Posted on 02/13/2010 11:47:33 PM PST by Bodleian_Girl
Colleague says suspect ‘aloof, superior’
The UAH professor accused of killing three colleagues Friday once called herself aloof, arrogant and superior, and a colleague did not disagree.
Psychology professor Eric Seemann also said he knew biological sciences assistant professor Amy Bishop was stressed about an adverse tenure decision, but he was shocked at how she dealt with her frustration.
Bishop, also referred to as Amy Bishop-Anderson by authorities, has been charged with capital murder. She is accused of killing three professors in her department — including department chair Gopi Podila — and wounding two professors and a staff member who were attending a faculty meeting.
‘Personal beef’
“What she told me was there were some people in her department — she did not name them — who had a personal beef with her,” Seemann said. “She said one or more of those people were directly involved with her tenure decision.”
Seemann said he had no clue Bishop’s frustration would lead her to the alleged shootings.
“She was sounding a little paranoid. I’m not sure she was taking responsibility for her part in the tenure decisions,” Seemann said of a conversation he had with her in November.
Seemann joined the faculty of the University of Alabama in Huntsville’s psychology department the same year Bishop joined its biological sciences department. Both were eligible for tenure in March 2009.
‘Not on list’
“They sent out the letter of everyone that was tenured,” Seemann said. “Amy’s name was not on the list.”
Bishop told Seemann she had hired attorneys to appeal the adverse decision, but in December she told him she was frustrated at her attorneys’ lack of progress.
The psychology professor said his counseling and forensics practices have exposed him to plenty of people with inclinations toward violence, but he saw no such signs in Bishop. He watched media reports as the public tried to understand what had happened.
‘How could this be?’
“I’m thinking, wow, who could this be? My thinking was some student went crackers and shot up a bunch of people for various reasons.
“Then they said it was a female, and I’m thinking it’s a female student who shot a bunch of people because of a lover’s triangle. Then they say a female staff member, and I’m thinking, ‘Who could that be?’ ”
Only when he heard the next report did it occur to him.
“Then they said biological sciences, and I thought, oh crap, it’s Amy Bishop. Because she’s the only one I knew in biological sciences that was under a tenure constraint.”
Bishop, who is in her 40s and the mother of four, was seen as an excellent researcher. Seemann said her dealings with other faculty members, however, hampered her efforts at tenure.
‘Given a raw deal’
“I saw her at a spring (2009) orientation for the new freshmen,” Seemann said. “She said she was not tenured and she felt like she had been given a raw deal.”
Despite her excellent research ability, Seemann was not surprised she struggled to obtain tenure.
“Amy was kind of hard to get along with,” he said. “I’ve talked to people who said, ‘Wow, she can be really arrogant,’ or be really headstrong. I knew that to be true. But at the same time she was brilliant. She was really one of UAH’s rising research stars. People I know in biological sciences would say, ‘She’s a great researcher, but she’s lousy to work with.’ ”
She was brilliant and she knew it.
“At one meeting I was with Amy, she was complaining to a group of us. She said she was denied tenure not because she was a lousy researcher — she’s not, quite the opposite — and not because she didn’t have good classes, she believed she did — I think some might say otherwise — but because she was accused of being arrogant, aloof and superior. And she said, ‘I am.’
“She said, ‘I am arrogant, I am aloof and I am superior in my attitude. But it doesn’t mean I don’t want to get along with people.’ ”
Seemann’s recollection of his frequent dealings with Bishop continued the theme.
‘I was arrogant’
“During a conversation she and I had at one point, she said she got into an argument with another faculty member who accused her of being arrogant and acting like she was better than him, and she told me, ‘That’s because I was arrogant and I was better than him.’ But that was in the context of a heated argument,” Seemann said.
“I think Amy was a little easy to provoke.”
He said his impression was students tried to avoid taking her classes.
“The comments I heard from students over the last several years was that she was brilliant, but she couldn’t teach and she’s was not personable.”
Seemann suspects Bishop had an unrealistic view of the likelihood of a successful appeal of her tenure denial.
Appealed decision
“Amy told me in November that she filed an appeal through the university and had retained an attorney. The appeal was based on her belief that somebody had a personal gripe with her on the tenure committee, and that she asked that the person or persons — there may have been more than one — be removed,” Seemann recalled.
“That request was denied. The appeal went through the appeals process. Amy told me she believed that there was a good chance of the appeal working.”
Despite her expressed hopes, Seemann said tenure denials rarely get reversed.
Seemann stressed he did not know what happened at Friday’s biology faculty meeting before Bishop allegedly began shooting, but he knew the deadline for final decisions on tenure appeals was nearing.
“I do not believe that a faculty would tell one person in front of other people, ‘By the way you’re not getting tenure, clean out your office.’ I can’t imagine that’s what happened. My guess is that Amy probably pushed the issue.
