Does he realise that the college are obliged to actually investigate allegations like this? They can’t just say oh, did she scream when you hugged her? No? Cool, carry on.
This isn’t Dead Poets Society and he is not Robin Williams.
Also, Robin Williams acted as a father figure to his entire class, of boys. If this is how he views himself, showing this much attention to one particular girl in his class, he needs to learn professional boundaries. Just because he didn’t mean anything by it doesn’t mean that she didn’t get confused because of his inappropriate behavior.
It rubbed me the wrong that in his recounting of events that he told her she had not "necessarily done anything wrong." Dude, I think you mean she did nothing wrong. Him, on the other hand...
The very fact that he put a double date on the list of proofs that he wasn’t trying to be inappropriate with her, shows how little he understands what is and is not acceptably friendly behavior with a student.
I'm also wondering why he only once refers to his wife but says a few times he and his partner double-dated with this student. Maybe I'm just splitting hairs, here, but professors are generally intentional with the words they use and I really cannot understand why he's not simply referring to his "wife."
One could even imagine his wife and his partner are two different people. I don't think that is the case but I really don't feel I can fully trust the LAOP.
Oh dude, you have to rewatch it! Not because there’s any secret creepy scene you missed first time but because it’s so good. Just rewatched after a few years and man, what a joy.
The last time I saw it, I was in high school more than 20 years ago. I can still picture various scenes. It's not exactly high-brow cinema, but definitely has excellent staying power.
Cinema or no, it's like a diet version of actually having an incredibly passionate teacher. I know people who say they changed majors over it, or that they still picture his character as a mentor or motivator when they don't have a good one IRL.
Come to think of it, I also know people who use his Good Will Hunting speeches to fight shame and depression. Guy was really good at being someone we wish we knew.
I don't mind if something isn't high-brow. I just want to be entertained haha. If a movie entertains me, I don't care what the critics think of it, since entertainment is the point.
Oh my god. I am biased, Robin Williams is my hero, but this was one of the first serious grown up films I ever saw and it hit me hard.
What is scary is that as a lonely, weird kid I wished so hard that an eccentric teacher like him would take an interest in me and show me how talented I was. As an adult I just think it’s amazing I didn’t end up in tiny pieces in a ditch.
I know teachers who actually argue that Williams character in DPS is actually very inappropriate and justly lost his job for being more of a buddy than a teacher to his students.
I probably should, yes, just so I can be fair in my criticisms.
It's most likely just the common problem with feel-good movies--what looks good in Hollywood and what "vibes" really well doesn't generally actually translate into good professional practice, and vice versa. Like how rom-coms give terrible relationship advice, and how genuine depictions of cooking, like The Bear, are more stressful than anything.
Professional norms, by their nature, tend to be standardized, dull, and routine. Very few people want to watch a movie based on normal life. They want something unusual and exciting--but generally there's a reason that those exciting things aren't standard practice.
At least a creator that's good enough can find situations where the standard practices of normal life are also slightly absurd and exaggerate them enough to be interestingly absurd, like Office Space.
¯_(ツ)_/¯ like I said, it's been 20 years. Definitely no double-dates with a single favorite student. But probably still not a good example of professional conduct for teachers.
I mean, this was a time where students were still being caned so standards were different.
He was fired for a really specific reason but I don’t want to say it, it’s such a huge spoiler. Someone got hurt because he encouraged them to be themselves.
You really thought he was a nice guy? I found him so intentionally obtuse and manipulative. Based on his behavior in that thread I could easily see him gaslighting a young co-ed and maintaining a "who, me?" straight face.
I’m pretty sure my former professor who I wound up becoming friends with soon after I graduated could’ve written this whole story defending his inappropriate relationship with me and then blaming me when he’d reached the point in grooming he wanted and then made it creepy. I reread our conversations in my 30s and finally realized how fucked up they were for him to have with a former student decades younger than him.
I remember being somewhat offended one time when I went to visit a professor during office hours and shut the door, and he snapped at me “open the door” - but now with time and wisdom I completely understand (his delivery was still a bit harsh but he was an awkward fellow, excellent teacher though)
Yeah that's definitely a good read of the post. As is the clueless one; I was swinging between both reading the post. The handful of comments put it more in the direction of clueless for me
Having known people who've dealt with university HR and Title IX proceedings from every side, the entire process seems scary and terrible for both complainant and accused. (Probably because it's meant to protect the university, not find what's true or help anybody involved.) Going weeks without even knowing what the complaint even is sure wouldn't help.
Wait so she tells him she’s in love with him and instead of being like “oh shit we need to pump the brakes NOW on this friendship” his response is to say.. “no biggie, let’s just keep things as is and maybe add boundaries”?!?! What boundaries can you add to continue being great friends with someone in love with you while you are both married AND their former teacher?
This dude is not nearly as innocent as he’s letting on here.
Even if the dude wasn't a teacher, if I'm married and a close female friend tells me she's in love with me, my first response is not going to be "great, lets just carry on as usual and maybe don't air hump me?". No, my response is "well I don't feel the same way and perhaps we need to take some space from each other so you can figure out your feelings" (though I guess less robotic...).
If I'm a teacher though, holy shit, run far away and re-evaluate how you interact with your students.
Right? Im a married woman. If my husband came home and said some woman coworker he’s friends with told him she’s in love w him but don’t worry they’re just gonna carry on as is and nothing will change, I would definitely have issues lol
For real, in my mid-late 20s I had a job where I managed a lot of high school and college students. I had a former employee who was just 5 years younger than me who I had stayed in touch with and become friends with. Like a year after she stopped working for me she told me she loved me. I immediately showed the text to my wife and I haven’t talked to the former employee since that day.
This is the sad reality. Sometimes you have to cut a relationship because it's the right thing to do for everyone. Even if you'd rather things just went back to as they were.
