Lunch was again catered to the upstairs witnesses' waiting room. A rather pensive panel gathered around the table to help themselves to sandwiches, fruit, cookies and a beverage.
Henry had the floor and continued to speak while they were getting their food. "There is a limit as to how much of this insignificant twaddle we should allow."
"I agree," Frank Anuse said, firmly. "We should tell her that we will hear no more testimony from these witnesses of hers unless it bears on the specific charge—she did write and submit those evaluations. The document examiner was certain of it."
"Well, I don't agree," Jane spoke sharply. "I, for one, didn't find that document examiner particularly convincing."
"How can you say that?" Anuse blurted. "She had impeccable credentials. She's allowed to testify in court. Never been refused, she said. Mark told us that handwriting is as exact and individual as fingerprints."
"I'm not convinced," returned Jane. "She had no independently researched data on her success vs failure ratio. You heard her say, 'in her opinion,' she was 100% correct. Bull. Nobody's perfect."
Glancing at the two other women, Henry observed them nodding their heads in agreement. Trenchant had made some other good points, he thought. She picked up on the lack of original standards and cited that rule in the faculty handbook that forbade an individual's personnel file from being revealed to others without the individual's permission. Damn the woman. This hearing was supposed to be a lead pipe cinch and all it had been so far was trouble. I'd better call for Mark to come over and talk to them. Perhaps even have him testify. Mark could say the right things to bring the women around....if only he didn't bore them to distraction first.
As he walked toward the phone, he couldn't help but feel a bit chagrined that his own letter had been read back to him—the one he'd sent Trenchant outlining the rules for the hearing. He had meant for it to be intimidating. Didn't think she'd find anyone who'd dare to testify.
Downstairs, Diana and her witnesses were lolling about in comfort, eating and drinking the results of a MacDonald's run that Roz and Helen had made.
She had been telling them about Lyle's testimony when James suddenly jumped to his feet crying, "say again!"
Repeating herself, Diana asked, "What's the problem."
"No problem. You said he testified that the new evaluation forms were sent up from the dean's office on the tenth of December last year, right? And he found the 'suspect' evaluations sometime during that same week?"
"That's what he said. What is it, James? You look so excited!"
"Don't you remember? Don't you remember what happened to you Thanksgiving Day last year—the injury to your wrist, your right wrist? You weren't writing anything until a couple of days before Christmas and even then it was painful for you. You were wearing that wrist support all the time for well over a month."
"My God, I had forgotten that. Are you sure of the dates? I just remember the December labs were hell because I couldn't do the boards."
"Absolutely. I remember coming back from spending Thanksgiving at home and you were soaking your wrist which was all swollen up and remember, you wore that brace and couldn't write and...."
"I remember the wrist brace," cried Jennifer. "You had me write things on the board for you at my lab because you couldn't."
"Me too," chimed in Roz.
"James, Jennifer, Roz, will you tell that to the panel in addition to what you already plan to testify to?"
"Sure, no problem."
"Betcherass!"
"That will really give this charge against you the deep six along with Sarah's testimony," Roz said excitedly as the whole bunch of happy people left their food and joined each other in a wild victory dance. Premature for sure, but the powerless and the innocent naively take their joy where they can find it.
When the hearing commenced again, the panel appeared subdued, and listlessly turned over pages of notes as Henry told Diana to call her next witness and cautioned her that, "they should be addressing the specific charge here."
"Just a moment," Jane demanded. "Before we have the next witness, I'd like to ask you a question, Diana. You said earlier that you were not free to call witnesses from your department. Why?"
Trenchant, who was on her way to the door to get her next witness, paused and said, "They asked me not to. They felt it would be impossible for them to testify since they most probably would contradict their chairman."
"You are saying they are afraid to testify?"
"That's correct. Just like you saw Jean was. Her knowledge and belief in me was the only thing that made it possible for her to overcome her fear of losing her position.
"It is much worse for people in my department and for that matter for medical students who have not been allowed to testify. Things can be made very difficult for them."
Esther pursued, "Are you stating that Lyle has discussed this case with the department?"
"Oh, yes. Very definitely. After he accused me, he went in to Ann Biggot's office and told her. My job was offered to two people in the department around the same time. Lyle has told others besides me that this hearing is only a formality. Remember, he's the one that decides the raises."
"What sort of thing could people in your department testify about?"
"They could substantiate what I have said about the negligent, careless way the evaluation process is carried out and how little import is placed on it. They could confirm that the evaluations were often laying around on someone's desk or in the secretaries' office.
"They could explain that the evaluations got mixed together from year to year and unless one happened to be dated, there was no way to separate one year from the next."
"They could tell you the reason for the problems that occurred in the radiology course and affirm that my manual was plagiarized.
