Thursday Hearing at SIU Ends in Du Quoin Student's Suspension
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[ Francis D. Stanley, the 43-year-old owner of Mane Stream Promotions of Du Quoin, had been attending SIUC until 9:25 p.m. Thursday night when his suspension became official.
Charges of disorderly conduct and failure to comply with disciplinary sanction ended in a year long suspension effective immediately. Furthermore, Stanley's re-entry to SIU requires he undergo a psychological evaluation before being able to attend.
Student Judicial Affairs Director Terry Huffman presided over the hearing which began at 4 p.m. and was open to the public per Stanley's request.
"This is a unique case," Huffman stated. Judicial Affairs receives hundreds of cases during the year, mostly alcohol-related, but only receives two or three cases a year concerning disruptive students.
Stanley's story begins in December, 2008. The College of Business had filed a disorderly conduct complaint against Stanley after an altercation in the main office where he allegedly raised his voice to the point it alarmed the faculty.
Stanley alleges that two of the four witnesses were unable to repeat anything he had said during the altercation, and further alleged that all of the witnesses said they were not alarmed by his actions. Stanley was found guilty, despite his allegations, and was told that he had to take part in counseling and had to receive permission before visiting a school counselor to change or sign-up for classes.
For the spring semester in 2009 Stanley signed up and began to attend an English 101 class taught by graduate teaching assistant Vanessa Ink. Stanley engaged in weeks of criticism of Ink's teaching style and methods both in the classroom and in eMails.
Stanley, who has no teaching experience, told Ink that forms of peer review and group projects were ineffective and incorrect. Group projects consisted of the class of 15 breaking into groups and teaching from chapters that were read the previous day. Stanley called this wrong because it was like the, "blind leading the blind," since they did not know what should be taught. That, in his opinion, was what Ink should have been simply lecturing about.
When Stanley's advice and recommendations for change weren't accepted, Ink alleged that Stanley began to speak with other students and undermined her authority to teach the class.
"He began to influence other students in the classroom," Ink said, "After receiving his grade for his first paper he had a few words with another student who also received a lower grade."
Stanley did not receive a traditional grade the first time he got his paper back. The story could be on any subject Stanley chose to write about his time in Du Quoin.
Stanley's paper centered on a dialogue that he was having with a local business in Du Quoin and talked his difficulties in understanding them with their strong southern draw and the cultural differences. His piece, entitled "From the City to the County" contains lines such as, "I am used to speaking in an intelligent way. Things are quite different here. Living here is like living in the middle of a cornfield," and "It sounds like calling the 70's show Hee Haw," and "Not that long ago they (Du Quoin) were using stone tablets or Lincoln's coal shovel to communicate."
Ink believed that the stereotypes used in the story were not appropriate for the audience, which for the assignment were fellow classmates since the paper was to be used in peer review. She returned the paper to Stanley with comments asking him to change his story to be less offensive to those who would be from the area and gave him an incomplete as a grade.
Stanley made changes to the paper, but not the ones required, and asked the teacher to grade him on structure and punctuation instead of content, which is what English 101 grades its students on. Stanley received his first and second papers back at the same time the following week. He received an A- on his second paper but received a D- on his first paper. Stanley believes this grade came as a result of Ink's opinion of his stereotypes, which were not prohibited in the instructions.
Still upset about his grade, Stanley took his argument to Ink's supervisor, Dr. Rhonda Dively. A phone conversation with a secretary ended with Stanley stating, "Why am I explaining this to you? You can't do anything for me."
Dively was unavailable at the time of the first call and later saw Stanley in her office when she returned at a later date. The meeting resulted in Stanley raising his voice, and Dively in turn raising hers, which caused a disturbance in the department. Stanley allegedly stormed out of the office shortly after and the chair of the department, Dr. Michael Molino, made a non-emergency call to the SIU police regarding the altercation. The police made record of the incident. Stanley was charged with disorderly conduct based on events from this situation.
Stanley was banned from campus and was unable to attend class without a police escort. Due to this ban, Stanley said prevented him from attending counseling. To avoid further problems, Dively and Molino agreed to meet with Stanley to work out an agreement so that the class could be better suited to his needs. In the agreement that was made with Stanley, Stanley was not to criticize Ink's teaching any further and was to apologize to her. The department agreed to have professors sit in on Ink's class to observe her teaching.
Soon afterward, Stanley sent an email to Ink apologizing, but the latter half of the email continued to make comments on her way of teaching. Professors who had sat in on Ink's class had only minor advice for the GTA's methods. Stanley was given one more warning to stop behaving in the way he had been. Stanley continued his critique. Stanley was charged with failure to comply with disciplinary sanction based on this event and those leading up to the event, including the previous case involving the College of Business.
During the testimony Huffman had to inform Stanley to return to order (allowing witnesses to answer and keep commentary out of cross-examination) nearly half a dozen times.
Stanley denied the severity of the situations throughout the case, "You don't let wrong become a problem. You correct it before it becomes a problem," Stanley stated, referring to the alleged ineffective curriculum.
Huffman asked Stanley, "What have you taken responsibility for?" making reference to his continued criticism, in class disruptions and previous behavior with the College of Business. Stanley viewed himself as the victim in all the situations and believed he did nothing wrong.
"You're going to continue to the very end until you get what you want," Huffman stated, "I think we will see this again."
Huffman asked, "Why should I allow you to remain at this university?"
"The last thing we want is fighting. I had no intention of being a disturbance. I just came here to get my education," Stanley replied.
Stanley remained persistent that he had done absolutely nothing wrong even while keeping a snide attitude with Huffman.
Huffman's ruling was not to expel Stanley, but to suspend him for one year in hopes of allowing him to clear his mind before returning.
"Like I would seriously consider coming back after this," Stanley said.
Stanley chose the option to appeal his suspension, "I may not appeal, I just want the option to be there."
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