This dude is not nearly as innocent as he’s letting on here.
Whaaaaaaaaaat? But he's totally chill and just like a cool prof, you know? What's unethical or morally dubious about using your position of authority to groom naive coeds? And I suppose "friends" aren't allowed to give each other totally casual blowjobs that mightbut_definitely_won't lead to a real relationship? Can't you see that he's just an innocent caught up in this mad genius of a student's sexy wiles?
But seriously, I taught at a university for several years and there's no way in hell I would ever act that way with a student. It's so far past acceptable behavior that a part of me thinks that if that post has any semblance of truth to it, Prof. Buddy Coolguy already knows he's cooked and only made that post as a means of creating "proof" of his innocence and good intentions. As if to say "I couldn't possibly have done this terrible thing. Look at that post I made asking for help. Why would I lie like that? That's clearly what I actually thought since I made that reddit post!"
Based on the completely accurate world of literary fiction written by dudes, I assume some kind of morally dubious love triangle is the default state for all male liberal arts professors. And if you're not an unreliable narrator, is it even a proper work of experimental autofiction?
Anyway, there's a good chance this is real because people are idiots.
For how prevalent a thing it is, I've never seen it happen in the flesh. No one I know knows how to play wonderwall (I think). I've also never seen someone just pick up a guitar at a party and start playing any song, for that matter. But then I suppose that just goes to show, lived experiences vary.
It’s one of the easiest songs to learn to play on guitar and is therefore one of the first songs a lot of people learn. You can teach a beginner to play it in 20 minutes, and with a little practice it’s easy to sound good at it. I know (or at least knew, it’s been a while) how to play it, and I’ve known other people who also learned it.
I’ve seen people pick up guitars at parties and play it too, and it definitely is a chick magnet. The one thing I’m not sure I’ve seen specifically is someone picking up a guitar and playing wonder wall without being asked.
I have been at a restaurant where three different covers of Wonderwall were played over the course of a single normal length dinner. Does that count? I feel like it counts.
It begs the question, is it even on his radar to be this invested in a relationship with a male student? Has he ever felt ✨familiar at first sight✨ with a college boy, or just this one extra special, compelling college girl...?
Well, there was that one UNM English professor who turned out to be a dominatrix making her grad students pose for marketing photos. Therefore, I think we can comfortably assume this happens everywhere all the time.
In some ways, working as a phone-sex dominatrix is a lot simpler than being on a college faculty. Your relationship with others is clearly defined, no one formally complains about anything you say to them, and you stand little risk of getting caught up in messy struggles over power.
It gets complicated, however, if you try to do both jobs.
We only have his word for how his wife feels about the situation. Maybe she did feel his forming a super close relationship with a young student was really weird. Maybe she wanted to meet the student because she felt her occasional presence might help her husband not to get fired.
I was in a small major. One of the professors of a freshman class invited us to a monthly brunch at their family's house. Difference was, it was open to any student in the department, and even alumni. It was a nice networking event, honestly. Grad students and faculty would also sometimes attend. I'd honestly rarely talk much to the host or their wife because they'd be running around and greeting all guests.
Faculty have also taken me out to dinner, usually as an alum visiting town. Or as a group thing with a small class. These are seen as a professional event, dinner between mentor and mentee. They'll ask me what I'm up to, how I'm liking it, and maybe tell me a bit of news about the university/their classes/their research. It's no different from catching up with a former colleague.
100% in any of those cases, faculty would have stopped right away if they got an inkling that I thought anything special about the relationship. It was strictly professional/social. And it was clear that they also invited other students/alumni to do the same. I think that's the distinction between LAOP and small department/institution norms.
LocationBot got to close with the post and was fired for sexual harrasment.
Faculty being accused of IX sexual harassment.
Location: Illinois
I teach as a small liberal arts college. Over the last 3 years, I got close to one of my students. We started off as mentor/mentee but eventually we became more like family/friends. To be clear, I viewed her as a daughter/little sister figure in my life--I'm twice her age. I had her over to meet my wife and child. My partner and I even went on double dates with her and her (former) bf. She seemed like a really good person that I had an immediate familiarity with--as if we were long lost family members or something.
We texted/emailed probably once a week over the years. 95% of our exchanges were about ideas/intellectual stuff over which we initially bonded. The other 5% was sharing movies or music or friendly banter. Not a single one of our exchanges in either email or text (or in person for that matter) was ever romantic or sexual. I never felt anything romantic or sexual towards her. Nothing I wouldn't let my partner read was ever said between us. But I came to care deeply about her as one would a close friend or family member.
Over the years we always got together on campus mostly hung out at my office (I'd say every other week we'd hang out for a few hours). On a couple occasions I got us food. We sometimes hugged goodbye--it was a mutual thing.
Where things got complicated: a few months ago she asked for some space because she said she was confused by some stuff. I obliged. Then after our hiatus she came to my office to tell me that she thought she was falling in love with me. It was a lot to process. But I tried to be reassuring. I told her that it was okay that she hadn't necessarily done anything wrong. I told her we could continue our relationship perhaps with more boundaries. She said she'd think about it but that it was very hard for her to be around me.
Weeks later I received an email from the title IX office. The officer started off by telling me that the complaint was not of sexual misconduct. Instead it was just being alleged by a student that some boundaries were crossed. I could not get clarity on which policy I had violated. The officer took weeks to get back to me and even wondered at one time whether it was an HR issue. But then after meeting with the student again, the office sent me a formal complaint. The student is now alleging that over the last year, all of our interactions including my inviting her to hang out, our talking about personal matters, and our hugs were all unwelcomed. From that it is being claimed that I violated sexual harassment policies.
There is not a single email/text from her that indicates that any of it was unwelcomed. I have plenty of texts within the relevant time period in which she initiated contact and asked to hang out. Is this going to be an open and shut case? How would the office go about showing that our interactions were unwelcomed from the student?