"Being right there where the business of the department is carried out, they could tell you that one of Lyle's first acts when he came into the department six years ago was to eliminate my position. When I protested this act of discrimination to the Attorney General's Office and they brought charges, he claimed that he had only told me that he would keep me if he had the funds...."
"You are saying....you are painting a picture of suspicion and allegation that are hearsay and unsubstantiated," Anuse interrupted, bald pate aflame with anger.
"Correct. And we've heard tons of unsubstantiated hearsay in testimony from previous witnesses."
"That doesn't matter. We are only interested in these documents, nothing else. Those are side issues and not a part of this investigation."
"They most certainly are a part of it. If what you say is true, the dean would have just written one sentence in his letter. He would have written, 'I want her out of here because....' Instead, he wrote two pages filled with unsubstantiated hearsay and charges of insubordination and dishonesty based on Lyle's accusation and I want to answer them!"
"Nonsense, the charges are clear. You forged seven SmurFFs. The rest was only a chronology of the events."
"But the chronology is untrue and biased."
"No. Everything is based on the testimony of the handwriting witness, we just filter through the rest of the material." Anuse turned to the chair, a bored look on his face. "We waste time with this useless trivia." He had just spent the last few minutes in full sneer, trying his best to beat Trenchant to her knees with the sheer force of his position of power. Forced to desist by the negative vibes he was getting from most of the panel, he took refuge in assuming the victor's pose.
"The panel asked the question, 'why didn't I have witnesses from the department.' I merely answered it," retorted Trenchant, pugnaciously.
"Call your next witness." Henry fairly bellowed as he tried for the last word.
"I shall, but first I want to point out that the charges against me contain the words taken from the faculty handbook, 'serious breaches of generally accepted moral standards in the profession....'
"I submit to you that the copyright infringements committed by Ian and Randy were also serious breaches of generally accepted moral standard in the profession and Chairman Lyle Stone condoned them.
"Now I'll get my next witness." said Diana, heading once again for the door.
James Prouty walked into the hearing room and looked around. "Take that seat there, please." Henry motioned toward the seat opposite the panel.
"Oh," said James, in a surprised tone of voice. "I understood from someone who had testified earlier that the witnesses sat across from Diana."
"Well...." the chair cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. "Things get shifted around, you know. Sit right there and be sworn in."
That James, thought Diana, barely stifling her laughter, trust him to say something disconcerting. He knew darn well that there was a different seating arrangement for the two sets of witnesses because she had told him about it.
Under questioning, James Prouty said that he had rented a room in Diana's home for four and one half years. He could and would affirm that she had written a radiology manual at her home computer.
He could also confirm the great animosity held against her by the former chair of NERD, Jimbo Jones, who was now one of the many associate academic vice presidents. James had been a work/study student in NERD and had heard Jimbo yell and verbally hammer at Diana any number of times.
"As you all are aware," James said, smiling at the panel, "besides the five medical student SmurFFs, there are two SmurFFs that Dr. Jones is said to have found in the Nursing Nutrition course that he lectures in."
"And that the document examiners are sure Diana wrote," Anuse crowed, breaking in triumphantly. "But all this tells us nothing new concerning the charge. This is repetitive, time wasting information. Mr. Chairman, may we get on with it."
"James, were you living in my home last December?"
"Yes, I was."
"Would you please tell in your own words why I could not have printed or written the two 'suspicious' evaluations found by Lyle who claims they were written and submitted by me that year?"
James turned his agreeable, smiling face once more toward the panel and said clearly, "Because you sprained your right wrist and were unable to write or use it until shortly before Christmas Day, the 25th."
"How do you confirm that I could not write?"
"Several ways. For example, I saw the swollen condition of your wrist daily and observed your limited use of that hand. Telephone messages for me were left on the printer when they used to be handwritten in notes."
Leaning toward the panel, James confided, "You see, she could one-finger the computer keys with her left hand.
"I filled out the order forms for her children's Christmas presents that year since she was unable to write enough to complete them.
"Around the 22nd or 23rd of December, she could use her hand well enough to write the checks for her bills. It was painful for her and she had some difficulty doing this. We made a joke of it—whether they would turn off the electricity or telephone because the signatures on her checks were not at all like her normal signature."
Questions exploded from the panel like hail on a tin roof. "Was her wrist wrapped?" "Did she have a brace?" "Did she see a doctor?"
Although Diana had not completed her examination of her own witness, the panel jumped in and took over the questioning.
Henry, feeling decidedly undermined by this testimony, decided not to interrupt this flurry of out-of-order questioning. He realized that this tactic of interrupting greatly hampered the smooth flow of information a witness had to give. It also served to confuse the witness since questions were coming from more than one panel member at a time. He decided that he would not stop it.
