From the campus newspaper:
“ Creative writing professor Joy Harjo has resigned amid rumors that strife between the department’s faculty and senior administrators cannot be resolved.
Harjo, the University’s only Joseph Russo Endowed Professor, said her resignation was a result of the administration’s decision to retain associate professor Lisa Chavez.
Pictures of Chavez posing with one of her students on a sadomasochism Web site were discovered in spring 2007.
Chavez could not be reached for comment.
Diane Thiel, associate professor in the English department, said Harjo’s resignation is an incalculable loss to the University.
“The administration’s mishandling of the very serious matter regarding professor Lisa Chavez and apparent ignoring of at least eight formal student letters reporting mistreatment has created a learning and work environment that is untenable for numerous faculty and students,” Thiel said. “Faculty and students have resigned and left UNM over this and will likely continue to. The recent resignation of Joy Harjo, arguably the most well-known Native American poet in the world, [This is true. But anyone who thinks the sports-obsessed administration of UNM cares is naive.] highlights the seriousness of the situation, many details of which have yet to be reported to the media.”
Harjo said Chavez was retained as a University employee because administrators were afraid of a lawsuit and wanted to keep the problem quiet.
Harjo said she could not continue to work in a program “that has been so deeply compromised” and that she didn’t trust the University to uphold the rights of its students and faculty.
“The Chavez-and-students sex-site debacle was mishandled,” Harjo said. “Because of this, the creative writing program lost face and credibility locally and nationally. Those of us – a majority of the creative writing program – who pushed for a proper ethics investigation based on policies already in place were retaliated against for speaking up. This whole situation could have been handled in a way that was respectful to all parties. As it is, only the rights of one person was [were] considered.”
Julie Shigekuni, director of creative writing, did not return phone calls Monday, but on Nov. 3, Shigekuni sent an e-mail to faculty members and creative writing students that said the creative writing faculty “voted to move forward immediately with a job search for a new assistant professor in poetry.”
However, the position’s job description says candidates seeking employment at UNM as a tenure-track faculty member must be able to start in August of 2009.
The teaching load is two courses per semester, and qualified applicants should have obtained their master’s or higher, have experience teaching poetry and possess a significant record of being published.
The job description was drawn up the same week President David Schmidly declared a hiring freeze.
Susan McKinsey, spokeswoman for the University, said the hiring freeze can be broken and exceptions might be made when it comes to certain types of faculty hires.
“There are some positions for every department that are considered crucial,” McKinsey said. “So … they ask for an exception from the provost,” McKinsey said.
Professor Sharon Warner, former director of creative writing, said Harjo’s resignation will leave a huge dent in the already crumbling infrastructure of the department, no matter who is selected to take her place.
Warner resigned from her position as creative writing director in March, and she said she requested a sabbatical because the University’s investigation into Chavez’s actions was insufficient.
Warner said Harjo is departing for the same reasons.
“The University has made a large number of mistakes in the investigation of this situation,” Warner said. “And they’ve done such a poor job of it that they’ve now backed themselves into a corner.”
Harjo said she did not resign to pursue another job.
She said she requested a severance package because she resigned under duress but that her request was denied.
“I have no plans at this time to join any other University,” Harjo said. “In the spirit of the teachings of the Mvskoke people, I will continue forward and carry with me only that which nourishes.”
Richard Holder, deputy provost of Academic Affairs, said Harjo did not need a severance package and would be compensated by receiving pay for the spring semester.
“Faculty members are under contract for a nine-month period, and under her standing work agreement, she doesn’t teach a class anyway the second half of the first semester and all of the second semester, and so she is keeping her employment with the University until the contract period is over in May of 2009, and so we felt that was sufficient,” Holder said. [She only teaches a class for half a semester? That's odd. Some sort of team-taught thing maybe.]
Harjo said the pay was insufficient.
“I’m suffering a great loss from losing this job. I’m suffering several years of loss,” Harjo said. “It was a hard decision to make when you look at economic times and the strain of being an artist. They didn’t give me anything extra. That was nothing extra. That was the year that I was paid for.” [Fine. Harjo - note the incredibly light teaching duties - isn't a hugely sympathetic figure either. But she's right. UNM did mess up, and continues to mess up, and with Harjo's departure, and ongoing strife, creative writing there is in big trouble.]
Harjo said she wouldn’t have left the University if Chavez had been dismissed.
Holder said the University had no plans to terminate or reinvestigate Chavez.