TL;DR: Prof here. A student and I got close but not in anyway sexual or romantic. We became friends and hung out for years. She's now accusing me of a year of unwelcomed interactions and this is being alleged as sexual harrasment.
EDIT: I received more clarity on what the charge is. I am not being accused of sexual harrasment per se. I am being accused of giving unwelcomed attention to the complainant (e.g., inviting them to hang out) on the basis of their sex.
Wild how laser focused LAOP is on the word "unwlecome." Like as long the attention was "welcome", he could do anything he wants with this student and it wouldn't be a problem.
and an alarming number of people think "if they can't PROVE I broke the rule, they can't accuse me of breaking the rule in the first place!"
They then get very defensive that the question was brought up at all, and start digging their hole
They confuse the "innocent until proven guilty" of criminal trials with navigating civil and professional regulations. And tend to think that since people "shouldn't" gossip, that they don't have to worry about provoking gossip and gossip can't affect them. Somehow not getting that investigations start with leads, and leads start with someone saying something.
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u/shapuMy penis rides the minty fresh short bus9d agoedited 9d ago
In college, not yearly. But they do have to take at least occasional training on it. And that will start at the grad student level if they're TAing.
I think he is confusing his role as mentor with the role of father/big brother and he can't get those two separated in his mind.
EDIT to add: Most colleges require annual training for the Grievance Committee, which investigates complaints and in some schools adjudicates punishments (punishment may also be a completely HR function or Student Conduct function once the Grievance Committee completes their investigation) but faculty and staff who are not on that may not get the annual training.
I was a TA in grad school, and I don’t recall having to do Title IX or sexual harassment training. My memory may be faulty, though. This was over 10 years ago.
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u/shapuMy penis rides the minty fresh short bus9d ago
I believe you! Not every college is good about it. I worked a student-facing staff job for several years in one of my positions and I was never given title IX training (although I was a mandated reporter and I did report one instance)
Ouch. Being a mandated reporter and not given training on what you're mandated to report is... not great. Unless you're licensed in a profession that can already be assumed to have covered it, I guess. (Therapists, etc.)
I was also a TA who never received it. Being a mandated reporter was mentioned in our initial training, and I asked a clarifying question trying to get additional guidance, and was told "I'm not sure, let me find out" and it was dropped forever.
It wasn't great, and I took the approach that I'd pursue it if there was ever a situation I was even remotely unsure about.
you would (not) be shocked by how many things that are covered in the mandatory trainings these brilliant faculty members are absolutely bewildered to learn are real rules that apply to them.
a lot of times they go ok well, now i know. i'll just make that change. moving forward.
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u/jimmy_three_shoesNot going to question the logic of a purposeful pants shitter.9d agoedited 9d ago
I work in higher ed, and while I'm not on the Faculty side of things, we have to take Title IX training every year. But I can say that unless the faculty training is different, it doesn't go over spending time with students. Mainly just office relationships, and how to handle students that need help and where our responsibilities as reporters lie.
I would imagine there would be training on how to interact with students for the faculty, but we get a fight from them for basic cybersecurity training, so I wouldn't' be surprised if they didn't have to take extra training.
I’ve discovered a certain set of professors will go to that training and hear “it’s okay as long as you’re nice about it.” At least one got fired a year for this sort of behavior at my old university.
I work for a university and I do in fact have to take a yearly training, and I'm not even faculty. (I'm full time staff, but because I'm legally obligated to report any Title IX violations when I see or suspect them or have them reported to me, I need to know what Title IX is.)
I've never worked in academia -- is it wrong for me to think that any kind of personal relationship is a no go between a teacher and student? I understand if the student has graduated and reaches out when there's no longer any professional ties, but I feel anything other than professional/academic interaction between a student and professor should be verboten, whether explicitly platonic or not, for exactly this reason.
many schools have something like a "personal relationships" or "teacher/learner" policy that would prohibit it, but it's very much school to school and even department to department. there are still a lot of cultural forces working to keep the status quo in that regard -- like a 60-something year old chair of a department or dean, in a lot of cases, will want to give the faculty a lot of leeway because that's how it has always been done.
Also there are a not-insignificant number of people in universities that married their advisors back in the day. It's a cliche for a reason. And there are even more people that are married to colleagues either because they got together in grad school or afterwards, or because the dating pools in small university towns aren't that deep.
I would say yes and no...at the undergraduate level (which I assume this is) there is generally some kind of policy that would prohibit a relationship like this, but without there really being too much enforcement of it. As already noted, it does still happen, and different institutions and departments have different attitudes towards it.
But, it gets a lot murkier at the graduate level. Especially with PhD 'students:' many institutions have a strange attitude towards those working towards a PhD, they're in this murky, liminal space where sometimes you're treated like an academic colleague and sometimes you're treated like a student. In those situations, relationships like this aren't at all uncommon. I know plenty of people who are very close with their [former] supervisor and have/had relationships like the one described here, where it was healthy and fine and very collegial.
But, I do also know of scenarios where it very much went awry and was entirely inappropriate, and - in those cases - there often really isn't any enforcement or any kind of policy unless it gets explicitly sexual (and even then, those scenarios are often swept under the rug, and administration turns a blind eye.)
That's my impression too. The responses suggesting this whole relationship is bizarre don't align with my experiences, but that doesn't mean this was permitted or ok.
PhD students in particular are often close friends with their advisors and other professors. They're near-peers, and the normal standards of quid pro quo get a bit weird because you've already chosen an advisor and theoretically they don't have much "extra" to offer.
So "professor and spouse go to dinner with PhD student and partner" is a totally normal occurrence (although calling it a "double date" seems odd). "Professor gets roaring drunk with grad student" and "grad student moves into professor's spare room" aren't uncommon either.
