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Thursday, September 28, 2006

Getting Weird Out There.


'Until earlier today, viewers of BoingBoing, a popular blog, could watch a video clip of a giggling business-school lecturer acting goofy in class, under the heading “apparently-baked biz school prof who was soon fired.”

The professor, Howard J. Hall, a lecturer at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business, appears in a video still on the site brandishing his middle finger. The video was available through links to the college’s Web site. Next to the photo, the poster wrote: “It appears from the content of this video that this University of Florida professor—whom everyone has to take in the business school—got REALLY REALLY REALLY HIGH before one of his classes.”

The poster goes on to say, “He does ramble, but he’s far more entertaining than any of the business school professors I ever sat through.”

By late today, the spectacle on BoingBoing was no longer available because the video had been removed from the college’s Web site, where it had been offered as part of a classroom-video service. Copies of the video are probably still somewhere out in cyberspace, however.

William A. McCullough, senior associate dean at the college, said Mr. Hall had been relieved of his teaching duties, pending a review of his employment status. Mr. McCullough said he had received a half-dozen calls so far from “the curious public,” adding that there are some “unfortunate things” going on with Mr. Hall. “This is a human problem, not an institutional problem,” said Mr. McCullough. “This man has problems.”

Mr. Hall could not be reached for comment today.'