“Lisa Chavez remains an employee of the University and a professor of the English department where she has tenure, and the University is not planning to contest her tenure in any way, and if that was a part of Joy Harjo’s reason for resigning, I think we regret that,” Holder said. “I think we would like to say that we very much regret her loss. She was a valuable member of our faculty. [Strange locution: I think.. I think we would like to say...]“
Read earlier UD posts on the Chavez mess here.
November 11th, 2008 at 2:22PM
It is sad but true the UNM continues to be run an administration that is more interested in lining its own pockets then delivering a truly high quality education to students.
Not only does this administration refuse to remove Chavez, Prez Schmidly has hired VP’s at the expense of faculty salaries, his son was hired for a position (and resigned it ASAP in the face of protests),and is planning to renovate the basketball arena while students struggle to learn in outdated, overcrowded classrooms.
At UNM one thing is horribly obvious: lining the pockets of cronies comes first. A sadly consistent New Mexico story.
This school badly needs an individual with class and integrity at the helm.
Someone committed to education. (Imagine a school committed to education!)
We are not there yet.
November 11th, 2008 at 5:23PM
m"I think we regret that,” Holder said. “I think we would like to say…"
Strange locution indeed. Man, I hate those qualifiers. They’re so sissy.
November 11th, 2008 at 7:32PM
UD, you’ve made several posts about Chavez, but I still don’t understand what you think the administration did wrong in handling the Chavez tiff. I wish you would clarify your position.
As far as I can see, Chavez did nothing remotely wrong, and the administration did the right thing by defending her off-campus expression (and the student’s). It’s true perhaps that they haven’t been very diplomatic in handling the hysterical colleagues of Chavez who are feigning emotional injury over Chavez’ personal life, but I doubt anything will make those colleagues come back to rationality.
Sometimes I get the feeling that you’ve implicitly cast your lot with the "All sexual behavior between professors and their students is inherently wrong" position, and that you don’t even consider the position debatable. But I can’t really tell what you think, because you haven’t shown your cards. As a professor, I don’t think my colleagues have any business governing my consensual off-campus behavior, even if it be with students in my department (who I’m not grading/advising).
November 11th, 2008 at 9:39PM
Jonathan: Good questions. I’ve probably been a bit coy on this one.
I’m a fervent defender of one’s freedom to engage in, as you say, “consensual off-campus behavior, even if it be with students…” I had affairs with more than one of the professors at my university when I was a student. Quite often, on my blog, I’ve defended the right of professors and students to be left alone under these circumstances.
The Chavez thing is not, however, a love affair between a professor and a student. It was a commercial phone sex – prostitution ring, with clearly identifiable photographs online in advertisements of Professor Chavez and graduate students with whom she was then working in class, and as a paid specialist in sadomasochism outside of class.
I’ll quote from one of my first posts about the situation:
“The scandal will blow over very quickly [Note that I was totally wrong in this prediction], so students shouldn’t be worried about the program. Chavez – a horrible writer – will produce a cheesy I’m a professor who fucks! book which will also blow over quickly, despite the lies she’ll put in it about her hot bod. As to her unprofessionalism – the university is correct that it’s got consenting adult pervs in the creative writing program and that though the professor should have resisted the students’ blandishments and refused to take up the whip, there’s nothing actionable here.
UD does think that when Chavez returns from her sabbatical, some highly placed administrator should tell her that she may not have anything to do professionally with the students she strips and talks dirty with. Said administrator should also ask her not to do it again, or to hide her identity next time, or whatever. This person should also say that if her activities again become public, the university will reduce her salary quite a bit.”
This situation is not about feigned hysteria on the part of her colleagues, but reasonable and sincere outrage because of the damage her very public, very embarrassing behavior (which she continues to defend and certainly says nothing about stopping) does to the seriousness of an academic institution. There are reasons for the moral turpitude clauses in tenure contracts.