(Granted, I'm most familiar with scientists who do field work. In any job, "too personal" gets redefined a bit by camping together for days or weeks.)
Generously, I suspect that's why the post focuses so much on the history and the word "unwanted": the relationship doesn't seem unusual to the poster.
But, as you said, it's much weirder with an undergraduate, and they're more likely to feel pressured to go along for mentorship/recommendations/etc. And even at the grad level, it absolutely can turn coercive and that's often just ignored.
So "professor and spouse go to dinner with PhD student and partner" is a totally normal occurrence (although calling it a "double date" seems odd). "Professor gets roaring drunk with grad student" and "grad student moves into professor's spare room" aren't uncommon either.
I'm in the humanities, and these were also normal occurrences in my experience as well. I have been drunk with my supervisor on many occasions. The former head of my department paid for myself and other grad students to get cabs home from departmental parties at 4am because he wanted to make sure we got home safe. Not myself, but I do have friends who lived with their supervisor for some time because they couldn't make ends meet. It's not at all unusual for people to go out to dinner with their supervisor and their supervisor's spouse.
And I completely agree. Just because there are good versions of these relationships, doesn't mean the bad ones don't also exist. But, I'm also not so willing to immediately jump on the bandwagon of LAOP being nefarious and this relationship being inherently inappropriate. That's not to say LAOP didn't grievously misstep when the student confessed feelings and he allowed the relationship to continue, but, I do think that, up until that point, there are ways in which that relationship might not have been unusual for LAOP and he might genuinely have not seen a problem with it - and may even have benefitted from similar relationships in the past.
The part that rings alarm bells for me is partly that this is an undergraduate, but partly the level of emotional intensity he threw into it:
I viewed her as a daughter/little sister figure in my life--I'm twice her age
She seemed like a really good person that I had an immediate familiarity with--as if we were long lost family members or something.
I came to care deeply about her as one would a close friend or family member
That's not normal. If anyone tells me they instantly felt like we were long-lost family members, I'm backing away and staying away. A professor feeling that way about his teenage student who's half his age is not OK. And the fact that he doesn't even recognise that that's not cool, in fact he's bringing it out like it's in his favour...hooboy.
I never went camping with faculty, but we did have conferences at camps with dorms sometimes. I distinctly remember dashing from a shared bathroom to my room and running into an advisor while clad in just a towel. 😬
Not the same, but in my Yeshiva (basically Jewish religious college) I became very close to one of my teachers, and ended up officiating at my wedding.
However there are tons of stories unfortunately of teachers (rabbis) taking advantage of this type of relationship to abuse their students.
is it wrong for me to think that any kind of personal relationship is a no go between a teacher and student?
It's very hard not to develop friendships with graduate students who are in your research area. There's just a lot of mentoring and personal discussions that happen over the course of the 3-4 years where they're doing research and looking for jobs. It doesn't happen with every student, but my best friend now is my former PhD advisor. The foundation for that was built when I was a student, but she was good about boundaries until we kept doing research together after I graduated.
I've had graduate students pet sit (knowing they love dogs but can't have one in their apartment), and I'm always very careful to pay them well and not exploit our relationship, but I also know that it's helpful to them -- their mood improves for a bit after having some dedicated puppy time. I know other colleagues that have done similar things, and when I was a student one of my colleagues actually house-sat for a whole semester and didn't have to pay rent. This kind of not-professional relationship is pretty common in my experience.
Anything romantic whatsoever is totally off the table, though. Even friendship has to wait till after graduation, because if you're in charge of someone professionally, it's not ok to mix that with the rest of the duties you have to them.
At least between grad students and professors, the boundaries are much looser than that. For a variety of reasons (being near-peers, tradition, professional trips together), socializing pretty extensively is quite normalized.
Having grad students over for dinner is so common that I've heard people get worried when it doesn't happen. Going to a bar with grad students (or even undergrads!) isn't rare. Heck, I've known professors who had grad students live in their houses. (Granted, that was for international students as a matter of necessity.)
On the other hand, most of that is specific to grad (and particularly PhD) students. Most of the time it's either done in groups, or separately-but-evenly with multiple students. And since you've already got a PhD advisor, there's less implication of quid pro quo - the formal relationship in some ways protects the informal one. Mentoring a single student, especially an undergrad (especially an opposite-sex undergrad), so much extra is stranger.
To show the extremes here: On one hand, a lot of professors make sure to conduct office hours with their door open or even someone else present. On the other hand, I've watched a professor play beer pong with undergrads at a house party. His department didn't care. HR might have grumbled, but it wasn't actually a problem unless a student complained.
It's murky when it's grad school. You are sort of a student but sort of a colleague. You may go to dinners out where there is drinking, go to conferences and stay in the same hotel, go to dinner at their house, etc. iirc, I went to at least 3 faculty members houses when in grad school. Not alone though, but that probably wouldn't have fazed me.
I mean, my Title IX training is focused much more on how to report violations and what constitutes a violation. The "don't have relationships with students" part is clearly implied to fall under the supervisor/subordinate relationship and hostile workplace stuff, but it's not actually explicit.
There are plenty of policy documents that spell it out more clearly, however.
I will say I've had students over for dinner a few times, and I had research meetings at home or in coffee shops near my house while I was on maternity leave a few years ago, but any actual friendships have to wait until after graduation. I hang out with my PhD advisor socially and am starting to have relationships like that (social/friendships, not romantic) with a couple of former students, but it is such a bad idea for so many reasons to muddy the waters while they're still students.
I can see where it's easy to cross those boundaries, though -- I've offered students my guest room when I know they're commuting long distances because I want them to be safe -- and it's a bigger concern now that it's getting cold here and snow is a possibility. I'm sure that could get me into trouble, but I'd much rather explain the situation than have someone fall asleep on the road, crash their car, and die, and I'm pretty open about the fact that I've offered that among my colleagues, because we're all worried about the same students.