“I’ve seen her do that before, where she would ask a question, someone would say let’s discuss it later, and she would just become more insistent until someone said either just shut up or here it is, and it’s not what you wanted.
“I don’t know it for a fact, but I’m guessing she pushed the issue.”
Remains stunned
Seemann said he remains stunned by the shooting.
“Nowhere in any of my discussions with her did I get the idea that she was violent or that she had this inclination to bring a pistol to a meeting,” Seemann said. Behind the most tragic loss in Friday’s shootings — the death of three faculty members and the wounding of three others — is another tragedy, Seemann said.
“It’s not like she would never have another job,” Seemann said. “With the research she did, there are other universities that, if she threw her hat in the air, they’d be lining up to hire her.
“She’s not some random schmuck. She’s Harvard educated. She could have doubled her salary going to these other schools. For whatever reason, she was so ego-invested that not being here was intolerable.”
LOL, I think they all came to the school where I was secretary...esp. the peace studies folks.
Where did the information come from that her parents were wealthy? I haven’t seen any reports about it.
Wrong dad. Amy Bishop’s father was a prof. in the Art dept, and he retired (there’s a Samuel Bishop Award) so he might even be dead.
http://www.northeastern.edu/magazine/9903/sam.html
The family lived at 46 Hollis ave. Braintree, MA when the brother’s death occurred. It’s not likely that the mansion has anything to do with that family. Her mother isn’t the Microsoft researcher, either.
They don’t have a lot of money. That’s just sloppy research.
Wrong dad. Amy Bishop’s father was a prof. in the Art dept, and he retired (there’s a Samuel Bishop Award) so he might even be dead.
http://www.northeastern.edu/magazine/9903/sam.html
The family lived at 46 Hollis ave. Braintree, MA when the brother’s death occurred. It’s not likely that the mansion has anything to do with that family. Her mother isn’t the Microsoft researcher, either.
Her undergrad degree was from Northeastern, where her father taught in the art dept. Her later degrees were from Harvard, but it’s not the same thing.
Here’s the State police reports.
Nope. Her father taught in the Art Dept. at Northeastern, and retired.
Dad retired
http://www.northeastern.edu/magazine/9903/sam.html
If you think he’s retiring to “spend more time with his family” and it has nothing to do with the loss of the Kennedy seat to a Republican, his past involvement in the case involving the murderer of 3 teachers in Alabama on Friday and the ferocious anti Dem incumbent attitude which prevails across the Nation, then so be it.
I am still searching , myself, for verification .
However, Amy Bishop is a graduate (PH.D) of Harvard.
I’ve heard that not only do you have to have good grades, but it takes a considerable amount of money, and some political pull to gain admittance.
The ‘speculation’ that we are trying to investigate is that the GRANDFATHER was the wealthy one, and the one who convinced DELAHUNT to act on his granddaughter’s behalf.
????????
What I was saying was that since he WAS RETIRING, that this info could not harm him in CAMPAIGNING for REELECTION.
“The ‘speculation’ that we are trying to investigate is that the GRANDFATHER was the wealthy one, and the one who convinced DELAHUNT to act on his granddaughter’s behalf.”
Can’t be. At the time of her brother’s death, her paternal grandfather was dead (the obit is in the Glove archives). Her maternal grandmother was living in Lynn, Ma and her other grandparents lived in New Hampshire. There’s no connection to a Cohasset mansion or any yacht club that I can find.
Thanks for clarifying.
Was her mother the same Judy Bishop who was on the personnel board in Braintree?
It’s breaking now that she was investigated for sending a pipe bomb.
Oh! The grandfather. That makes sense.
Thank you.
“The psych prof said, My thinking was some student went crackers”
obviously a regionalist
Good God! Who said understanding someone’s motive has anything to do with condoning their action. Knowing why Mao murdered millions of fellow Chinese doesn’t mean the action was rational or acceptable. It’s just understanding why something happened. Just like the murders. Everything has a reason. In murder investigations, it’s called motive. Here, it looks like the perpetrator perceived an unfair situation, and, whether real or imagined, we will NEVER know. It wasn’t that long ago that a person could legally and morally challenge another person to a duel to the death over real or imagined injury or insult. Aaron Burr comes to mind...times change, but humans haven’t changed that much.
Bishop also killed her brother in 1986.Thanks Bodleian_Girl.
According to missing police reports she didn't kill her brother. A bullet did.
Apparently, a shotgun she was carrying around started going off repeatedly, blasting holes in her bedroom wall.
Then, one of the bullets managed to find it's way to her brother's room, and hit him in the chest.
She was so scared of the flying assassin bullets that she fled to the front yard where the shotgun again attempted to fire another bullet at a passing car she had flagged down.
She begged the driver to get her away from the flying bullets, got in the car and was driven to a remote location where she was safe.
Later, police picked her up, and after checking the home to make sure there were no longer any flying bullets running around, left her in her mother's care.
Poor thing was so frightened, police decided not to question her further until a week or so later.
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