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Monday, June 06, 2005
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I HEART STUDENT I.D. NUMBERS Eighteen minutes ago, this story jumped from the Florida papers to MSNBC, and though UD doesn’t usually bother with criminal professor stories (there are always a few professors who get caught selling drugs on the side and that sort of thing), this one has intriguing elements. An anatomy professor at a community college “asked his students to write their names and Social Security numbers on a sign-in sheet, students said. ‘We all signed it,’ Amanda Bracewell said. ‘We figured, He’s a teacher, what is he going to do with it?”’ Answer: Steal the numbers and use his students’ credit: "The investigation started when a student who lost her wallet contacted the credit reporting company Equifax and asked them to monitor her credit. When someone applied for credit in her name, she mentioned this to other students in Slosberg's class. It wasn't immediately clear if she knew Slosberg was a suspect in the case, Rodgers said. On March 15, according to a Sheriff's Office report, a student, whose name was not available, was notified that someone tried to use her name and Social Security number to obtain credit cards. She was given the name and address of the person who applied for the credit cards and recognized the name as her Anatomy and Physiology II professor. On April 25, the Winter Haven Police Department was contacted by another alleged victim. She told them that a former classmate of hers called to tell her about being the victim of identity theft by Slosberg. The victim checked with several major credit companies and found out that a charge account using her name and Slosberg's address had been opened at Eddie Bauer, and $600 in charges had been made, according to a Winter Haven police report. On May 1, another student said that she was contacted by Macy's Department store and was told that someone had used her name and Social Security number on a credit application. The address on the application was Slosberg's, according to a sheriff's report." Slosberg and his girlfriend are now under arrest (“The Sheriff's Office retrieved 40 pieces of mail intended for delivery to Slosberg's house in one day. The mail was addressed to 17 different names, according to a sheriff's report."), and the practice of using social security numbers as student i.d. numbers has been discontinued at the college… But one element of this story is especially striking to UD: "Slosberg taught Anatomy/Physiology II in the fall at PCC, the only class he ever taught at the college. He was a popular teacher with some students, but half the class signed a petition to have him fired because they didn't like his teaching style, student Amanda Bracewell said." UD is often struck by the fact that no matter how bad the bad apples among American professors may be, there are always some students in their classes who think they’re great. Here half the class signs a petition asking that a professor - teaching his first course at Polk that semester - be fired. These students clearly saw something problematic in the teaching style of a person whose main mode of interaction with them was sizing them up as objects of larceny. And yet even he had his cheering section. |