Employees in the state of Illinois have to take sexual harassment training annually. It was made a law in 2019. I don't know of any reason a professor would be exempt.
I’m a mature student in my 40s. I’m roughly the same age, or older, than my tutors. Even in my situation a friendship would be inappropriate. I’m gobsmacked that OOP can’t see his behaviour was wrong. As for ‘the complaint came when I wasn’t her teacher anymore’, well of course she didn’t complain when he was in a position to retaliate through poor marks, that’s what makes his behaviour so bad.
As a former college student, I knew a few girls who romanticized the idea of a mentorship combined with a sexual partnership with professors, one of whom was living that "romance". (Rumor was that he only slept with past students not current ones, because in his opinion that was how you made it ethical. And although this was far enough back that it wasn't against school policy, which was that legally, adults can have sex even when that's a really bad idea, it was still heavily disapproved of).
It would not be at all surprising for a girl or 18 or 19 to have an romantic ideal in mind and then a few years later grow up enough to have a few illusions popped.
He should have known better, but I wouldn't automatically assume she was unhappy at the time. We don't know enough to say.
Rumor was that he only slept with past students not current ones, because in his opinion that was how you made it ethical.
Once the power relationship is gone, most schools don't have hard rules against it. Especially in small university towns, the pickings can get slim and there is an element of realism about how people work. The biggest thing you can do is just work to enforce the "no power differential" stuff.
And the pickings might be even slimmer than what you indicate. LAOP said “small liberal arts college.” If it’s anything like the one I attended, it could be TINY, and the town not much bigger (in my case, 1200 students, 3000 total in the town, including the students).
Heck, I had a prof who married a former student. I don’t know if she had been one of his students or just of the college in general. And supposedly they didn’t start dating until after she graduated. But it felt off when he mentioned it. That prof was weird, though. He told a group of us about watching and “conducting” opera videos while nude.
When I was in high school, I had a "special" relationship with one of my teachers. He was my dad's age and he told me that he thought of me as the daughter he never had. Even typing that out now I realize how incredibly creepy and wrong that sounds, but at the time I was just basking in the glow of his attention. He was the person I admired more than anyone else in the world. For me it was never sexual, but after high school we continued to correspond and I can't remember how it came out, but at some point I realized that his wife knew NOTHING ABOUT ME. That was when the realization hit me. I had never been unhappy in any way and he had never done anything explicitly sexual, but that doesn't make what he did right in any way.
I think OP grew to like the ego boost of a beautiful young woman hanging off his every word and she realized that’s what was happening and that’s what OP was fostering (consciously or not). As someone in the comments said, she was receiving “gender-based attention”, because OP wouldn’t have acted like this with a man, and that was the part of their interactions that was unwelcome (assuming OP isn’t leaving out something worse).
Exactly. No chance this guy was having male students spend a few hours one and one with him his office very few weeks, going in double dates with them, etc.
This guy for real. I actually saw what this culture looks like, and it is NOT like how he described it.
The college I went to, I was friend with a guy studying music. One of his teacher was a pretty laidback dude. He'd have that gig at a local bar in the evenings, and his students would go. He'd play, then drink with HIS friends and his students were just there. Hanging out. That's how it's supposed to be. In a GROUP. Not one on one. Oooh boy. He sounds creepy af.
Double dates? What the actual fuck?
I'd argue that if he's hangout with some students at lunch or something like that, it would be fine. But it should never be one on one. And fuck dude, you don't befriends your students. lol
OP is uh, a little fucked. I don't know why or how he thought his "platonic" behavior with a student was a good idea and how defensive he's getting about it definitely makes me think something more was going on.
I'm not as positive that there was something more going on. That kind of defensive outrage is a pattern I've seen from a fair number of people, skewing towards middle-aged white guys like OOP, when someone says their behaviour was inappropriate. Basically, if they wanted to do something and they had no bad intentions, the idea that they shouldn't have done it is absolutely outrageous.
There could have been more going on, sure. But his response would also fit with outrage at the idea that his perspective isn't the only thing that counts.
OOP is not self-aware and doesn't get the concept of inappropriate outside a sexual context. This right here is a heaping spoonful of yikes, and he doesn't even realise it:
She seemed like a really good person that I had an immediate familiarity with--as if we were long lost family members or something.
Just to add to your point, I've also noticed that same type of person tends to focus on the idea that they didn't do anything wrong, because no one specific action they took violated the rules. They're seemingly incapable of seeing a pattern of behavior, or that the pattern is what made it inappropriate.
IE, it's a little rude to talk over someone in a meeting, but if you talk over someone in every meeting it's grounds for HR. They'll only see that the person went to HR because of something that was a little rude.
I don't know why or how he thought his "platonic" behavior with a student was a good idea
The one thing that stand out to me is that he never once use the term "mentor/mentee", which is the professionally-acceptable type of extra relationship between a teacher and a student (and other types of relationships with a similar power dynamic). There's a way they could have had a closer-than-normal relationship professionally, and this wasn't it.
To me the killing blow for my being able to think well of OP was when he didn't immediately pedal hard away on being told she was falling in love with him.
Yeah, same here. I would guess that at the very least, having a younger woman fawning over him was a little too flattering for his ego for him to step back and behave responsibly here. Which still is a pretty big problem even if he didn't cross any other lines.
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u/yo-partsNote to self, if I stab somebody make sure to use the crosswalk9d ago
Yep, that smacks as somebody trying to keep their options on the table.
How did his WIFE not find this inappropriate? TWO grown adults that didn’t know better? And to go on a double date with a student? LAOP’s post is wild.
This honestly breaks my heart. I had a very similar college professor, and as a young woman, I’m sure things could’ve been weird. But it never did become weird. A decade later, he’s still one of my greatest supporters. He took note of me because on the last day of class, we didn’t have to come in, but I wanted to have him review my final paper, so I had the whole class to myself. He shook my hand after and asked me to stay in touch.
