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13 hours ago, ICTChris said:

I went to University in the late 1990s and there were always plenty of male lecturers who had reputations for sleazing over female students. I guess it’s probably unavoidable to some extent.

I remember one of my lecturers being like this. Always in his office with the door locked. Whenever anyone knocked, he was in with a female student. Many students avoided him as he was seen as a bit creepy.

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On 01/11/2021 at 22:45, ICTChris said:

I went to University in the late 1990s and there were always plenty of male lecturers who had reputations for sleazing over female students. I guess it’s probably unavoidable to some extent.

My supervisor started dating his (now) wife whilst she was a PhD student in his dept in the early noughties.  I think that he was her supervisor at the time, but I may be wrong.  Whatever the situation was, it was certainly shifty.

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8 hours ago, Hedgecutter said:

My supervisor started dating his (now) wife whilst she was a PhD student in his dept in the early noughties.  I think that he was her supervisor at the time, but I may be wrong.  Whatever the situation was, it was certainly shifty.

He and she obviously didn't think so, unless they had concerns about what other people thought of them.

Edited by beefybake
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The head of my degree course (and the school overall IIRC) who i had for a few lectures always seemed a bit of a wrong'un, but mostly in the sort of basement dweller VL type of way, everyone openly made jokes about him being a bit of a manchild and there perhaps being something a bit off about him, but nothing too sinister. Then out of the blue in the middle of a semester a few years ago, a number of serious allegations were made against him, for which he was eventually found guilty. It was a bit of a strange period as massive chunk of our course material was written and taught by him, was always a bit awkward when the tutors would pull up a set of slides/documents with his name plastered all over them.

Edited by Fratelli
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On 01/11/2021 at 22:45, ICTChris said:

Just listened to a podcast by Al Jazeera Investigates about Ian Shaw, a lecturer in human geography at Glasgow and the allegations made against him of inappropriate behaviour by six different women, some colleagues and some students.  The whole thing sounds very unsatisfactory - the students said he emotionally manipulated them and was inappropriate with them with some of the conduct veering into harassment.

I went to University in the late 1990s and there were always plenty of male lecturers who had reputations for sleazing over female students. I guess it’s probably unavoidable to some extent.

lol I recognised the name so I googled and it turns out my Masters dissertation got its title from one of his books. 

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21 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

lol I recognised the name so I googled and it turns out my Masters dissertation got its title from one of his books. 

The podcast is worth listening to.  The women involved used the phrase 'grooming' as he didn't directly proposition them he would kind of hint at it.  He also made a counter complaint about one of the women, claiming she was sexually harrassing him which is a bit of a dick move.  The transcripts of his responses were just him being incredulous that he was being asked to account for his behaviour.

The other programmes in the series are about the guy who is chair of Anglo-Saxon at a Cambridge college, the same chair that JRR Tolkien had.  He sounds like a straightforward drunken sleazy groper, doubt Mr Tolkien would approve.

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If (for some mysterious reason) you want power over impressionable, naïve teenagers from sheltered backgrounds, it's hard to think of many better careers to pursue than university lecturer.

Probably has a similarly high ratio of wrong 'uns as teaching PE.

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When I was at uni the head of one of the departments was sh@gging one of my female classmates.  I kinda thought they were up to something but she denied it.

She had been my mate since first year, he was sound as a tutor and married, met his wife a few times and she was nice so I was a bit conflicted to say the least.

We did a class trip to America, flew over with his wife who then went off to visit her parents while we toured the states for the next two weeks in some cases staying with his friends and family.

I was in bed asleep when the sh!t hit the fan.  Apparently she had been getting up in the middle of the night and disappearing from her hotel room in het PJs leaving to door ajar then returning hours later.  Eventually it p!ssed off the rest of the female classmates sharing a room with her.

Next day there was a wee lecture about rumours and his integrity being questioned.  Remainder of the trip was a bit uncomfortable.

A few weeks later an unsigned letter arrived on the desk of the rector of the uni which was followed up with one to a tabloid.  While not condoning what they were doing, it was pretty much agreed that the person suspected of doing it was a back stabber as he was a mate of hers and got on well with him as a student (and not the type of person who should be casting the first stone).

Classmates not even on the the trip nor doing his course ended up being doorstepped on the morning of their exams, lecturer and his colleague ended up being chased by the press in a car through the countryside.  It was mental, totally mental.

On the day of my final exam as I walked down the road after it with my classmate, I suddenly gave her my cap and told her to pull her scarf up to her face as somebody I suspected was a reporter attempted to stop us.  He started asking if I knew who blah blah was (it was obvious he knew it was her with me) and when I said no he then tried to hand me an envelope to pass on to her...he was told in no uncertain term where to go.  Then out the corner of my eye I saw a photographer trying to take her pic.  We then had to make a break for to my car and do a runner with them chasing after us.

Next day she got the train to Edinburgh where she met him and they flew to Ireland.

They ended up coming back here, got a house and were together for a few years until it all fizzled out.  He is now back in America with his wife and doing really well outside of academia, she is living in Ireland, also very happy, but it was a mental 6 months in my final year.

Edited by Sugar_Army
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17 hours ago, Hedgecutter said:

My supervisor started dating his (now) wife whilst she was a PhD student in his dept in the early noughties.  I think that he was her supervisor at the time, but I may be wrong.  Whatever the situation was, it was certainly shifty.

On the range of beastliness, that's pretty well down my radar.

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1 minute ago, welshbairn said:

On the range of beastliness, that's pretty well down my radar.

I initially scanned "early Noughties" as her age, which bumped it up a bit.

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Suppose there's the argument that there's not really a problem if he's not grading her work.  Hardly Tony Shales territory.

Then again, that "aye, but she's not in my class" doesn't really float with teachers dating 6th years at high school.

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I've been at uni for 17 of the past 24 years as a student and staff member. Can't say I know of any scandal on the scale of what has been discussed here - staff dating students. To me that's really, really serious and should be banned, if it isn't already. 

I know of only two minor scandals. The first - when we finished our final exams we hit Stirling as a class and all got a bit pished. A few lecturers came along and one of them ended up snogging a student. Nobody at the time minded but looking at it now it seems really off to me. For one, the degree classifications hadn't been decided yet so she was still a student. It just seemed wrong to me. 

The second, not concerning students, but there was a big wife-swapping thing going on with a few lecturers in the 90s. It wasn't just in one uni, either. One of our professors and lecturers were into it, along with folk in Edinburgh and a few other places. It caused a bit of a scandal as the wife of the lecturer eventually left him for the professor. I remember one day the professor was in our office - can't remember why - and my supervisor was smiling and nodding, even though he couldn't stand him. As soon as the professor left the room, my supervisor said in a voice loud enough for him to hear - "Wife swapping Aberdonian twat". 

On this last point, if you ever, ever thought there was glamour in wife-swapping, meeting these people would put you off it. They were all in their fifties. Bald, overweight, grey hair...the most unattractive people you can ever imagine. 

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17 hours ago, scottsdad said:

On this last point, if you ever, ever thought there was glamour in wife-swapping, meeting these people would put you off it. They were all in their fifties. Bald, overweight, grey hair...the most unattractive people you can ever imagine. 

Wid

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On the range of beastliness, that's pretty well down my radar.

If you're someone's PhD supervisor then there's not an equal power dynamic - you have the ability to hugely influence their career path even if you're not the one directly assessing them. I'd therefore say that's a big no-no.

A PhD student who you have no direct supervisory relationship with is probably a different story, you'd probably have to declare it to HR and so on though.
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