He never paused to think that the transcript of the hearing would show that Diana was interrupted in this manner more than twenty times. This would become significant when the Attorney General made the report of her investigation.
James waited until the panel ran out of questions and started to look sheepishly at one another, then he said, "Yes, her wrist was wrapped. She did not see a doctor but was treating it herself."
Now the panel turned its attention toward Diana in one of the frequent times they questioned her in front of a witnesses. "When did you write the Christmas note to Lyle, then?" This question directed at Diana came from Esther.
She answered firmly, "The twenty-fourth, the day before Christmas. It was still painful for me to write then and I was still wearing the brace. As you will observe, it is a very short note."
Well, this is not getting us anywhere, thought Henry, and I'd better put a stop to it. "I fail to see what all this has to do with the charge," he complained, petulantly.
Diana was ready for that one and answered succinctly, "According to Lyle's testimony, he received the unused student evaluation forms for that year from the dean's office on the tenth of December. Lyle testified that they were given out to the students the same day. He could not remember the exact day that he claims to have found the 'suspect' evaluations, but he did say that he found them sometime during the same week. During that time I could not use my right hand and I was not doing any writing, or printing for that matter."
"Oh." The sigh that went with it escaped before Henry could even realize the 'Oh' had departed from his mouth. He looked frantically at Anuse who appeared to have lost it and just shrugged his shoulders at Henry's glance.
Wanting to spare James, if possible, from attack by either Henry or Anuse when they recovered from shock, Diana quickly said, "Thank you, James."
As soon as James had left, Diana continued, "Before I get to the next witness, I refer you again to this memo." Trenchant replied. She held the paper aloft in her hand. "Contained in the memo Lyle wrote to Dean Broadhurst is the assertion that on March seventeenth, he 'discussed the charges with me and recommended that I resign.' This is patently false. He accused. He demanded. He was angry. He yelled. He said, 'you must resign, you have no recourse. The president, the vice president and the academic council have met and demanded your resignation.' He would not listen to me. He repeated several times that I had been nothing but trouble to him ever since I took him to court six years ago.
"He was abusive and he was angry. He said nothing about a hearing. When I got a word in edgewise, I told him that I was going to contact the ombudsman and he said that I couldn't—that I had no recourse.
"Later on when he finally stopped yelling and heard me deny his charges, he told me that since I would not resign, there would be a hearing but it wouldn't matter. It was just a formality. I would be terminated, no matter what."
"You should have brought that up when Lyle was here so we would have his response." Henry returned vigorously. I have to get on top of this hearing and stay there no matter what, he thought.
"Should I have? I'm not a lawyer and I'm not trying to be one. The University Ombudsman told me not to have a lawyer present. He said it would just anger you and turn you against me. He advised me to prepare my case well and present it in good order and that is just what I am doing.
"Right now, I am telling you my side of this story. You have been listening for hours to the NERD's allegations and I have the right to respond. At the beginning of this hearing, you announced that the panel would question its witnesses and then I would cross examine them. You never said anything about debating them. You have already heard from Lyle. Again I remind you that your letter to me, sent in advance of this hearing, contained nothing about specific order of presenting my evidence. Should I read it to you again? You are trying to introduce new rules in the middle of the game."
"Mr. Chairman, I think that we must ask Lyle back here to clear up these fabricated charges we have been hearing," said Anuse in a bored tone. He made a note and then looked toward Henry again. His look plainly said, ignore her.
"Yes," the chair agreed. Then offhandedly, as if he had not heard a word of her argument, he said to Diana, "call your next witness."
Jane watched the interchange between Henry and Anuse with disdain. They are in league together against Diana, she thought and this testimony has thrown them for a loop. They are going to have to start considering the information we are hearing in a professional, impartial manner now. They have got to concede that these charges by NERD may be false or at the very least, unsupported by real evidence. So many things about this hearing are strange. I've noticed that although the charge against Diana, initiated by Lyle, specifically related to the five 'suspect' medical student evaluations, three other documents were sent to the document examiners and were marked as evidence, she mused. No one has questioned how these other documents were deemed 'harmful to two young faculty members', as Lyle claimed in his charges. According to the dean's letter, two are 'suspect' SmurFFs from the nursing nutrition course and the third is a printed note found by one of Lyle's closest friends. The explanation for the note Henry gave us was that when Lyle told his friend what was going on, she 'just remembered' a note found in her mailbox last year that she thought was 'suspicious' so they sent that to the document examiners as well.