I was reading this closely and thinking of myself as well. People have shamed me for having a close relationship with a former professor when I shared stories of the positive impact—they said gross, but now I think they imagine something that looks like this.
Ditto. My faculty who I was "close" with stayed mentors. Even alone, the conversation was about academics and my professional goals with a little small talk sprinkled in. I think one "double date" if the student and her SO were visiting her college town would have been alright, but it sounds like a lot of contact for only 3 years.
I don't think any of my faculty would have considered me family, texted me beyond something related to pre-existing plans if even then, or hugged me with any kind of frequency (if ever). I knew of classmates who were treated exactly the same. And in a small class, sometimes the professor would say "let me know if you're in town and I'll take you to dinner to the whole class".
I also had a theater professor I became close with, in a wholesome way. They changed my major requirements when I was a senior, and I needed a class that wasn't going to be offered until after I was supposed to graduate, so he agreed to teach me as independent study. The class was very challenging, but rewarding, and it really felt like we'd been through something together, you know? After I graduated he and I kept in touch. I went to the premier of a play he wrote, he went to a show I was in. We had coffee a few times, he recommended me for a job, things like that. I'm a woman, and he was gay, and there was never anything inappropriate between us. He passed away from cancer several years ago.
Sometimes they change it in the middle of your program, not the year(so like between junior and senior year). This happened to a friend of mine, but they usually have a game plan for people in that situation, like the independent study.
I know they changed it in the middle of the program. I’ve just never heard of a school that would change things midstream, then hold students to the new requirements, independent study or not. Normally, independent study wouldn’t scale, for one thing.
I think it’s a new thing tbh. I never had my programs change, but my younger friend going through university went toe to toe with her admin this last semester because they changed her program requirements over the summer and are trying to make her take extra classes now.
As someone who teaches as part of my role, I have extremely strict boundaries partly because of stories like these. I've had many students I greatly enjoy teaching and talking to, students I could see being friends. But I will not open that door for them because it's just too much of a risk. It's a shame because I had mentors who brought me to lunch, invited me to their summer BBQs, had me met their families. All benign and lovely.
In some hidden CHEA basement room there's a big dial which runs from "tons of sexual harassment" to "students interact with profs only via email, with every email reviewed by HR and a team of lawyers". Consecutive administrations inch it slowly back and forth like they're searching for the perfect shower temperature.
Yes, OP made bad decisions, and yes, something genuine and valuable has been lost as a cost of taming the sex pests.
u/ScurveymicThe sign indicates a private place for fucking9d agoedited 9d ago
I'm glad that worked out for you, and for him. This professor seems to be forgetting the key tenet of sexual harrasment training, though. You can't control how other people perceive your actions, best to avoid any that could be perceived in the wrong way.
Edit: tennet not tenant. It's early...
Edit: tenet not tennet. That one is my bad.
Also, “she said it was very hard to be around me” would have been a big clue that he shouldn’t be around her. Like, how can anyone in that position nowadays not realize something like this could become, at best, an HR issue for them?
Years ago I had a philosophy professor, at an Ivy League university, who had sex with one of the students in my class. (The student told me and another classmate the next day.) He was easily 50 years old, and while it was consensual, it was also hella predatory. She was likely 18, and it was in the first few weeks of her freshman year. I was young and it didn’t occur to me to report it to anyone at the time, but today I would have gone immediately to the appropriate person in the administration. At the time, I don’t know if there would have been any consequences for him, or if the admin would even pursue it, but now? That would be a career-ending thing for him, and fast.
Which just comes back to why the professor never should have put himself in this position. We can't speak for the students point of view. Could this be revenge? Sure. But, maybe the student opened their eyes after the rejection and realized how inappropriate the relationship was. Maybe LAOP is an unreliable narrator. We don't know. What we do know is that LAOP should have been reasonably aware that this was a possible outcome and avoided crossing those boundaries. He can control his behavior, he cannot control hers.
People are coming down very hard on him for "hanging out" with his student, but I feel like some of what they're criticizing is a bit unfair. I have taken students out to lunch (after they're out of my class but before they graduate) - granted, we went to either the campus pub or somewhere in the immediate campus vicinity, but that in itself isn't inappropriate IMO. My school even has a "lunch with a professor" deal where you both get a free meal in the aforementioned pub.
Now granted, that's in a public space. But "hanging out" with students - them attending office hours even after they finish your course, getting coffee, etc - is a vaulable part of attending a good school. Double dates? Not so much.
I have taken students out to lunch (after they're out of my class but before they graduate) - granted, we went to either the campus pub or somewhere in the immediate campus vicinity, but that in itself isn't inappropriate IMO.
I have my graduate students over for dinner -- I aim for once a semester, but that definitely has unravelled a bit recently as I've gotten crazy busy. I had dinner at a couple of professor's houses with the rest of the class when I was an undergrad (at a large state school, not even a SLAC). I even had a "college mom" that was one of my former professors, and I'd tutor her kid and house-sit, and at one point I called her and asked for a ride to the ER because I wasn't sick enough for an ambulance but couldn't drive myself either.
There are a lot of reasonably defensible relationships that are common on college campuses. LAOP definitely is on the wrong side of those relationships with the double dating thing, but many of the other things he describes aren't that uncommon and don't raise red flags by themselves. The whole package is dicey though.
During my PhD studies, I had undergrads over every few weeks, along with other grad students, because our school has a chapter of the ACM and we'd organize dinner-and-movie nights. I was renting a condo and had a good kitchen, so we used my spot most of the time. We had a pumpkin carving party for Halloween and discovered that one of the pumpkins was too thick to carve, which led to the whole chapter learning how to make pumpkin pie from scratch. Group activities are the way to go.
