Perspective: Faculty misconduct raises questions over monitoring

'Innocent until proven guilty" isn't just the mantra of the United States legal system - it's also the way Penn oversees its tenured professors.

The arrests of former Neurosurgery professor Tracy McIntosh, former Marketing professor Scott Ward and Economics professor Rafael Robb have put the spotlight on the University's response to faculty wrongdoings.

And even though the University has a strict guidelines it follows to determine the best response when faculty get into trouble, the structure of the process makes it unlikely that a faculty offender could be caught before a crime is committed.

But faculty and experts say the University would not be justified in surveilling its faculty members, regardless of their histories - and thus, it seems, it's not so simple to prevent the sorts of scandals that have cropped up in recent memory.

According to Lois Chiang, a spokeswoman from the Office of the Provost, whether a faculty member's arrest or criminal conviction should result in his or her exclusion from the classroom of removal from the faculty is a matter governed by the Faculty Handbook.

The Handbook stipulates that major sanctions, such as termination of employment or suspension, can only be imposed in cases "involving flagrant disregard of the rules of the University or of the customs of scholarly communities."

Examples of such offenses include "harassment of, improperly providing controlled substances to, or physical assault upon, a member of the University community" or "commission of serious crimes such as, but not limited to, murder or rape."

Cases involving the potential imposition of major sanctions are held before either the Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility of the faculty member's school or in front of the University Tribunal.

The board that hears the case recommends a sanction to the University president, who "shall normally accept" and administer the proposed penalty, according to the Faculty Handbook.

But, sometimes, professors with somewhat questionable backgrounds don't always go through that process.

McIntosh pleaded no contest to sexual assault and was sentenced to 11 to 23 months of house arrest in early 2005 after he allegedly drugged and raped a 23-year-old woman.

Before that, however, McIntosh may have been the subject of complaints regarding severe and inappropriate behavior while he was at Penn, according to court documents.

The documents reveal that a potential civil trial for McIntosh and the University would have detailed complaints brought by the former professor's younger female co-workers to the University regarding his behavior in the lab.

The complainant alleged that University officials "conspired and agreed to obstruct justice and hinder the criminal investigation and prosecution of [McIntosh] by withholding material evidence" such as a "history of acts of sexual harassment" and "sexual advances to women workers, students and colleagues."

But Penn maintains that there was no effort to withhold evidence.

"There was no cover-up or conspiracy to protect Dr. McIntosh," University spokeswoman Lori Doyle told The Pennsylvania Gazette in May 2005.

After McIntosh pled no contest to the charges, Arthur Rubenstein, dean of the School of Medicine, asked him to resign, and McIntosh complied.

And with Scott Ward, the history was somewhat clearer.

Ward pled guilty last week to charges of producing child pornography for importation into the United States, but has not been sentenced.

Prior to this plea, Ward had faced trial for various charges. In 1995, he was acquitted during a trial for allegedly paying a teenage boy for sex on dozens of occasions and later faced charges for allegedly soliciting sex from a state trooper who posed as a 15 year old. The former professor entered an "Alford Plea," admitting that there was enough evidence to convict him without admitting guilt.

But based on the evidence presented at that time, the University decided "not to proceed with the imposition of major sanctions," Deputy Provost Janice Bellace told The Daily Pennsylvanian this past September, though the reason for that decision remains unclear.

An professor emeritus at the time of his most recent arrest, Ward was able to be removed from the faculty without the usual proceedings afforded to standing faculty members.

In cases concerning faculty behavior, there remains a line of thought that department heads should not be encroaching on a professor's private life merely to monitor behavior.

Provost spokeswoman Lois Chiang did say that deans and department chairpersons are expected "to ensure that faculty members are abiding by our codes of conduct."

But it is unclear how far administrators should go in monitoring faculty - for some, 'monitoring' often equates to an invasion of privacy.

"A department chairman is not a probation officer," Criminology Department chairman Larry Sherman said. "He is not entitled to obtain information about a faculty member's private life."

It has never been - and, in his opinion, should not be - the University's job to "police the lives of . the faculty," he added. "There are some people who are accused who are innocent, and there are some people who are accused who are guilty, and it's just very important that we respect those two possibilities."

English Department Chairman James English added that he doesn't "monitor his faculty in the least, except with respect to their regular teaching and service obligations."

Marketing Department Chairman Robert Meyer does takes monitoring a step further, saying that department heads should be conscientious of "aspects of [professors'] private lives that affect them in the workplace."

But regardless of an individual administrator's philosophy, cases in which there is a clear history of warning signs - such as those of McIntosh and Ward - beg the question as to whether simply monitoring professional performance is enough to prevent a future crime.

College junior Sonia Pascal, who founded Penn's Sexual Harassment Task Force, believes "the University has a responsibility to protect its students."

Pascal pointed out that measures such as monthly meetings with administrators in Ward's case or a more formal complaint system in McIntosh's case could have helped to prevent repeat crimes in both instances.

"If there's an awareness that there's a problem," she said, "I think the University has a responsibility to do something about it."

Senior Staff Writer Samuel Dangremond can be e-mailed at sdangrem@sas.upenn.edu. Profiles written by

Senior Staff Writer Alanna Kaufman.

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