The examiners concluded that one of the nursing nutrition evaluations was written by Diana. The other and the printed note they were unsure of. I'm beginning to feel like Alice in Wonderland. Jane rubbed her eyes and studied her notes again. How do they expect to prove that this hodgepodge of unrelated evidence threatens two men who only teach in the radiation course?
When the nursing students heard that some of their evaluations had been sent off campus, in defiance of an explicit ruling pertaining to student confidentiality, Diana was blitzed with students clamoring to testify at her hearing so they could protest this indecency. As a group, they obtained hundreds of signatures on a petition requesting the A.C.L.U. to take up their cause. The A.C.L.U was most sympathetic, but on finding that the evaluations sent were not signed, felt there was nothing they could do.
The students argued that since the administration put such emphasis on handwriting identification, it might use this method to identify the writers of SmurFFs, which were supposed to be anonymous.
The group sent a strong letter of protest to The Pope and continued their campaign across campus. One of the leaders of these concerned students, Jennifer Glass, was the next witness for Diana.
Jennifer Glass worked in a downtown social service agency full time. She was taking the nursing nutrition course under the Continuing Education Department.
A rather large woman of thirty, she dressed well and showed no embarrassment or nervousness. She was educated extensively in New York State schools and had graduated an education major. Erudite and accomplished, she faced the panel with a most positive sense of anticipation.
"Yes," she answered the direct examination question posed by Diana, "I am in your nutrition lab and I have talked with you extensively about the way evaluations are handled in the medical school.
"I came to you first to complain, thinking that the department was lax leaving them around in the lecture hall. I or anyone else could have filled out any number of them, since we were told to leave our finished evaluations in the NERD office. I was disturbed that the students were not taking them seriously. It seemed to indicate to me that the nutrition course was not considered important enough to be properly evaluated. That bothered me.
"You assured me that the evaluation process wasn't unique to the nursing course and took me to the NERD office to see how the medical students evaluation was conducted.
"I was appalled. Throughout my training, it was stressed how important the process is. At the colleges I attended, they were taken seriously—a representative from the student government would sign out the required number of forms from the administration official and bring them to the classroom.
"All teachers or instructors had to leave the room while we filled out our evaluation. They were collected, counted and brought back to the administration official. The data was given to the instructor but never the evaluations themselves because student confidentiality was considered to be an important step in the process.
"In contrast, at Belmont the evaluation process is a joke—even the, er, enriched acronym, SmurFFs, this university has chosen to call the evaluation forms for student feedback attests to this."
"Were you ever given specific instructions relating to the evaluations?" asked Diana.
"Yes, Dr. Lyle Stone, at the beginning of the course, told us that there would be evaluations periodically and that it was very important for us to fill them out since they would provide feedback on the course content and the instructors. He also stressed that they would be confidential.
"I remember being impressed, thinking, Oh great! Then instead of a proper evaluation procedure, the forms were left in piles at the end of rows to be filled out during the lecture or taken home to do. Just get them back before the end of the week, they told us."
"Did you ever initiate a conversation with Lyle Stone regarding how you felt about document examiners and student confidentiality?"
"Yes, right after the lecture, the first part of this May, Roz Peel and a couple of other students and I went up to him after lecture.
"We told him that we were concerned that our student evaluations, which we had been told were confidential, and which we had been told had a specific purpose, had been sent outside the university without permission or knowledge of the students."
"Would you be referring to these documents?" Trenchant got up from her chair and walked around the table until she came to where Jennifer was sitting and handed her exhibits 3 and 4—the SmurFFs Jimbo Jones was reported to have discovered.
"Yes."
"What happened then?"
"He said that no student evaluations were sent out and that our confidentiality had not been breached.
"I disagreed with him and said that I had seen copies of those evaluations and the report of the document examiner. He started yelling then and became very defensive. He said that the only evaluations that were sent out had been written by you. We said that if he knew that, why send them out. Then he got abusive of you and said like you were crazy to do something like that. He said that they sent them to a document examiner because they knew you wrote them. He said he would never do that with any evaluation that a student made out."
"Can you recall anytime during the first semester that I had an injured wrist and couldn't put instructions on the board?"
"Yes, it was in December—exam week, the 9th through the 13th. I did some of it for you."
The panel started to bombard Jennifer with questions. Good, Henry thought, apparently they aren't interested in her direct evidence relating to the incapacity of Diana as they are totally ignoring that testimony. Instead, they are giving all indications of being hurt by her denunciation of the way the evaluation process is carried out at Belmont.
A typical faculty reaction, Henry chuckled to himself as he listened. They aren't asking questions, they're defending our evaluation process by giving long speeches. Here's Anuse explaining at length that the university takes student confidentiality very seriously and pays a great deal of attention to evaluations. He's trying to stroke the witness into backing off from some of her allegations and it appears to be working....no, not any more, he went too far.
