Tenure Track
Authors: Victoria Bradley
| Tenure Track |
| Victoria Bradley |
| iUniverse (2010) |
Pow. Pow. Pow. Pow. Pow. Within one minute, five gunshots destroy the idyllic existence of a public college campus. After a female student kills her lover/professor, two students, and herself in front of a packed classroom-an event that becomes known as "Bloody Valentine's Day," the university responds by instituting a strict prohibition against student-faculty relations.
Three years later, History Department Chair Jane Roardan finds that Lewis Burns, a young History professor up for tenure, is accused of having an affair with politically-connected undergrad Mandy Taylor. Administrators assign Jane to handle the matter and minimize damage to the school. While trying to uncover the truth about Lewis, Jane must deal with her own well-hidden indiscretions as well as fears that her teenage daughter may be the victim of a predatory teacher. By the time the story concludes, both historians realize that in order to properly deal with the present and set a new course for the future, each must come to terms with their own past mistakes.
Tenure Track deals with current issues such as sexual harassment, professional ethics, responses to campus violence, and the differences between perceptions and realities of the past; but ultimately, it is a story about personal relationships among family, friends, and colleagues within the world unto itself called a university. Like stepping onto a real college campus for the first time, readers will be introduced to myriad characters, some of whom turn out to be very different from first impressions, whose smart, witty banter camouflage all-too-human weaknesses.
This is the book professors DON'T want you to read!
A Novel
by
Victoria Bradley
Copyright © 2010 by Writewell Publications. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
www.victoriabradley.com
For Larry, my mensch
“
The only thing one can learn from history is that actions have consequences and that certain choices once made are irretrievable. As one can “forget” personal memories and by choosing what to remember—one selects what one
wants
to remember and leaves out the rest—so it can be done with collective memory.”
—
Gerda Lerner,
Why History Matters
Prologue
A Seminal Event
“
Caution,” Dr. Donald Pfeiser warned, “Never, ever, use this form if ε ≠ 0!” To emphasize the dangers that could result from such a mistake, the esteemed nuclear engineer flashed the image of a skull and crossbones on his overhead Power Point. The 50 or so students listening to his dry lecture on particle reactor design dutifully noted this important point, so as not to make a fatal error of mass destruction in their future careers.
Most of the students were so engrossed in their note taking or efforts to stay awake that they failed to notice petite, freckle-faced freshman Jessica Hampton calmly walk down the center aisle at 10:23 a.m. One witness later testified to observing Hampton only because he found it odd for a student entering class so late to seek a seat right in front of the professor.
Hampton did walk all the way to the front of the classroom, but never took a seat. Instead, she carefully raised a 9mm Glock handgun and shot Donald Pfeiser strategically in the groin and abdomen, immediately severing his aorta.
Pow! Pow!
Dr. Pfeiser bled out within minutes, with the ominous skull and crossbones still projected above his dying body. Chaos erupted as students dove under chairs and anywhere they could to avoid getting shot in the windowless room with only one exit door. Perhaps thinking that the skinny young woman was no match for a couple of rugged, tank-sized athletes, two senior varsity wrestlers lunged almost at once to try to take her down. But the gun proved to be a great equalizer as Jessica Hampton dispatched both would-be heroes in quick succession, one with a shot to the heart, the other to the head.
Pow! Pow!
The next gunshot came quickly and only had one target. A few students who were watching from their hiding places testified that Hampton stared at the two fallen athletes with deadened eyes, then quietly placed the gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger, splattering blood and brain matter across three rows of seats and the south wall of the lecture hall.
Pow!
For a split-second afterward, the stunned room was so quiet that every survivor recalled hearing the big hand on the ancient wall clock click into place, marking 10:24 a.m., February 14, 2007. Bloody Valentine’s Day.
Part One:
Present and Past
Chapter One
Present: A Test Case
“
I don’t care if he dunks like Jordan, we can’t pass him if he failed his final,” Dr. Jane Roardan said firmly, but calmly. The outcome of this summer course meant the difference between the forward guard being academically eligible to play this semester or sitting out almost half of the regular season, presuming he could make eligibility for spring.
“
Well, perhaps you can at least let him retake the final,” Athletic Director Doss pleaded, to no avail.
“
Now you know with the fall semester beginning today, that would entail a retroactive grade change,” she reminded the sputtering A.D. on the other end of the line. “I’m sorry. I’m not inclined to play that game. I suggest you take advantage of all the fine opportunities we provide your athletes to help him retake the class and pass this time. Just apply a little basketball muscle to memorizing some historical facts and improving his writing skills.”