Again, these were graduate students whom Chavez was indeed, I believe, grading and advising at various points, and as far as I can tell many students and most of the creative writing faculty were and remain disgusted and angry about it. I don’t think that makes them moral hysterics or repressed marms. Universities are serious places that stand for serious thought and civilized values. Since this professor showed and shows wanton disregard for those values, I’m not surprised her colleagues are angry. Again, a quotation from one of my earlier posts about Chavez:
“While UD thinks faculty should do more or less what they want on their own time, she agrees with Warner and Harjo that Lisa Chavez’s behavior was grotesque enough — and you don’t hear her apologizing for it, or saying she won’t do it again — that UNM should have been able to impose some sanctions. UD remains perplexed as to why it does not…. See, sanctions make sense because the theme of the pictures is academic, the gaggee is one of her students, and the photos were widely published. In fact, Mistress Jade and her students appear on a commercial website, with Mistress Jade making money by trading on her status as a professor. This shows a degenerate disregard for the ethos and reputation of her university…”
I don’t think – as some of her colleagues do – that Chavez should be made to resign. I think she should be reprimanded, and I think she should in some real way be sanctioned.
December 10th, 2008 at 1:07PM
I’m not going to give my name because I’m trying to graduate at UNM, and as both a student who wrote a letter and someone who actually posed on the website (not with Chavez), I’ve been retaliated against extensively by the people who are grossed out and the people who assume that I was a part of Chavez’s choice to pose. I didn’t even know she was working there becuse I quit a long time before she started. The job was awful. I took it because the woman I was dating introduced the idea and, thanks to no funding, I was temporarily homeless and about to drop out of college.
Warner, Harjo and a few other professors are the only reason I haven’t been run off campus, though Chavez and friends made a very effective go at trying. I’d like to speak to the whole ‘oh noes, Chavez is only guilty of being pervy with consenting graduate students’ frame put on this godawful mess.
If that were the only thing going on, no one would be as upset. But that’s not all. I have been deposed by a hostile lawyer who treated me and the other eight students who were deposed like we were crazy (I finally got a copy of the transcript, in which the lawyer, instead of transcribing what I said, wrote, ‘[comments were paranoid and unfortunate]‘ and ‘untranscribable’ repeatedly.) I’ve been insulted and had my credibilty questioned thanks to Chavez, who used her ‘friendly’ (do me a favor or I’ll ruin your reputation) relationships with other students to start rumors ranging from my being an addict to my planning a ‘Virginia Tech’ style event. I have had to go talk to the campus police, who were called because Chavez convinced a student I was going to kill her. Chavez took portions of my writing out of context and sent it to the administration as ‘proof’ I was going to do something and showed them around the department. Now everytime I write the CW I came to, I’m afraid some of it might be used to cause me grief in the program. None of the student letter writers I’ve talked to have been taken seriously and several have been threatened and/or insulted by the University OEO office when they complained. One woman was told that if she talked about it, the OEO would be forced to take action against her for ‘creating a hostile leanring environment.’ I was told that (despite eight letters) what Chavez did was all ‘isolated incidences’, and as a result, could not be considered harrassment.
The reason Warner has not mentioned this is because the students involved have asked her not to bring it into the public arena. Most of us are afraid that if we do talk about it we will suffer more. I have been told my ability to get a job with this on my reputation is almost nill. In this climate, or really any, this is a serious threat. People often look only at age when they determine whether something was consentual. How about if the professor in question threatens you with ‘You better shut your mouth’ during administrative meetings or grades you based on whether they like you (something in every single one of the student letters)? How about if they spend class time telling you how useless and pathetic you are and how you shouldn’t be there and she feels sorry for you? Is that enough of a power dynamic for this to be more than a slight ‘no more stripping with students, bad professor’? How about the professor in question trying to get you arrested? How about every time you go to a seminar or a committee, at least one of the committee members asks you if you’re still using or what’s wrong with girls like you? Or just refuses to work with you because you ‘made Chavez do what she did’. As if a student can make a professor abuse her power the way Chavez has.
I cannot believe that Chavez continues to paint this as a ‘the students made me do it’ issue. But I have to live with it every single day, from my fellow students and the professors I have to deal with. If I could afford a lawyer, I’d be suing the shit out of the University for retaliation, destruction of my graduate records, harrassment, an education which, at this point, centers around me trying to explain that I don’t do drugs, I own a handgun for self-defense, that the term ‘girls like you’ is incredibly sexist and that I got into the program on academic merit. Sometimes I wish I had just left like the other students. I envy them for quitting. But I’m going to finish my degree and never, ever set foot on this campus again.
My favorite, of all the letter quotes, was the one in which the student was told, by Chavez, that Chavez would never get in trouble because ’she had a client in the UNM administration.’
The president’s office told the rest of the English department that our letters were ‘coerced’ by Warner. That’s also what they told the invesitgating lawyers. I asked the faculty.