc, I can tell you that postponing childbearing until such time as it is “safe” has two problems. One, it is never safe: I was fired from a tenure track faculty position (even after the passage of the FMLA) the day after I requested maternity leave. No reason was given, even though the AAUP rules are that any termination of tenure track faculty *must* be *with* *cause*. The stress of having to launch a legal response to this outrageous move caused me to miscarry. At a later hearing, the dean hissed, “Oh you were never *pregnant.*” I have this on tape.
The second problem is, of course, if you wait until your mid-thirties to start, you could easily wind up childless, as I am to this day.
So, Katherine, next time the condom pops, HAVE A NICE ABORTION, YOU BITCH.
“And won’t Professor Feldman be proud if the stress of all this causes a late-term miscarriage.
Posted by: elanor ”
Yes elanor, I am worried about a miscarriage too.
Since the woman already gave birth though, I’ll tell you the miscarriage I am concerned with is a miscarriage of justice, egged on by *Science Goddess* Isis.
In the meantime, maybe you should get your eyes checked.
Hey Lisa, you dipshit, here’s what you wrote:
“blah blah blah assume for the sake of argument it’s true … blah blah blah
***IMO, Dr Feldman was frustrated to have yet another pregnant/new mother in his class and was tired of dealing with the issues that new parents have to cope with as students. While Dr Feldman may not have intended to be insulting, he was insulting.***
”
So, you admit that you don’t know squat about what happened, but you’re going to assume the worse, and then you tell us what Feldman was thinking because you’re not just super academic, but super mind reading academic, and thus you can characterize Feldman as frustrated with pregnant women and insulting.
But YOU AIN’T JUDGING HIM!!!!
LULZ!
Elanor,
I am so incredibly sorry you had to go through what you did. It is absolutely outrageous that you were treated that way and I hope you publicly have told your story so women, considering your former department for employment, can know what kind of place is truly is. How tragic and disgusting; words can not express how embarrassed for our species I am.
Lisa FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT I will assume you really are an academic.
Hey Lisa, I find your argumentation disingenuous, dishonest, and even more sadly, just weak and lame. Seriously, you’re a mind reader, lame. And then after all that, you’re going to pretend you’re not judging the person you just said was frustrated with pregnant women, and insulting, you’re judging his behavior not him.
Nut up Lisa. Get some balls. Sack up. Grow a pair. Stop being a pussy.
Be honest. Puhleaze.
Katherine,
Not every pregnancy is planned, in fact, only about half are in America. No woman should ever feel obligated to have an abortion for any reason. Don’t go preaching at me about birth control either as I practiced abstinence (yes, my husband and I were wedding night virgins) largely because of fear of pregnancy. We were extremely diligent about birth control thereafter, which is not as reliable when you don’t use hormonal birth control because it effs with your body too much. Yet I found myself pregnant in grad school. My husband is now sterilized, which, by the way, is also not 100% effective. The only 100% birth control is abstinence, duh, and unintended pregnancy happens. A lot. You are a jerk.
Also, you say it’s “poor planning” to have babies (intentionally or accidentally) as a trainee. When, exactly, do you suggest female academics have babies? I had my first kid after undergrad because I didn’t want to be faced with infertility when I finished my training period in my mid-30s. A prof from Harvard opened my eyes to this timeline conundrum after watching so many of her trainees experience the agony of infertility – she suggested grad school as the best time. I have many friends who are in their 30s and requiring several years to become pregnant, or who cannot become pregnant without medical assistance. Or do you not think women academics should have babies ever? (Don’t even say ‘just adopt’).
Elanor, your story is awful. I’m so sorry that happened to you and I feel so grateful that your generation (and earlier ones) of women profs fought so hard for the advantages I enjoy today. I wish that it could have been better for you and that you never had to endure that heartache.
Loving the comments from people judging her decision to get (and stay) pregnant. Look: students (especially in professional programs) don’t all follow the expected high school -> undergrad -> graduate/profesisonal school pathway, and even for those that do, by the time you DO make it to professional school, a lot of folks are married and starting families. I’m training to become a midwife (also a professional school with a ‘lock-step curriculum’) and one of the students in my year is currently pregnant with her second child. What is the school doing about it? Giving her a maternity leave and letting her pick up where she left off after she’s ready to come back to school. Because that’s the reasonable answer to a situation like this, not divulging a student’s personal information without her knowledge or consent, or having students who have no means of assessing her academic work vote on her grade.
