Keturah Bixby: Graduate student at the University of Rochester's Brain and Cognitive Sciences and EEOC complainant. Max Schulte
In a letter sent to department chairs, a University of Rochester dean described a school and faculty in dire need of communication while working to recover from alleged sexual harassment of several female students and faculty members.
In her letter, sent out last week to the chairs of the 18 departments that form the School of Arts and Sciences, Dean Gloria Culver wrote, "It is clear that the need and desire for communication has not diminished but has perhaps increased."
Culver also accepted responsibility for promoting Florian Jaeger to professor in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department while he was under internal investigation on harassment allegations.
"Furthermore, I take responsibility for my role in the timing of Professor Jaeger’s promotion and the hurt that this caused. A more careful synchronization of events could have mitigated the effects. I understand that attempting to do the right thing is not equivalent to achieving the right outcome."
In September, President Joel Seligman called the promotion a mistake.
The letter was sent shortly after the conclusion of an independent investigation conducted by a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Mary Jo White. It cleared Jaeger and the college of the most serious accusations brought by nine current and former members of the department in an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint.
The damage to the university and the department, however, has been significant. Since the initial complaint against Jaeger was filed internally, four faculty members each with labs of students have left or have made plans to leave within the year. More are expected to follow.
The case also led to Seligman's resignation as of Feb. 28. His decision was announced on the same day that the investigation concluded.
"The Independent Investigators Report (IIR) has now been available for two weeks and I hope that all community members have been able to read it and the associated documents in detail. In the spirit of open communication, I would like to offer a few reflections," Culver wrote in her letter, addressed to the school's faculty.
She opened up about her role, admitting, "I could have done better."
"I recognize and accept that I should have supported all members of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and specifically the department chair, Greg DeAngelis, better. This department has been the epicenter of this controversy and has suffered the most from it. I could have done more to support efforts in the department department and to help Greg, who worked tirelessly, navigate this challenging period and chart a path forward," wrote Culver.
DeAngelis, the chair of BCS, was also one of the subjects of the EEOC complaint. He is accused of retaliating against those who spoke out against Jaeger and for creating a hostile environment.
These allegations were strongly refuted by the White investigation, and he was not included among defendants in the federal lawsuit, which was filed by the EEOC complainants in early December.
Asserting that the future of the department is not in question, Culver stated in her letter, "As Dean of Arts and Sciences, I am fully committed to providing resources to allow BCS to hire faculty, recruit students and move into new and promising research areas."
In response to Culver's letter, DeAngelis echoed his confidence in the department in a statement that he shared via email with the Democrat and Chronicle.
"I was delighted to hear Dean Culver reaffirm the University's support for the department to move forward and regain full strength," wrote DeAngelis. "Although this ordeal has been very difficult for the department, there are still many outstanding scholars and teachers among the faculty in BCS, and we will continue to work very hard to support and educate our students and to carry out research of the highest caliber."
Steve Piantadosi, a professor in the BCS department and one of the nine current and former members to file, said that he wishes that Culver's letter did more to support the students who have been most impacted by the events of the past several months.
"I wish she had said she could have done more to support the students from our department who were harassed — five of whom wrote to her directly to ask for support and got essentially nothing," he said. "We begged her to intervene and help us when we were being retaliated against, and she only told us to 'mend fences' ourselves. The administration didn't offer any kind of apology until the mishandling of the case became public, and even then the apologies seem to exclude apologizing to those of us and our students who have been most damaged."
According to Piantadosi, neither Culver nor other members of the administration have made efforts to contact the complainants since the filing of the EEOC complaint.
Culver was contacted for comment and declined.
UR President Joel Seligman apologized in a meeting Sept. 12, 2017, for a reference he made in a statement about a sexual harassment complaint concerning UR professor Florian Jaeger. James Goodman
Although the university, school and BCS department are taking action to heal, there are still pockets of turmoil.
At a meeting Jan. 23, the Faculty Senate debated a motion of censure against Jaeger, which could have opened the door to revoking his tenure. Furthermore, a vote on a resolution to condemn two UR administrators for searching faculty emails and then sharing the content was expected to take place. Both have been tabled for a future meeting.
But the meeting wasn't entirely stagnant. A special commission established in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations at the University of Rochester issued its first set of recommendations.
The Commission on Women and Gender Equity in Academia's work is focused on policy and procedure and offers a separate effort from the outside investigation of Jaeger.
According to a newsletter sent out by the university, Amy Lerner, co-chair of the commission, spoke before the Faculty Senate during the Jan. 23 meeting, and said, “The recommendations made in the Independent Investigation are a good starting point, but we do not believe they go far enough to address all of the challenges."
Lerner's address outlined efforts made by the commission to develop recommendations for the university's handling of future cases of sexual harassment and misconduct.
LPEACE@Gannett.com