September 27, 2016

Blessed rain in the night.

My furious student, renews her attacks, demands an audience with my chairman and a vice-chancellor, where she is rebuffed. I want to say “finally” rebuffed, but it is difficult to know where fury will stop. The VC even took the “offending” email to the university attorney to see if there was anything even vaguely protestable. Of course not. She left a sticky note on my door overnight saying “Why Are U Still Teaching Here?”  She got a member of student government to say that my email was “unprofessional,” an analysis pretty hilarious coming from a sophomore. The note–the one and only communication from me to her, amid a see of vituperations coming from her-- said nothing but the truth in the politest possible terms, with an offer of help and support according to her decision, so I’ve been baffled by the whole affair. I’ve been baffled by the hesitation of the system to tell her to shut up and go away, since it was clear from the first she had no grounds for complaint but that vague and inadmssable morass “hurt feelings.” Perhaps w have gone too far in insuring power to the “powerless”; reversal of injustice is not redress of injustice. This is going to go down in history as the time I made a student drop my class, when in fact no such thing happened and, it turns out, cannot happen. Except in rare cases (rarer than this one) only a student can remove herself from a class, which is what she did. Oh well. It’s the small things. . . .
   
Coffee with Alex, who is in the full flame of young artist-hood and a pleasure to be with.
   
Andrew visiting my class last night, being eloquent and exuberant.