After a few more terse words, the conversation ended abruptly. Jane took a deep breath, trying to regain her composure. She sat back in her chair, silently fingering the strand of pearls around her neck, a long-ago anniversary gift from Mark. She rarely wore them to school, but they went well with the new pale blue suit she was sporting. The outfit hung nicely on her tall, 60 year-old frame, accentuating her short-cropped silver hair with a look of authority. Dressing the part helped give her an air of confidence as she tackled this new position.
She needed all the help she could get. Despite her firm, composed stance on the telephone, such unpleasant conversations always rattled her a bit. Dr. Roardan was used to dealing with coaches who wanted her to cut their star players some slack on their grades. This time it was easier than usual to refuse, since she was not the professor in charge of the class in question but rather the new History Department Chair backing up a fellow colleague. After 32 years as a professor of British and Women’s History at this university, it still chapped her how much the school placed sports above academics. The godlike status of athletes had only been exalted by the martyrdom of two mediocre wrestlers who had had the misfortune of meeting their end three and a half years earlier on what was now known as “Bloody Valentine’s Day.”
The reverence with which many students still spoke of the two young men, hailed by A.D. Doss as the finest examples of student athletes, successfully deflected attention away from less impressive facts, such as the paltry academic performances of most male jocks. For years Jane had listened with annoyance as Doss made the dubious claim of high graduation rates for the school’s scholarship players; a fudging of data she recognized as skewed by the women’s programs—especially the basketball team, which had maintained an astonishing 100 percent graduation rate for more than 20 years under the auspices of the country’s winningest female coach. The athletes with ovaries allowed Doss to create the allusion that sports enhanced education at the university. Jane knew better.
Jane wondered what her undergraduate mentor, Women’s History pioneer Gerda Lerner, would make of this post-Title IX development. Dr. Roardan’s eyes panned across the framed diplomas that aligned the dark-paneled walls of her tiny office — bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence, Ph.D. from Lerner’s alma mater Columbia—before falling on the signed photograph of Dr. Lerner that she often stared at for telekinetic inspiration.
Gerda would know how to handle Doss,
Jane told herself.
With her mind focused on athletics, another photograph soon drew Jane’s attention. Her hand fell upon the desk-framed image of a thin, bespectacled man, with a graying shock of frizzy hair, his arms around two teenagers—a similar-looking boy in a T-shirt reading “Super Geek” and a muscular girl dressed in a basketball uniform.
Jane’s children served as a fine metaphor for the split nature of the university. The fraternal twins had shared a womb and an environment, but had grown up to have completely different priorities—Dennis, of the mind; Dana, of the body. Athens and Sparta. History taught that Athens paved the way for the rise of western civilization while Sparta defeated its enemies with physical might, then faded into oblivion like hot shot athletes who peaked then declined at an early age. Jane feared the same future for her athletically inclined daughter, whose greatest wish was to play for the system that her mother so despised. Dr. Roardan grimaced at the irony.
Her contemplations of athletics and education were interrupted by another telephone call. Isobel, the department’s administrative assistant, announced that Dean of Students Gary Jones was on the line. “He sounds nervous,” she reported.
Jane had to stifle a chuckle. Despite his generally jovial manner when things were going well, Gary was known to dissolve into a nervous wreck whenever something went wrong. It could be as minor as a report of students dropping water balloons on rival frat members, or as serious as a massive cheating scandal. He would react the same way, initially uncertain of what to do, and scared to death of any situation that might incur negative publicity for the school. With his rotund body and habit of constantly wringing his hands when nervous, the image of Piglet from the twins’ childhood books always popped into Jane’s head when she discussed a problem with Gary. Only his colleagues ever observed such nervousness, though. In front of students, he usually emitted an aura of extreme calm and control, save for profuse amounts of sweat dripping off his brow.
Jane took in a final cleansing breath as she picked up the receiver. “Hello Gary,” she greeted, trying to sound upbeat. “What can I do for you today?”
“
Jane, we have a problem,” he sputtered.
“
Already? It’s only the first day of the semester. What’s up?” she replied, trying to sound positive. Internally, she was quickly running through the list of issues that could possibly be a problem for both the Dean of Students and the Chair of the History Department, unless A.D. Doss had already snagged Gary to plead his case about the poor unfortunate student athlete.
“
I need to see you right away,” Gary said, sounding agitated. “I received a call this morning from the mother of a female student, claiming her daughter has had an inappropriate relationship with one of your History professors.” Jane could envision the sweat popping out of the brow on the other end of the telephone as she tried to remain calm and reasonable.
Hot damn! Horndog finally got caught!
She was torn between feeling gleeful that the most notorious letch on campus was finally getting busted, while dreading having to deal with the crisis, since the letch in question was in her department.
Rather than make it obvious that she knew exactly who the culprit probably was, she asked innocently, “Who?”
“
I hate to tell you, but it’s Lewis Burns.”
She felt a sinking sensation in her stomach.