Jennifer was quite sharply reminding Frank that she had written her concerns to various administrative officials around campus and the fact that student evaluations had been misused had been confirmed.
I'd better help, thought Henry. "You must understand that Lyle Stone had to give the answers he did because by that time he knew the results of the examiners report and anything he said was referring to that."
The witness, however, remained adamant. It was her distinct impression that Stone had already convinced himself that Diana had written the critiques before they were sent to the examiners.
The witness, however, remained adamant. It was her distinct impression that before they were sent to the examiners Stone had already convinced himself that Diana had written the critiques.
Henry was massively uncomfortable with what this suggested. It wouldn't do to have the panel hear much more of this. He commenced another long speech, explaining that Lyle couldn't have said anything like that because it was not Lyle Stone that sent the 'suspect' SmurFFs out—it was Mark, the university attorney. "So you see, you must have misunderstood," he concluded, patronizingly.
Before the witness could respond, Anuse professed not to understand why it made any difference how the evaluation was conducted. He went on and on in this vein in a querulous, whining voice.
Once he had wound down, Esther started to muddy the waters because she didn't understand what was sent out and when. "Are you saying all the SmurFFs were sent off campus?" she asked.
"No, the discussion is about these 'suspect' evaluations," explained Jane, indicating the exhibits.
"Well, that's all right then," Esther explained in a motherly tone to the witness, "those SmurFFs never left. The examiners came here yesterday and looked at them." Esther had become more of a space cadet than ever, thought Jane. And obviously, Henry and Anuse are disturbed by this.
Stupid broad, thought Henry. He signaled Janet that the hearing was off the record and gathered the panel into a huddle to straighten out Esther before she did some real harm.
When the hearing reconvened, all the players went round again with paternal and maternal advice. Rather than asking for information from the witness, they took turns telling her that she hadn't heard what she was testifying about. Obviously, she was mistaken.
"Now, I'm sure you see that no one was trying to attempt to have any student identified by having a document examiner look at these," cajoled Anuse.
"That's what you say. But I think what you have done is illegal. I really think it is illegal and if I find a way to do it, I am going to stop it...."
Anuse tried to interrupt, but Jennifer was on a roll. "We had an oral contract. Dr. Stone stood up in front of the whole class and told us what the evaluation forms were to be used for. And they weren't, they were used for something else and that is not right."
Henry was stung into action. He interjected to assure her that she must not worry because the administration would never violate a student's confidentiality or go back on its word to them.
He thought he was pouring on oil, but Jennifer knew bullshit when she heard it. "I don't believe it," asserted Jennifer stoically.
Diana took this opportunity to reinforce Jennifer's testimony with another example of the kind of honesty and fair play that the administration practiced. "You are arguing with my witness, not questioning her. She has good reason for her belief. When I came into this hearing, it was with the assurance from my department chairman and the chairman of this panel, both senior administrators, that I had been given all of the material that would be presented as evidence relating to the handwriting examiners.
"This proved to be unequivocally false. The evidence you have introduced, Mr. Chairman, contains many documents that were never given to me to examine before the hearing."
This started another bout between Diane and Anuse, who apparently able to read Lyle's and the chair's mind, kept insisting that what Lyle and Henry meant was that Diana had been given all of the material available at that date.
Henry rushed in to agreed that yes that was what was meant. "Lyle gave you everything he had at that date."
"Then it was incumbent upon this committee to see that I had all of the evidence before the hearing."
"But," protested the chair, "we didn't get all the evidence ourselves until today."
"Then it shouldn't have been presented until I had an opportunity to examine it! I am finished with this witness."
Henry quickly announced that there would be a break.
When they were back on the record, Henry announced, "Once the witnesses for Diana complete their testimony, we will call Lyle back to clear up the misconceptions this last witness has introduced. Also we will call Ann Biggot, and Mark...," To straighten out the panel on the document examiners, he thought to himself. He continued, "while we are at it, we should probably hear from Jimbo."
Apparently, thought Jane, if he hears anything contradictory to what he's already established as correct, someone has to come back and explain it away.
The next witness was Roz Peel.
Throughout the ordeal of the hearing, Roz had been the sparkplug of the outfit. Her high spirits and unquenchable optimism lifted the whole group of witnesses.
Here was a young woman who had known severe adversity in her life which she had battled and continued to battle. Few knew the particulars because she was a very private person. She didn't feel that anything was accomplished by bleeding all over other people about her own troubles. It was much better for her and others to be positive and upbeat.
When she identified herself and was sworn, she told the panel that she was a full-time student in the College of Agriculture and worked part-time at the Belmont print shop.
