Very very nice to catch up with people last night, and exchange words, however brief, with , , , and . Particularly nice to have long chats with , , , , and most of all after many years (apart from family, the lj-user I have known for longest, jointly with ). Sorry not to have even managed to exchange words with , , , and anybody else who I knew who was there – come ten o’clock the week’s travels caught up with me and I just had to disappear off to bed.
Related
It was interesting to read the two links about the student who appeared to ask someone to write their essay. I found myself in a similar position while I was at Oxford, and was emailed with what appeared to be a thinly disguised attempt asking my views on something I didn’t actively research but did teach from a student at a University I had no prior connection with. One of my friends was teaching that course at the University concerned, so after a bit of thought I replied saying that the topic wasn’t really my area but that I was sure that my friend, his lecturer, would be in a far better position to help him with his essay and cc’d my friend on the reply.
My friend called to let me know that the questions he’d asked me were all part of his next piece of coursework. The student got a bollocking and I thought that was that.
However, one of the postdocs at the other University saw the opportunity to make some political capital. The postdoc started a campaign against me that centred on ‘elitist’ Universities refusing to engage with students at red brick institutions, and that I had denied the student his freedom of speech and oppressed someone who had simply tried to use email as a way of developing his studies. The postdoc managed to cause a small stink at his home institution which was known for its ‘radical’ approach to the subject and left wing views. A letter of complaint was sent by their Head of Department to my Head of Department (who thought I’d done exactly the right thing and had no case to answer) and their Head of Department also told me that I would never be considered for a faculty post at their institution.
This spat became widely known as the postdoc spread rumours and left blemish on my reputation in terms of dealing with students, it seemed to become a core part of the subject gossip about me. I was questioned about the incident in most of the interviews I subsequently had for lectureships. To my face most people seemed to think I had behaved quite reasonably when the facts were explained, but I never actually got a tenured post and I was always somewhat resentful about the way aspersions had been cast. In hindsight I’m pretty sure I’d still handle it exactly the same way.