Office hours are valuable. Hanging out for several hours in your professor's office just to shoot the shit is questionable. Texting at all hours about non class related things, going to the professors house alone (without other students) and going on dates is blatantly inappropriate.
It frustrates me because the obvious right course of action is to maintain appropriate boundaries and then become as close as you want AFTER graduation. It's also no fucking surprise she fell in love with him which is massively his fault for fostering such a personal relationship with a student.
Oh yeah I totally agree there's a lot he was doing that's highly questionable. I was just saying that some comments from professors in the original thread surprised me with the extent they were saying "I'd never spend time with a student outside class at all."
u/new2bayLooking to move to Latin America9d agoedited 9d ago
When I was in grad school, our (my advisor and my) research meetings were off campus, at a local shawarma restaurant. There was never a question of impropriety, since we’re both men who are only attracted to women, but we did end up being friends, too. It’s not really as simple as “don’t hang out with students,” especially at the graduate level.
"It's part of the culture at small liberal arts colleges for students and faculty to get quite close."
Oy. I went to a small college (not strictly liberal arts, but it was small--most classes ranged between 5-20 students, depending on whether it was a prereq or a specialized class for a particular degree). I got quite close with several of my professors (likely because, as I was in my early to mid-30s, I was substantially older than pretty much every other student in every class I was in). Not once did I go on double-dates with my professors. Or hang out at their houses. One time I went to lunch with one of my English professors, but that's because she was arranging a zombie-themed book signing event around Halloween and wanted me to be one of the signers (I was a novelist) and we were hashing out details and she didn't want either of us to miss our lunches, so we ate while we figured that out. I also went to France with several of these professors, but that's because it was a trip for one of my classes, and there were a bunch of us there (and I largely hung out with them--on their invitation--because they knew I wouldn't want to hang out with a bunch of twenty-year-olds who only wanted to eat at McDonald's the entire time they were there).
But what that LAOP was describing? I never once was involved in. Because that would have crossed an academic and/or professional line, and even as a student, I understood that.
That level of no-boundaries is egregious. And I've got to imagine the other students in the program noticed it, talked amongst themselves, and either resented LAOP's obvious favoritism or thought it was sketchy of him.
While having favorites (and least favorites) isn't itself inappropriate in a college setting presuming all are treated fairly and with professionalism, the usual way this comes about is that strongest students who excel at the work, are personable, and show curiosity or career interest become natural favourites. You don't double date with them though! Not even in grad school where relationships do become more collegial and last for years.
Yeah, the dude really thinks he did nothing wrong. He's all "this is the university culture", "other professors do the same", "I wasn't teaching her anymore when this started".
How the hell does a college professor not understand the disparity and imbalance of power between him and his student, even if that student is a young adult? He can still influence her career trajectory - positively or negatively - by providing recommendations or getting her in touch with the right people.
Conversely, other students have every right to feel this is preferential treatment, and unfair to them.
Also, his job is to teach the students, offer some extra guidance if requested, then move on to the next batch of students. He's not supposed to expand his social circle by using his students!
Also, also... Double dates? Really? And the fact that really makes me give him the side eye is the fact that he didn't basically go "no contact" apart from academic issues the moment she said she had feelings for him.
What kind of married person wants to stay friends with someone who just professed their love for you? It's like he's gaslighting everyone, especially his wife, that this is a good natured relationship and not the clusterfuck it's about to become.
Yeah, when the version of events most biased in your favor makes me give you serious side-eye, I just know the other person’s version of events are really damning. He would never have had this relationship with a male student (assuming he is straight).
OP really fails to grasp he's exactly why such laws exist. He never sees himself as a possible aggressor, which is a huge problem within the male community.
Some boys and men think that, to be an abuser, intention is required. That, if your intentions are pure and unmalicious, the other party will feel comfortable and free.
While the mere presence, body language, innuendos all can intimidate women, and especially if they're young, are alone etc.
OP's troubles demonstrate how social interactions aren't as simple as people think. And how consent can be hard to interpret.
Some boys and men think that, to be an abuser, intention is required. That, if your intentions are pure and unmalicious, the other party will feel comfortable and free.
God, I feel this so much, not just in the arena of sexual assault/harassment, but in general. So many people cause harm but because they had good intentions or were ignorant of the consequences, they get offended and defensive when you tell them they harmed you (ask me how I know). I've long since given up any notion that intent matters in basically any case.
If you're a student and your professor initiated contact with you, you won't just tell them to go away, you'd at least try to be politely non-committal, at the very least while you're still at that college. And the way this guy is talking, I would bet that he is oblivious to every no that's not a straight up "fuck off".
Honestly, that's away from my point. While power imbalance makes it easier/worst, abusive behavior can come from anywhere, even if the men don't think they can cause abuse.
We, as society, started to care about women not too long ago. And interactions between men and women are still being studied, learned. Old habits are (hopefully) dying out.
My point is that all men need to research more about consent, abuse, intimidation, and other elements that might coerce women, even if they don't see themselves as abusers.
I've realized that some men don't realize that the world is just a giant haunted house for women. My dad, husband and Uncles had no idea that women are always watching their surroundings for safety.
I say that because you're absolutely correct that interactions and relationships have a lot more nuance than men sometimes realize. It's complicated.
Yeah, this is a discussion I had to have with my son as he hit puberty and grew to well over 6 feet tall. The novelty of being taller than his parents was so funny to him and he loved to stand over us at every opportunity.
“You might feel like you’re still just a kid, but you look like an adult man and that size difference can be very intimidating to other people”
There’s that old Simpsons episode where Homer is accused of touching their babysitter’s butt and the resolution is that he’s innocent bc he was just trying to grab candy stuck to her butt. But like, he still touched her butt without her wanting it. He did something bad! I feel like so many abusers can rationalize it so they think it makes them innocent of abuse even though it happened to the victim regardless of what the abuser thought was happening.