@Cameron (#322?)
It will be healthy for everybody to unravel the “misteries and intricacies” of why and what tuition costs are what they are and will continue to be if we do nothing on knowing the why’s and what’s in academia. Maybe somebody will start a “AcademicExcellenceRenewal” blog like Healthcarerenewal. Maybe some brave academics, like Dr Isis, will contribute with data and experiences from their environment… Maybe there will be some Paul Thaker-like people or Grassley-like Senators trying to understand why top academic administrators get the kind of ‘salaries” and bonuses they get and why some of their teachers/professors struggle to keep their enthusiasm; and why some of them have to go away…. We have 1boringoldman.com reporting on a wide variety of issues of public interest. We need some boring/nonboring/young/oldmenwomen.com helping with real information to unmask the realities that keep us enduring the consequences of heavy loans, poor or non-existent employment etc.. It will do all us good.
I was born while my parents were at UC Davis. I’m suddenly very relieved it was my father, not my mother, who was actually working there at the time.
Anyway, maybe it’s the existence of opinions like this that have women screwing themselves up about their ability to balance a career and home life. I’ve seen this kind of attitude with high school pregnancies–she got knocked up, dropping out is her problem–it’s disheartening to see how many levels it continues at.
I have continued to scan over people’s responses since this was originally posted, but have yet to post anything. I know it’s really easy to sit behind the safety of your computer screens while you post damaging remarks, pass judgments, and make assumptions about what actually happened, but most of you have this all wrong. As an original recipient of the email, I can tell you this is taken very much out of context. We are in a class of 130 people, and whether or not we all like each other, we are a tightly knit group, that supports one another. All of us knew the student was pregnant (it is a pretty difficult thing to hide), and we were all excited for her to give birth over winter break. To make it clear, she did miss some classes once the quarter started, including the first quiz of 444, which apparently prompted this email from the presidents. Despite what you all are arguing, this was not an effort to humiliate the student, it was an effort to keep her from failing the class. The class is offered once a year, runs for 6 weeks, and the final grade is based off of scores we receive on pop quizzes. While I personally would assume she would not miss that many classes, missing more than one quiz automatically drops your grade. I will agree that this was poorly executed and many students in the class were confused as to why we would be partaking in such a poll, but it was based in good intentions. What Isis has failed to leave out is that it was simply a suggestion on what we thought was fair if we were in the same situation, and not the grade the student would ultimately receive. Also, the predominating vote was E if you care to know. We wanted her to be graded FAIRLY, based on the work she would do. Given our classmate chose not to take a year off, we would NOT want her to be forced to wait to retake the class until next year because she missed a quiz or two (for a perfectly good reason) and failed the class (based on the original grading policy). So I know they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that jazz, but just think, maybe this is not about privacy violations, gender discrimination, but a mistake that was made while trying to help someone out. If you’re so concerned about our classmate, stop making this something it’s not and let her enjoy the time with her new baby, instead of having her privacy violated by news media who are now stalking her and trying to get a story.
And to everyone who keeps using the term “slut slamming…” I find it highly disconcerting that you supposedly care about women’s rights yet use terms like that so freely. It really doesn’t reflect well upon you….
…and Isis, I learned a long time ago, Karma’s a bitch, when you are one. You can have your 15 minutes of fame now, but you’ll get what you deserve later. You may have very well ruined a good man’s career so you get a rise out of your readers.
And I know you all will probably take this and shred it to pieces, as you have done to many other posts that either play devil’s advocate or try to get you to see there is another side of the story, but I’ll put it out there and leave it up to reconsider your view on the situation.
Petri, it is amazing to me that none of you seem to be able to realize that you are not members of the graduate faculty. Thus, your opinions (as well-intentioned as they are) are irrelevant and should never have been solicited. Ever. Done.
