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university of alabama huntsville

Universities mull role of tenure in UAH shootings

UAH students reportedly filed complaints about Bishop.
UAH students reportedly filed complaints about Bishop.

Questions about how universities handle tenure decisions have arisen after Amy Bishop, a professor at the University of Alabama Huntsville campus, was accused of killing three colleagues from the university’s biology department earlier this month.

Bishop reportedly was denied tenure—a distinction that ensures job security in academia—and complained about the university’s decision for months before the shootings, colleagues said in interviews with the Associated Press (AP).

Higher-ed administrators say the tedious six-year tenure process can be fraught with anxiety, and if candidates expect to earn tenure and are denied by campus officials, reactions can be unpredictable.…Read More

Notification delay surfaces in Alabama shootings

The UAH shootings could bring more attention to text message alert systems, experts say.
The UAH shootings could bring more attention to text message alert systems, experts say.

Nearly an hour passed before University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH) officials dispatched emergency notification to students and faculty after fatal shootings allegedly committed by a professor, raising new questions about campus-based alert systems.

University President David Williams sent an eMail to faculty and students Feb. 15—three days after the shootings that killed three people and injured three others—and said campus police responded to the gunfire within minutes, but the university community was not alerted via text message or eMail.

“… Some of you are understandably troubled about the speed with which a text message alert was sent following the shootings,” Williams said in his open letter to UAH students and faculty. “As any institution would do after an incident like this, our university will conduct a complete examination of the emergency response. How to more effectively use the university’s text message system in the midst of a fast-moving, life-threatening situation will certainly be part of that review.”…Read More

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Shooting cripples Ala. university department

The Associated Press reports that a professor who police say was injured by a bullet fired by his colleague remains in a neuro-intensive care unit, but microbiologist Joseph Leahy is making progress and his fight to recover mirrors the challenge facing the biology department that saw three of its members snatched away in one afternoon. A conference room at the University of Alabama-Huntsville was the scene of a mass shooting six days ago that claimed the lives of the department head and two other professors. Leahy, another professor and a staff member were wounded when, authorities allege, Amy Bishop pulled a pistol at a faculty meeting and started shooting her colleagues. With three professors dead, two wounded and one charged with murder, “our department has pretty much been cut in half,” said Leland Cseke, a faculty member. “It’s devastating…”

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