Scientific Purge at VSU

Carey Stronach’s story, which he will tell himself at Accuracy in Academia’s next Capitol Hill briefing, is particularly heart-rending and contains many ironies. The 66-year-old physicist spent four decades teaching at a historically black college—Virginia State University (VSU)—one of the few white professors on the Petersburg campus.

He befriended a political dissident on campus and vocally and aggressively championed her cause in speeches and articles. Her name is Jean Cobbs. Dr. Cobbs was fired at VSU after a decade of harassment by the administration there. In three-and-a-half decades at VSU, the black sociologist created the Department of Social Work, got it accredited and successfully worked to maintain that accreditation for 20 years.

What precipitated Dr. Cobbs’ loss of the control of her department was an act that she committed that university administrators viewed as a major transgression. She rode on the Republican float in the homecoming parade. But the ultimate insult was yet to come. She received her first negative review in 30 years for the unavoidable absences she racked up in taking unpaid leave to care for her dying husband. On the basis of that review, VSU fired Dr. Cobbs on April 15, 2005.

“I never tried to influence the way my students voted,” the sweet, soft-spoken lady says. “I never even tried to influence the way my husband voted.” Last year, she had five flat tires on her car while parked on the street she has lived on since the 1970s. That makes five times as many flats on her car in 2005 than she has experienced in the last 40 years but then, the wheel tubing will deflate when a nail is hammered into it. Why isn’t this considered a hate crime?

“The provost gave Jean’s job to the woman with whom he is living,” Dr. Stronach reported at last year’s annual meeting of the Virginia Association of Scholars (VAS). “I didn’t say his wife.”

“I said the woman with whom he is living.” The various attorneys Dr. Cobbs has engaged in her conflicts with VSU have urged her to refrain from commenting on the case publicly. That’s where Dr. Stronach came in, pleading his colleague’s case in the court of public opinion. “I made myself a target,” Dr. Stronach admits.

Consequently, the university he served for 40 years forced him into early retirement. Normally, what free time the courtly scientist had was spent on actual science: he has worked in the labs at the U. S. National Institutes of Health, separating magnesium. “I brought three million dollars in research grants to VSU,” Dr. Stronach recounted at the VAS meeting in Charlottesville. “I’ve had 120 publications.” Most colleges and universities with more demanding standards than VSU only insist that tenured professors have three or four articles published in their field.

With two other professors at VSU, Dr. Stronach won a multimillion-dollar research grant from the Air Force. “VSU fired the two tenured professors,” Dr. Stronach said. “The Air Force pulled the grant because VSU did not live up to the contract.” The university’s inane acts left Dr. Stronach without research funding for the first time in 40 years.

Dr. Stronach’s last year was a challenging one. For the first time in 40 years he did not teach advanced courses, but, rather, introductory ones, usually given junior professors. University administrators even complained of his handling of these classes. “I was accused of using the same transparency for more than one class,” Dr. Stronach says dryly.

The university did show Dr. Stronach that it could take away what they gave him, no matter how meager the original assistance was. Thus did the powers that be at VSU decree that he should have no lab assistants. “Ironically, his last lab assistant is married to one of my students so they get to see it from both sides,” Dr. Cobbs offers.

VSU expected Dr. Stronach to teach 18 hours of classes a week and build and tear down 200 sets of labs—one per student—and run six labs a week. The ratings he received over the years have usually been “outstanding, some noteworthy,” he recounts. In his last year, as L’Affaire Cobbs headed towards its denouement, Dr. Stronach’s ratings went down.

“I have arthritis and heart trouble,” Dr. Stronach admits. “My cardiologist tells me that the heart trouble is due to stress.” Dr. Stronach is not the only scientist being dissed at VSU. Computer scientist Fabio Guerinoni made the mistake of failing students who did not pass their tests. His ratings then took a nosedive from their previous superlatives. One reviewer rated him “the worst teacher ever.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia. Dr. Stronach will speak at AIA’s Capitol Hill luncheon briefing on June 19th from 11:00 AM until noon.