As a chair of a department, Dr. Feldman should have been well-versed in the university’s policies on student leave
This means one of two things happened. 1) Dr. Feldman chose to ignore these policies or 2) There are not policies to begin with. Either one of these is a problem.
Dr. Feldman is an adult who made his own choices. Some day you too will be a grown up.
Oh, come off it Funky Fresh. There is nothing wrong, and a great deal right, with consulting university students about course grading policies. The failure here is applying *different* policies to *different* students. Also, we can do a whole lot better in actively supporting pregnant students.
There have been teachers who have students determine all the grades. It definitely poses some major issues, but as can be inferred from the existence of Feldman et al, faculty aren’t magically correct because they are the ‘adults’.
Becca, there is a difference between consulting students on grading in general and asking for input on a single grade. I know that you know this, since you are such a sharp tack.
#337 (Funky Fresh) –
There are not policies which are relevant or helpful to students in this particular class. Agreed that this is a problem. Not agreed that this attempt to solve it to the student’s best interests is a gross mishandling of the problem worthy of the vitriol exhibited in the OP, nor the public humiliation of Dr. Feldman or the student in question.
Thank you Petri for stating your opinion and for clearing up a big misconception about this class. It is not a 17 week class with 7 quizzes. This is a 6 week class so yes there “most likely” is one quiz a week, “depending on how often it meets”!!! Not even sure of the facts before trying to incite the masses more…. get your facts straight people.
Again Petri, so sorry for your classmate and let her know that those of us in the vet community are thinking of her. Now lets hope that a great professor’s career is not ruined over this gossip mongering.
Interestingly, I had to take the official UC online training course on sexual harassment, discrimination, etc. All with managerial responsibilities at UC (such as those with professor rank jobs) have to take this on, iirc, an annual basis. (Might be biannual, I tend to blank on the frequency.)
At any rate, the professor in question has *surely* had to complete these training modules in the past. It is pretty unclear to me how anyone could have internalized even a third of the information from that training and not had warning buzzers go off in his mind when contemplating singling out a pregnant student. In *any* way.
I’m a UCD alumna myself (BS ’00, MS ’03). Now, could my fellow Ags stop with the reflexive defensiveness? I love UCD and loved my time there, but that doesn’t mean that it can do no wrong. In this case, I’d say it’s done wrong, both in Dr. Feldman’s interesting notions of grading fairness and his stunningly cavalier approach to student privacy. That doesn’t mean that UCD is wicked and evil. It means there’s a problem to be addressed.
IMHO, that problem is larger than just the school of veterinary medicine: it’s that there’s still a societal expectation that women will/should drop their careers or studies to shoulder their family’s domestic burdens. In my grad program (computer science), it wasn’t uncommon for the men to have young children, even newborns. None of the women did: we all either didn’t have children or were returning students with older children.
“It is pretty unclear to me how anyone could have internalized even a third of the information from that training and not had warning buzzers go off in his mind when contemplating singling out a pregnant student. In *any* way. ”
CORRECT! So what does that tell you about Isis’ report that tells you to believe this professor did exactly that?
What does Occam’s Razor tell you about:
a) believe Isis report as is
b) believe this incident did not occur as is being reported
Shame on Dr. Feldman for this sexist e-mail. As a doctor he should appreciate how important a birth is to the woman and to society. To belittle the event, single out the woman to the entire class, shows a serious systemic problem. He needs to lose his job. Now.
“Dr Feldman’s approach to the issue was different from what we have seen in the past, but this does not mean it is a sign of wide spread misogyny in this profession or this schoolâ€
I would agree. Dr Feldman’s actions only reflect on his own misogyny, not on the misogyny of others in the profession or at the school.
The comments by others in the profession and from the school do reflect on the issue of wide spread misogyny in both. Misogyny that many are simply unable to perceive. Not a surprise when the people who are encouraging that misogyny are benefiting from it.
I see the terms “competitive†and “rigorous†as dog whistles for “we allow the professors to exploit the studentsâ€. This translates into a “when you are a professor you can exploit the students too†type of mentality. That is the carrot being held out to these students, that if they are able to endure this exploitation, then when they get to the top of the social power hierarchy, they will be able to exploit those at the bottom too.