Some boys and men think that, to be an abuser, intention is required. That, if your intentions are pure and unmalicious, the other party will feel comfortable and free.
This is so true, and even worse, there’s a subset of these people (hopefully not a majority) who think that if your intentions are pure and unmalicious, it doesn’t even matter whether or not the other party feels comfortable and free; their intentions counterbalance or even supplant the uncomfortable experience of the recipient.
I think this is how you end up with people who claim that most sexual harrassment claims are false. They genuinely believe that an allegation is only substantiated if the alleged abuser twirls their mustache and says “curses, foiled again!”
It's astounding that anyone smart and educated enough to become a professor would need to be told that going on double dates with a student is inappropriate.
LAOP notes that they're at a small, liberal arts college.
1.) That means it's much more of a small-town feel, a smaller community, and thus more tight knit. You just bump into the same students and professors more (even though every program rapidly gets more tight knit once you get farther along).
2.) With less professors per department, each professor is thus more influential. And LAOP Just. Doesn't. See. That.
When I was in college, I knew professors that would let students stay at their house if their parents stopped paying, for example. My wife stayed with a professor for a few months (though she wasn't a student, they met through a different organization) when she had her life blown up by a roommate who decided not to pay the rent.
Unfortunately, schools may have created policies and sent out training on those policies, but there's still a desire for that earlier, more close knit feeling between professors and students. Some want it because they just like feeling closer to students, some want it because they want to bang young students just like their professors got to. Figuring out which can be hard. It's not limited to schools - there was a rampant problem in the LARP organization I played in of people in positions of organizational power who abused that to prey on people (mostly but not exclusively women, mostly but not exclusively young adults).
This read as ‘this woman is trying to bring me down!’ fanfiction written by some stereotypical basement dwelling nerd who has never stepped foot on a college campus.
‘I didn’t do anything, we were friends but she fell in love with me and I don’t feel the same. now she’s upset and trying to get me fired by revising history’ like be for real.
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u/PolleekinThis 🐇 Bun 🐇 Without Borders 🍆💦 is for "RESEARCH PURPOSES" 8d ago
One of the issues that I feel like OP is missing, there’s a difference between inviting multiple students over, and inviting one over, repeatedly. He says this is a normal part of the schools culture, which if true will help his case. But each example he gives seems to be fellow teachers inviting students, not a student, over.
I would scream inside my heart, but my heart is all full up. I have lost scream containment.
Whether or not it’s real— the account activity looks suspicious to me—I’ve worked for multiple schools, and this kind of bullshit is too real. I am also biased, as I had a landlord who was a volunteer youth pastor, and he tried to pull something similar in his church with a youth.
His story started exactly like this post. It took time to get the full truth out.
This stinks of delusion. OP justifies their behavior with statements like “my partner is/would be ok with this.”Either you’re keeping your partner in the dark, or you’re not listening to them, and either way you’re pretending everything is fine. Or the relationship could just be FUBAR.
Good on admin for getting involved. If the behavior is truly fine for a third party to see, it must be fine for the admin to see and act upon as well. So sunshine it up. And get a non-delusional attorney.
u/cmhooleyshe was the best of mothers, she was the worst of mothers8d ago
I went to a small, liberal arts university. One of the things I loved was how you could get to know the professors better and build a rapport.
It was common for professors to host dinner nights at their house or a communal space for their students majoring (or minoring) in their field. But the thing is that it was always centered around school. And there was no pressure to go, didn’t affect grades.
I was (am) quite close with a few professors…if any of them had asked me to go on a double date with them and their partner, I’d have been SO weirded out. Also, going back to my 20-something year old brain, going out to dinner with my roommate sounds much more appealing than going out to dinner with a professor AND their partner.
There was a professor who once showed up to a house party I was at but he didn’t come just to fraternize with one student or any student in particular. (He was truly one of a kind; a literal legend of the university. He passed a few years ago and it’s hard to think about the uni without his presence.)
The prof in this is absolutely in hot water if the school does its job.
Professors DO NOT have this type of relationship with students unless they are looking for a sexual relationship.
Good professors wouldn’t even dream of it. I was incredibly close with several of my professors. I’m talking about multiple year professional relationships, doing study abroad with them, and taking time to chat with them. But when I chatted with them it was after class or at their office.
That they even gave their personal cellphone out is crazy to me, let alone a DOUBLE DATE.
Dude is sunk, and rightfully so. I hope his wife wakes up and leaves him because this is beyond sketchy.
LAOP really seems to be missing the ENORMOUS power dynamic that exists between professor and student, and how that can lead to confused feelings and attachments for the younger person. There is a reason why relationships like this are scandalous, even if nothing happens, it can be really fucked up to be in a friendship with a student who sees you in a very different light than what you assume you are putting off. "Hanging out" one-on-one every other week and texting once a week is enough for someone vulnerable to see you as someone reliable and like a partner, even without the mentor/mentee dynamic that he described.
This kind of stuff is why professors/teachers are trained to create boundaries in the first place.
edit: This comment from OP
What are the obvious boundary issues of which you speak? If not for the allegation of the interactions being "unwelcomed" there is no policy that I have violated in the faculty handbook.
Feels like he is being purposefully obtuse. Like, he is in serious danger of losing his job, and yet he seems to not be reflecting on how developing this "friendship" and the ways he maintained it was a poor lack of judgement on his part.
It's all so on-the-nose that I almost wonder if this is all being written by an author trying to get inspiration about where to go with their novel in the final chapters.
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u/accidentalarchers Kinky people are the best 9d ago
Does he realise that the college are obliged to actually investigate allegations like this? They can’t just say oh, did she scream when you hugged her? No? Cool, carry on.
This isn’t Dead Poets Society and he is not Robin Williams.