A petite woman in her late twenties, she sat back in her chair, larger than life and twinkled merrily at the panel. Her good humor was so contagious that the panel, as one, smiled back at her.
She readily confirmed the testimony of Jennifer, announcing clearly that she was present when the conversation with Lyle took place. "He said many times that no student evaluations had ever been sent to the document examiners. When we asked him how he knew beforehand that none of the ones he was sending were student's, he replied that he knew who had written them before they were sent away to be analyzed."
Diana asked her to think carefully, "Are you sure that he meant that he knew this before the documents were sent and not as a result of the report of the document examiners?"
Roz's reply was good natured but firm. "Yes, I am certain. We asked him the question several times because we found his answer a little odd, I mean, why would he bother to have them analyzed if he knew who wrote them?
"He said clearly, more than once, that no student evaluations had been sent because he knew beforehand who had written the ones sent."
"Did he have any opinion on why I would do such a thing?" prompted Diana.
"He said you had a psychological problem. He inferred that you were sick but he was not a psychologist so he couldn't define it."
"How did he conduct himself during your conversation?"
"He was very angry and seemed threatened by us. I backed away many times when he raised his voice and shouted. I thought it was a little strange that two undergraduate women would be a threat to him—maybe he needs psychological help!" Roz turned to the panel with a big smile to share the joke with them.
Diana placed her hand firmly against her mouth and looked down at her notes until the bubble of mirth that threatened to overcome her had dissipated, then continued with her questioning. "On a different subject now—do you have any contact with medical students?"
"Yes. Working right in the medical building as I have for the last three years, I get to know a lot of them."
"Last year, during the first semester—that would be from September through December—do you recall any impressions you might have gotten as to their feelings about the radiology course?"
"Yes. They felt that the professors knew very little about what they were teaching so it was a waste of time to go to lectures."
"Now," interposed Henry, "we are getting into secondhand information and we should be hearing from the medical students themselves."
"Fine," rejoined Diana. "If you can get them over here, do that. I would be happy to have them testify.
"In the meantime, you wrote in your letter to me that I could present whatever I felt was germane and since the medical students are not allowed to come, this is the best I can do."
"It will be noted that it is secondhand information," said Henry haughtily. He pretended to appear unconcerned with the testimony and adopt Anuse's strategy of ignoring anything Diana might say that was bothersome.
"I agree. The testimony should be labeled clearly as secondhand." Diana pounced on Henry's depiction of Roz's testimony. "Now let us go back over the testimony your witnesses gave which alleged that students had been manipulated for years by me. Let us get all of the student evaluations for all of the years, that your witnesses testified to, but never produced. Let us get all of the prior information out into the open and let's honestly label it for what it is—secondhand information."
Henry rolled his eyes back in resignation, "Get on with it."
"Thank you. Roz, during the three years that you knew freshmen medical students that were taking the radiology course, did you ever hear any of them say that I had tried to influence them in any way or told them how to write their evaluations?"
"Certainly not!" Roz was very firm on this. "If they could be such pushovers as to be influenced by a non-tenured faculty member, the university should reevaluate its admission policy."
"Thank you, I have no more questions."
Henry knew he had to make a desperate attempt to trip up the witness in semantics. Always before, this had been the purview of Frank Anuse but this time Frank sat silent, and for good reason. He had known Roz for some time and was not about to go for two out of three falls with her.
"You must be aware that there was no way in which your evaluations could be tied to a specific student because there was no student handwriting sent," challenged Henry.
"How was it known that no student handwriting was sent?" questioned Roz, serenely.
"I just want to assure you that no student handwriting was sent." A flush began to appear on his brow.
"Are you trying to say that no student standards were sent? If so, I understand that. But SmurFFs with student writing on them were."
"Yes, SmurFFs were sent, but there was no way in which one could identify them." Henry was unaware that he had caught himself in his own semantics and made an interesting admission.
Roz wasn't going to let up or get sidetracked by it from the main argument. "That is not relevant to what we are discussing. It was wrong to send those evaluations, whether so-called standards of ours accompanied them or not. Because technically, that was our writing."
Henry slumped in his chair in desperate need of an antacid, as the others on the panel asked questions relating to the nursing nutrition course. Suddenly Frank Anuse leaned forward and interrupted the questions. "Do you remember a time when Diana had a sprained wrist?"
"Yes. She sprained it late in November and some of us helped put notes on the board for the final labs in December."
Blocked on that issue, Anuse tried to maneuver her into agreeing that it should be wrong for anyone who was not a student to fill out evaluations. "It could be very harmful for a faculty person, couldn't it?"
"Two evaluations out of two hundred?" twinkled Roz. "I think they would have survived. But to more fully reply to your question, it has not been proven that the evaluations in question were not filled out by students."