Letting students vote on how their peers are graded is just to give them a little taste of the power that professors get to wield. Sometimes teachers of younger students do it too.
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2010/12/alex-barton-wins-350k/
The rationalizations of the other UCD students is easy to understand. They have to suck-up to authority. The easiest way to suck-up to authority is if you actually believe that the authority is correct.
I’m fairly certain that the Dr’s idiotic behavior was caused by low NO.
Thank You. Shame on Dr. Feldman for this sexist e-mail. As a doctor he should appreciate how important a birth is to the woman and to society.
The email was insensitively written, no doubt there. It was extremely rude not to explain what you were going to do with grades to the pregnant student before you talked to the class and highly rude and insulting and humiliating to ignore her in class while he explained it to the class.
That said, many professors take the view that the syllabus is a contract of expectations and consequences between the instructor and the students. This has aspects of contract law, but the purpose also includes issues of fairness. Whereas some other instructors change the syllabus and expect the students to adapt to them, these instructors take the syllabus very seriously and try very hard not to make any changes to it without input from all students before making exceptions. That way, the syllabus applies to them, the instructors, as well as the students. Nothing is done that isn’t agreed to before hand (with students continuing in the class seen as acceptance of the syllabus).
I’ve been in classes like this before (not in the mentioned university) and we’ve voted to make changes in the grading method and had other input. (I’ll bet that the syllabus for this class though didn’t have a clause concerning absences and if grades were going to be adapted to excused absences. A couple of professors that I’ve had would have not made any accommodations at all for any absences, even for extreme incidents like deaths in the family.)
The guy was trying to follow this process by allowing the other students to vote on how to change the classroom policy to accomodate the pregnant student – although he implemented it very badly and was quite insensitive to her.
Let’s replace ‘she’ with ‘he’, and ‘recently gave birth’ with ‘was recently diagnosed with prostrate cancer’. If this was the case, this email to the students would have never been sent.
Abbie, Pregnancy is not not a disease. Prostate cancer is. We can’t assume that a male student would be treated differently. We have no basis for comparision. Thus we should just look at the situation.
What happened? A well-meaning but midguided faculty member made an effort to be fair. His approach was flawed, but we should not demonize him without proof that he had intentions of being unfair, insensitive, invasive. A knee-jerk reaction of horror is is as ill-advised as the faculty member’s behavior.
What does the student say? Has anyone asked her? I would like to see her reaction and hear how she has chosen to deal with this issue.
Why is it our business? It seems that this is a private matter between the faculty member, the student, and the University. If it is not addressed appropriately by those involved, then perhaps it should become a matter for public discussion. The student should pursue appropriate action and relief from any harm caused her. If that fails, then further and more public discussion is appropriate.
We live in an imperfect world. Human beings are flawed. Things happen that should not. It does help to demonize those who make mistakes. I appreciate some of the earlier comments asking for civil discourse on this matter. Reason and civility have got to become the standards for our discussions and disagreements. Tucson should always remind us of the evil of hate-speech of any ilk. And we should ask ourselves whether Prof. Feldman, (with whom I disagree, by the way, is not a victim himself, of a culture of bias and sexism that prevailed when he was younger). We should ask ourselves whether his efforts were his flawed way of trying to overcome this bias? We should be tolerant while seeking fairness. Otherwise, we become villains, too.
It’s probably not gender discrimination so much as family status discrimination. If a man had asked for parental leave he might have been treated the same way, although I admit that the stigma against motherhood is even more disgusting. It’s baffling to me that some faculty do not understand that there are perfectly good reasons for missing a quiz and that having a baby is one of them. When my wife was pregnant she had some faculty who were completely supportive but a couple who judged her for bearing a child (as opposed to killing it, I suppose). How did our perceptions get turned completely around like that?
I am a law student who has done specialized research in disability law, although not a lawyer who can give legal advise, I wanted to distribute some general information that is relevant to this situation.
The law treats a pregnancy as a temporary disability. Workplaces and schools all over the country have few problems knowing how to handle this situation because disability law, although complicated, is fairly clear and most people are reasonable people who want to handle the situation fairly, or at least don’t want to open themselves up to legal liability.
