Ban tenure before it kills again.
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.”
That's Bill Delahunt.
However, there is currently no indication that he did the covering up.
It may be that he dropped the prosecution because there was insufficient evidence. It is more likely the Police Chief at the time (or someone else in the Department) 'lost' the evidence (investigation reports) to protect Amy Bishop (and more specifically her mother).
Basically, to conclude Delahunt was involved in 'covering it up' is not 'in evidence' at this time.
Oh brother. She claimed in 1986 that the shotgun went off accidentally TWICE??!! And Congrssman Delahunt, ADA at the time, chose NOT to bring charges and the case history file is gone. This one stinks.
Oh. And Amy’s daddy is rich? Hmmm. We should check political donations on this.
IF this turns out to be true, then it would seem to point the finger more at Delahunt.
As I said on another thread, the reason for these kind of things (coverups) involve either greed (follow the money), or lust (who was sleeping with whom).
If Amy Bishop's grandfather was a big donor to Delahunt, then....
To try to link a tragedy like this to someone's political views, which we really don't even know, is a new low on IDIG. This thread should be deleted by the moderator, IMO.
See #15.
Cops seem to think there is.
I saw that after my first comment, and acknowledged that NEW information in a subsequent post.
Which I, of course, missed....
Story is unfolding fast. No wonder Delahunt is lying low right now. He's afraid to say anything until others tell what they know.
Ban tenure before it kills again.
I was just hammering through, Good Day, Sir. (I’ll catch up directly)
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From that headline I will surmise she is a leftist.
It looks like that article was posted hours before the shooting, but it’s not impossible that Bishop was acting in a way that led people to recently look into her past. Some of the staff may have felt threatened and asked for an assessment about what she might be capable of. She had been acting strangely, it seems.
what was/is Daddy’s name?
The time line looked close and it seemed out of character for a former DA to make a decision that rashly but it is curious. Just a coincidence I guess. Let’s see how long it takes Delahunt to say anything of substance. The longer it takes, the more likely he’s getting his story straight and did cut Amy Bishop loose for a reason that had nothing to do with the facts of what she did.
“
“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.
“
Having experienced (peripherally) a sister-in-law that succeeded
in an appeal process at a major “State Univerity” to gain tenure...
it can be a harrowing experience.
Especially when the tenure candidate is “ahead of the curve” in
regard to the tenured faculty.
E.g., a tenure candidate working in plant genomics in a department
heavy with cutting-edge agronomy...for the 1950s-1970s.
Being basically a free-market guy with lots of friends/family
in the academic sphere...you fight for tenure.
And accept defeat at an institution.
Then MOVE ON.
E.g., Carl Sagan denied at Harvard (IIRC), gets tenure at Cornell U.
(yeah, an evil university). And I know personally of a few other
cases of accquainences don’t get tenure at Ivy League Universities...
but get tenure at respectable universities.
The gals at the state pen will be real impressed. Not.
No. It makes perfect sense.
Remember that the modern university is a very egalitarian place and that you are tenured based mostly on the opinion of other faculty.
Just what do you think lessor researchers in charge of promotion at a government university are going to do to someone that has out-produced them?
Pull out their guns and riddle her with bullets ?
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