[A University of Connecticut professor’s] travel expenses include three Disney trips. A travel request described the purpose of one such trip as visiting the Central Florida State Archives.
[The professor] later confirmed that she did not go to the archives, investigators say.
Instead, … she visited the park [with her children] to look at the experience of Disney and how it sanitizes American history…
[The professor] also used school money on a trip to Northern Ireland in November of 2023. [She] got married there, but claimed the entire trip was work-related, according to the compliance report.
She told university staff that she was married at 9:30 in the morning at city hall in Belfast, and that it only took 20 minutes …
[M]any of the trips took place when [she] was supposed to be teaching classes.
March 13th, 2025 at 5:47AM
I’m not by any means defending Zane, but it does look kind of like UConn came up with a shady way of getting around their union contract: pay faculty for work they shouldn’t be doing by putting the money in a research slush fund. Had UConn actually paid her for the work she did, she could, in fact, have used those funds to take the family to Disney World (though not on company time). But instead, since faculty can “waive compensation” (ha!), she could only use the this-is-not-a-salary for research purposes.
Regardless, it’s clear that she’s not very good at this. There are a *bazillion* conferences held in Orlando each year. All she had to do was choose three of them, serve as a panel discussant, and spend the rest of her time “mentally mapping” the Magic Kingdom. Nobody would have raised a single challenge.
March 13th, 2025 at 8:51AM
TAFKAU: LOL – the “choose one of a bazillion conferences” approach indeed eluded her. But I suspect this is because she’s a total non-compromiser on the matter of doing a lick of work — even panel discussant. I’d guess she’s someone with an undifferentiated resentment of the world, and is therefore always looking for ways to screw it over. For people like this, it’s not just breaking the rules — it’s deep pleasure at making fools of rule-making bodies.
As to the waive compensation thing: When I read about it, I said HUH? out loud. New one on me.
And though she hasn’t figured out – or doesn’t care to – the panel discussant thing, RMP makes clear she’s figured out how to avoid teaching. No exams, lots of speakers, lots of films, lots of group activity and student presentations, and of course everyone (it seems) gets an A.