A disabled student is legally allowed reasonable accommodations. What exactly is reasonable in any particular case is usually negotiated between a school’s disability office, higher administration, and legal counsel. A particular professor may be consulted, but no competent legal counsel is going to leave the matter up to a single professor to handle.
Normally the exact nature of a disability must legally be kept confidential by anybody but the student. Certainly in this situation, the student told people that she was pregnant. However, it seems to me to be a violation of the student’s confidentiality law for the professor to talk to any student about her pregnancy or about how the situation was to be handled.
My guess is that this professor became irate that he could not control the situation, and so retaliated against the student by releasing confidential information regarding her disability to these presidents, who then further released this information in a highly retaliatory manner. From what information I have, this professor and the school are in open violation of disability law and with the obviously retaliatory nature of the professor’s actions, there will be little difficulty proving such a case.
I do not understand the letter from the high-level admin person. Perhaps(s)he is unhappy that the legal counsel has advised the school and the professor that they must follow disability law, which would surely give this student a reasonable amount of flexibility in completing the class.
We can’t even tell from the information given if this student will indeed miss any classes or quizzes, but if she is giving birth on the day of the last quiz, it certainly seems unreasonable to me that she would be able to take that quiz on a later date and I see no way in which that is unfair to the other students.
Professional schools are notorious for not wanting to follow disability law because they have a misguided pride in their lack of flexibility. Disability law is complicated law, and the intricacies are too long to discuss here, but this student has enough evidence of violations to the law that she really should find an attorney who specializes in disability law. If she wants to contact me directly, I would be happy to discuss such a referral.
I obviously missed the information about the fact that she had already given birth and was potentially going to miss a few quizzes in the beginning of class. (And as I am on medical leave, I am not at my best, so I apologize for my somewhat confusing writing.)
Just to clarify: It seems that the administration and legal counsel already made the decision as to what the professor must do to follow temporary discrimination law and other family law. The choices given to him are probably outlined in “option e” (assuming she completes 4 or more quizzes) and “option f”.
It seems that instead of following the determination of the administration, this professor chose instead to violate the student’s right to confidentiality by illegally revealing to students the potential ways that the school determined for handling the situation in a manner to comply with the appropriate law.
In addition, these students seem to have been encouraged to create a hostile situation by retaliating against her for making a disability claim for reasonable accommodations. They are publicly ridiculing a woman who has just given birth with an obnoxious and offensive e-mail that pretends that this situation should be determined by a vote of her peers, instead of by appropriate law.
I hope the school acted swiftly to handle this matter so as to limit the negative impact on this student.
Dear Chancellor Katehi:
This is unbelievable and a disgrace. I could see something like this happening in 1970, not 2011. Pregnacy isn’t a disease and the young grad student will be out for a maybe a week or two for delivery and recovery. Dr. Feldman committed a serious breach of privacy by posting a note to the entire class asking them to determine the woman’s course grade. It’s none of their business. I cannot believe that the university does not have a policy to cover health issues – including pregnancy/delivery.
Is Dr. Feldman aware of something called the Internet? Has he heard of Skype? Might not the young woman take the quizzes by Internet at the same time as her class; I am certain that even universities in California have policies about student integrity regarding exams, quizzes and papers. Dr. Feldman, or another university representative could watch the young woman while she takes the quiz. With her privacy being invaded by Dr. Feldman’s inappropriate discussion of her pregnancy with her entire class, I am certain that being watched in her own home while she takes a test will be minor by comparison.
What exactly did this antedeluvian professor hope to achieve? Embarrassment? Shaming? Ostracism by her fellow classmates because she requested “special” treatment? Perhaps he would have preferred that she have an abortion?
I hope the university will discipline Dr. Feldman, and will, if there are no policies to accomodate temporary leave for delivery, institute them.
Sincerely,
Barbara C
So here’s a thought: He’s a highly respected professor in his field, and he didn’t get where he is without doing a lot of things right. It’s HIS class, let him run it however he wants. Unless she was raped, she chose to take on pregnancy in professional school, so she can deal with the hardships. I’m guessing her grade in this class is probably going to one of the most minor of those hardships.