"Oh that's because you haven't heard some other testimony." Anuse said happily and firmly back in control.
"I agree that I have not heard all of the testimony. However, if that testimony was important, and it must be since you appear to believe it, why wasn't the hearing open as Diana requested? If it had been, I would have been here to hear the testimony you put such stock in and would be able to evaluate it for myself."
Professor Diana Trenchant was sitting at her desk preparing for the evening laboratory. Roz had just left with Jennifer to talk to as many students as they could find. It had been Jennifer's idea and she had brought Roz along to help talk Diana into it. Ever since Jennifer had asked her what was wrong and Diana had explained and shown her the copies of the SmurFF's she had been accused of writing, Jennifer had been pondering what to do.
She was older than most of the students and had seen enough of life to know that one had to fight or be trampled. She didn't want to see a good teacher trampled.
"You mean they have accused you of writing these and demand that you resign?" She was dumbfounded. After she had looked at them more carefully, she asked, "Is this all of them? Five medical radiology and two nursing nutrition?"
"That's it."
"This sucks! And this paper is the graphologist report?" Jennifer used the scientific designation, graphologist, rather than the term document examiner. "Look here, these are what they call standards, did you write these?"
"I could have, I suppose, but the dates on them are so long ago that I just don't remember for sure."
"Well, two of these evaluations are printed. There is no printing among the standards. Look, I know a little about graphology and I know that they can't compare printing to writing standards. This looks like a setup. We need to put a crimp in Lyle Stone's tail. It's unconscionable that he would send student evaluations to a graphologist."
Later, when Roz had come in, she had asked Diana if they could tell the other students in the class about the two nursing nutrition SmurFFs. "We'll ask them to come up and see if they can identify if they wrote these. Then we'll check with the med students and have them do the same. Somebody must have written these and we need to find out who."
Diana agreed but only if no pressure was put on anyone. "This must be absolutely voluntary. I will copy some completed forms from last year's class and put them with these two to be identified. No one will know which two are critical."
Later in the day, several groups of students had wandered in to look at the pile of evaluations, shake their heads and wander out again.
That is until Jenny Smythe bubbled her way in. Jenny was from England. Her husband was a doctor associated with the medical school and she was continuing her education while he was posted here. She pounced delightedly on one of the forms, "This looks just like Sarah's writing. Sarah and I sit together at all the lectures and I've seen her handwriting so many times. I'll go get her!" And Jenny was off with that efficient British walking gait that one associates with woolen socks and moors.
The next day, Sarah appeared at Diana's door, tentative and a bit apprehensive. Sarah was a shy young woman barely out of high school. Raised on a farm, she had not yet assumed the mask that so many of her more sophisticated classmates wore.
"Jenny said I should look at some evaluations because you have some trouble because of them."
"Yes, thanks for coming by. They are on the bench there." Diana pointed.
Sarah put down her books and started to look through the SmurFFs. "Jenny's right. This one is mine." Sarah said, mournfully. "I was so hoping it wouldn't be."
She handed Diana one of the forms. It was one of the two that had been sent for analysis. With this proof that the graphologists had erred, Diana's hopes were raised and then quickly lowered when Sarah declared that she was afraid to testify at the hearing which was to be held soon. She was apologetic about it. Her folks had told her not to get involved; that it might mean trouble for her if she admitted to what she had written.
Roz and Jennifer, by this time, were well into their campaign protesting the sending off-campus of the student confidential evaluations. They were unhappy that Sarah wouldn't testify, but they respected her feelings.
Later on in the week, Sarah appeared at Diana's office door again. "You know," she said softly, "I think my parents are wrong on this. I wrote something that got you into trouble and I should stand up and admit it. Only, I'm so scared. But I know I have to do it.
"I'll go to the hearing but that's all I'm going to do. I don't want to get mixed up any further in this and I don't want anything at all to do with those.... those.... graph whatever people. You know, whoever it was that said this was your writing is nuts.... I wrote this."
Sarah shuffled carefully into the hearing room, shaking with an advanced case of stage fright that threatened to upset her very balance.
As she had told Sarah she would, Diana got up from her chair, walked around the table and stood beside her after she had been identified and sworn. "Did you take the Nursing Nutrition course last school year, Sarah?"
"Yes."
"And did you make out a course evaluation for Dr. Jamison Jones?"
"Yes."
"Is this that evaluation?"
"Yes."
Diana turned to the panel. "This witness has just identified this evaluation from your evidence packet C, exhibit four."
Before Diana could continue, the panel erupted in a veritable frenzy of questions, all talking at once.
"What is that number?"
"What was she handed?"
"What is written on it?"
When there was a pause in the clamor, Sarah, holding exhibit four said again quietly, "Yes, this is mine."
