Posted on 06/03/2008 11:09:57 AM PDT by Borges
Peter Beckway spent six years working toward a Ph.D. in English literature, racking up nearly all A's, winning a prestigious teaching assistantship, and earning a 3.88 grade-point average.
All that remained were the final exam and oral presentation, each to be scored by a panel of professors he chose.
So Beckway was "devastated" when that panel ridiculed his written work and said he wouldn't get the chance to deliver his oral presentation.
And, they added, he wouldn't be getting a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago or anywhere else.
Now, Beckway is suing the five professors on the panel, saying he was "ambushed" by their criticism and denial of the one thing he'd worked toward for so many years.
"I worked closely with them for six years and never had any problems with any of them," he said. "They had always been very complimentary of my work. Then this happened. They destroyed my career."
Professors Michael Lieb, Mark Canuel, Ned Lukacher, Mary Beth Rose and Robert Williams did not respond to requests for comment. A UIC spokesman declined comment on the suit.
Beckway's attorney, Gene Hollander, said the professors are responsible for the distress Beckway endured and says they didn't put his interests first, as required.
Beckway, 36, says he regularly met with the professors, taught for Canuel and chose them to review his work based on the praise they'd showered him with over the years. But they told him he used "too much secondary material" and didn't "go into enough detail" in his written exam, saying his interpretations were "vague at best."
Like that, his dreams of being a professor were done.
He's now teaching English on the East Coast.
And while he hopes to recover some of the $114,000 in debt he says he accumulated during his school years, he also hopes to get answers about why he was blindsided.
"This has been incredibly difficult for me," he said.
This could open up a floogate on a lot of lawsuits.
Somebody call the waaaaaaahmbulance.
Although I’ll admit I’m curious how the guy could carry a 3.88 and then crash and burn so hard at the very end.
}:-)4
I bet there’s more to the story.
One wonders at his dissertation. If it was politics he would have said so.
WAH!!
I thought the Univ. of Ill at Chic had no time limit on PhD work. Can’t he rework his exams and dissertation and resubmit?
I admit. It sounds like they really rabbit punched him. I’d be ticked, too. The whole role of the advisory panel for PhD candidate is to ensure they’re on the right track. Their criticism of him is best interpreted as a criticism of themselves.
A PhD in English Literature is worth very little, since the only thing it qualifies you to do is teach at a university, and there are a lot more applicants than positions.
The number of fine arts PhDs who flip burgers is probably staggering.
Peter probably had something positive to say about America, and the professors could not tolerate such a hateful viewpoint.
Like there was a chance of him bagging a professorship in the first place, considering the statistics.
He would at least have to be a black transsexual.
Grad school grades don’t work like undergraduate. It’s very very rare to get less than a B. B+ or A- is the common grade. The expectation is that you can perform work up to the level the professor expects. An entire class recieving As would not necessarily be a surprise.
In addition, a good GPA does not necessarily indicate the ability to do original work that a PH.D dissertation requires.
I wouldn’t be surprised if his thesis consisted of something that indicated his conservative political leanings, and he failed as a result.
Ehhhh....the story is vague on details.
I hope this guy prevails.
Not that the whole system isn't a huge fraud. Six years they had to clue him in on his progress, and they are clearly both arrogant, cruel and negligent. Let's see if tenure protects you from this kind of challenge.
He either praised conservatism or criticized liberals.
There’s a lot of politics that goes on in a University environment... I can’t say its beyond the pale to get bum rushed for something petty that happened completely unrelated to ones academic achievements.
There had to be some serious politics involved. The professors must have learned he voted Republican or something.
I'm not sure what kind of career requires an English Lit degree.
Sorry, but a Piled High and Deeper? Ok, if it was something you needed to be able to work. Doctor of MEDICINE or something. But everytime I hear of people doing this work for a pass/fail in front of libs at a University, I ask WHY...
Yep, the only logical explanation.
The professors are supposed to help him make changes to his thesis and grow.....it sounds like they just bashed him instead of mentoring him.
That is very bad, and the professors were very unprofessional here.
Still, suing? Seems a bit much.
I think the guy’s got a legitimate beef. They didn’t have any problem taking his money while he was pursuing his degree and relying on the comments made by the committee members during the six years he wasted. They could have told him much earlier that he wasn’t on the right track instead of jerking him around for six yeras. As far as I’m concerned, in addition to the direct costs of pursuing the degree, he’s also suffered legitimate damages in terms of lost opportunity cost.
If I were on a jury, unless there is a great deal more to this story than appears here, I would give award him damages plus legal expenses. If I were his attorney in Massachusetts, (I’m not an attorney but I am the pro se defendant from hell with the scars to prove it and opposing counsel’s scalp on my belt), I would file 93A claim (unfair business practices) and go for triple damages.
Is that from Animal House something like “Six years of college shot in the @$$”?
Dear God! What's become of his precious self esteem?
I knew a philosophy prof who never got tenure because he was a neo-platonist in a department full of British empiricists.
Talk about bald men fighting to the death over a comb.
Why? You spend over $100K and then be denied what you worked several years to accomplish only to be shut down for seemingly no logical reason.
>The number of fine arts PhDs who flip burgers is probably staggering
And there you have solved it.
That must be why all of that food tastes like crap!
There would seem to be another side to the story if he was denied another chance.
On the other hand, leave it to academics to be incredibly inept managers of their own programs.
I would like to teach at a university some day, but the odds are really against anybody unless you want to teach at a small private college that pays worse than a public school (like where I went for my undergrad.....good school but the profs are like starving artists barely making ends meet).
My undergrad is in history, which I don’t mind since I want to teach anyway. But, I am thinking I may pursue something else for grad school if I do decide to become a professor. It would be something one can actually get a job in without being best friends with the university president. Now exactly what field to go into to do that....I don’t know.
“Seven years of college, down the drain”
Here is one from page 2:
He's so average. If you want a class just to get through. . .he's the guy. If you want to learn something. . .he's not
At the same time, it would be nice if it would be a grad degree that would give me lots of opportunity outside academia if that doesn’t work out....business maybe? Who knows!
A GPA of at least 3.88 is what is expected of a doctoral student. Getting a B in a doctoral course is not good.
What was the problem - did they learn he wasn’t a lib, or something?
I would need to see the "written work" in order to have an opinion.
It’s happened to more than one person I know. Academics can be arrogant, incomepent, capricious, and cruel. I hope these “scholars” get well-acquainted with the lawyers they claim to love so much.
What kind of moron goes $115K into debt to get a degree in ENGLISH LIT???????
this is were Ayers is from
It was probably on Wordsworth instead of transgender hegemonies in post-modern fairy tales.
Interesting case.
I thought PhD stood for post hole digger.
Holy crap!
How did he sleep at night knowing British empiricists were after his job?
With this type of doctoral work there is always the undercurrent of political correctness not found in the hard sciences, where the data speaks for itself. I ponder if this guy dared to buck the doctrine of the PC crowd with some original thought that did not fit the round hole.
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