@lindsey “He’s a highly respected professor in his field, and he didn’t get where he is without doing a lot of things right. It’s HIS class, let him run it however he wants.”
I assume he has en equally or higher view of himself. He probably thinks his status puts him above the guidelines of professional etiquette, his school, or even federal law. There are many men just like him who are sued and even in jail because they think they are better than the people who pay their salaries.
Hi, new commenter here. I haven’t followed this blog – I came over to this story from a Slactivist comment link. And I probably won’t stay to read comments to MY comment, because – my god. o.O
I want to thank Isis for this wonderful post. I appreciate that she really seemed to try to get to the bottom of the situation, and posted in good faith and for good reasons, not that it stopped the detractors from saying that the “responsible” thing to do was, I dunno, bury your head in the sand.
I don’t even know what to say about the people claiming this isn’t sexism, or the PROFOUNDLY confusing claim that in a class of 130 students HOW COULD YOU DEDUCE which one had “recently given birth”. (Hint: If you haven’t already noticed her smuggling watermelons under her shirt, you are almost certainly GOING to notice her breasts leaking at some point. Oh hai there!)
I digress. Awesome post is awesome and thank you for posting it. Sorry so many of your comments seem to be saying you shouldn’t have and you’re WRONG, because I couldn’t disagree more. Running back to the safety and sanity of Slactivist now, but I will be adding your blog to my RSS reader. Keep up the good work! :)
2000: Sign on bathrooms of UCD LA clinic:
MEN/FACULTY WOMEN/STAFF. What’s worse, I’M the only one who questioned it! Not much critical thinking goes on at UCD. They’ve been thinking their shit don’t stink for years! If it’s not taught there, it’s not valid! There are some wonderful faculty members there, but interestingly MOST graduated from foreign schools! Australia, England, South Africa etc. Some good grads as well, but it’s a real shame at the brain washing most succumb to. If these 3rd year students had the balls they’re taught to cut off, they would have stood up to Feldman in class and confronted him. WHY COULDN”T HE HANDLE THIS SITUATION HIMSELF? Why not work out an agreement with the student just like would be done if she’d been kicked in the face by a horse? It’s time for him to go AND lose his pension!! THAT would send a message to the faculty. And, by the way, WHEN is the faculty ratio going to equal the student ratio. And when are they going to get rid of the stupid “media hound” who charades as an equine specialist? Can’t operate outside academia for sure. Loves grabbing headlines and desiging useless paraphanalia. Wake UP davis grads. We know you’ve got brains, The question is can you critically think and ACT outside the box!!
Some of us get sterilized voluntarily and use multiple methods of birth control so this shit doesn’t happen, and also have no problem with aborting womb-boogers should they happen :D
Then again my opinion is that nobody, male or female, should be reproducing until they’ve finished their studies. If this were a dude who wanted to take paternity leave I would think he and his partner should have conferred before reproducing.
This is a problem regardless of the amount of sexism (or lack thereof) because a professor cannot have his students choose (or have input on) how another student should be graded.
As a former student of Dr Feldman’s, I can say it is not inconsistent with his behavior and leadership. There were a number of times he was inappropriate in front of me with my classmates and clientele.
One would think that as the vet school has become “feminized” (50% female when I graduated ’95) towards an 80% level currently, they would have become more PC regarding these matters.
Was this all accepted because he is an internationally renowned endocrinologist?
Sigh.
The school apparently has provisions in place for such situations, any veterinary school has to. The OP does not mention what plans the student herself had made. Quite possibly, she had already taken care of the matter and did not require the “assistance” kindly provided by Dr Feldman. It’s very unlikely that she’d made no provisions for her academic situation; implying that she was taken by surprise by her own pregnancy is just as degrading as is sexism. Without presenting this woman’s side of the story (which understandably may be impossible), the OP is necessarily one-sided, and calls for indignant letters to the chancellor are premature.
I would really appreciate having input if I were in a class where one student could be held to different standards than the rest of the class.
There’s no way that this grading system will be fair. I’m a woman too but I don’t think it will be fair for the student and her classmates to undergo or think about this kind of situation.
Especially interesting….looking forwards to
coming back.