"This is not one that went to the document examiners, right?" Henry was frantic.
"The witness has just identified document number two of exhibit four," repeated Diana.
As the panel again started to question Sarah, Henry struggled for control. Face blanched, hands compressed into fists so tightly that the nails bit into his palms, he listened powerlessly as Esther got the first question out. "Sarah, how can you be sure that this is yours?"
"Because I recognize the handwriting; I know what I wrote, that is why."
"I'd like to conduct the examination of my own witness, if I may," snapped Diana as the panel broke out in a flurry of questions after Esther's initial one. This angry outburst shocked the panel into silence, temporarily.
In a more relaxed voice, Diana nodded toward them and said, "Thank you. Now, Sarah, have you been pressured in any way to make this identification or have you been promised anything for doing it—by me or any other person? Remember, you are under oath to tell the complete truth."
"No."
"Thank you. I have finished the direct examination of this witness."
"May I see packet C to make sure I understand," said a very flustered Henry Tarbuck.
Esther started in on Sarah. Even though Sarah had given her class and student status at the beginning of her testimony, Esther asked for it all again. Perhaps she thought Diana was ringing in an impostor. Others on the panel took over as Esther paused for breath.
Sarah carefully answered each question, becoming confused only when two or three questions were thrown at her at the same time. She established who she was and how she had found out about the "whole business."
"Tell me again when you took the course?"
"Is there a date on the form?"
Raising his voice in the way that men will in the presence of women as an effective way of silencing them and holding the floor by intimidation, Anuse drawled conversationally, "What you claim is interesting. This document was identified by the document examiner as being written by Dr. Trenchant." He fixed Sarah with a patronizing grimace. His attitude plainly said I don't believe you, little girl.
Sarah replied, "I know that."
"Well, we should see a sample of your handwriting."
"You have a sample. It is right there on that paper I identified."
"No, absolutely not. It cannot be. You have made a mistake. That SmurFF has been identified by experts as being in Diana's handwriting."
"We'll take some of your writing to the document examiner. That will settle it." Esther beamed at having such a great idea.
"No. You already have a sample of my writing. I won't have anything more to do with those people. Look how they made this mistake. I don't like how those people are." Sarah did not have much faith in document examiners—she of all people had reason not to.
"Well, we can do nothing here with this. It is just hearsay or...." Frank's voice trailed off as he looked to Henry for a ruling.
Frank Anuse is trying to sweep the evidence under the rug, thought Jane. He came into this hearing with his mind made up. Any attempt Henry and Anuse have made toward impartiality is a sham.
Diana addressed the panel, speaking forcefully. "Sarah has identified the evaluation under oath. You have that document as a sample of her handwriting. I think that is sufficient and you are upsetting her with your badgering."
"Well, the analysts are convinced that you wrote it." Anuse had turned ugly again.
"Handwriting evidence is not always conclusive," retorted Diana.
Anuse turned his hostility toward Sarah. "How do you recognize that as yours?" Ignoring the fact that this had been asked and answered.
Patiently, Sarah said, "Because it is. It looks like mine and that is what I wrote."
Henry made a monumental blunder and didn't realize it until it was too late. After consistently arguing that the university would never send student handwriting off campus to a document examiner, he proposed just that! "We have samples of your handwriting in the university files that we can send to have checked," he threatened.
"No. You cannot do that with student files. You have no right to send my records away like that. You already have sent my SmurFF and you have that as a sample of my writing if you need it."
"Are you afraid?" Henry tried for intimidation to cover his faux pas. "Of what?"
"Yes, I'm afraid. I'm afraid of who's on the other side of this. I'm afraid of who is lying about Dr. Trenchant and what could happen to me for coming here to testify."
Once again, Anuse led her through questions, to explain how she had seen the copy of this evaluation. Finally he said, "and what did you think when you saw it?"
Her answer, delivered in a soft but firmly decisive tone, landed like a bombshell in the midst of the panel. They sat in stunned silence for a beat and then the chair abruptly dismissed her.
"I was shocked," Sarah said, earnestly. Tears, long held back now slowly slid down her face, marking the planes and valleys with ripples that winked on and off reflecting the room lights "And I didn't want to even say it was mine. But I did, because it was."
Diana left the hearing room shortly after Sarah to ask Helen, her last witness, to come in. The whole group was in the hallway gathered around Sarah as she came out of the hearing room door.
"What did they do to her in there," demanded Roz, angrily.
"They were pretty nasty. They fired questions at her so fast that she didn't understand what they were asking half the time. They all but called her a liar, poor kid," answered Diana.
Helen came over. "You tell them I'll be in just as soon as Sarah is calmed down. Sadistic bastards!"