Lecturer-Students Lesbian Sex Scandal

Copied directly from Yahoo!7 news:

Sacked professor claims students swapped sex for higher grades

June 21, 2008

Lutz Presser who has made sensational claims about a University of Southern Queensland marking scandal.

By Lacey Burley

SENSATIONAL allegations have emerged that a former University of Southern Queensland female lecturer in Toowoomba gave students higher marks in exchange for lesbian sexual favours.

Sacked School of Creative Arts head Dr Lutz Presser has made the claims as part of his $450,000 law suit against USQ for unfair dismissal.

The claims have been supported by current staff and students at the university who are outraged that management swept the incidents under the carpet.

Dr Presser said a colleague discovered the scandal after looking at student assessment papers in July last year.

"She found paperwork where marks had been simply whited out and higher ones given," he said.

"It was a blatant changing of marks. You could take the white-out off and see the original (mark)."

The female lecturer, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, had been changing the marks of certain female students in another lecturer's class.

Dr Presser said that it soon became clear these marks had been given in exchange for sexual favours.

Dr Presser said he immediately brought this mark-changing incident to senior management's attention.

Dr Presser then left USQ for a month while he was presenting a research paper in Germany.

When he returned in September and asked whether the marking incident had been dealt with, he was shocked to learn that nothing had been done.

"I saw (management) again and said this is very, very serious.

"As far as I'm concerned and as far as I know, this is an instantaneously sackable academic misdemeanour."

A current USQ source said the inappropriate relationships between this particular female lecturer and her "favourite" female students were common knowledge among the faculty's staff and students.

"Absolutely it was common knowledge," the source said.

"The students even had a name for it, it was called the 'Golden Girls' syndrome.

"If you were a certain type of girl; young, blonde, Catholic and prepared to sleep at the house of (the lecturer) you would get higher marks."

The source said there were three of these "Golden Girls", aged between 19 and 25, but they were not known to be lesbians as two of them had boyfriends.

"It was just a marks thing," the source said.

"And (the lecturer) was quite overt about it.

"She would routinely take them out to dinner, take them to the movies and they would sleep at her house."

Dr Presser said the lecturer even told colleagues that a particular female student should be given a higher mark as she wouldn't be happy with the one awarded and that she was going to "house-sit" for her that weekend.

The mark was upgraded.

The USQ source said that staff continuously approached management and were "fobbed off".

One staff member was told that it would be best for their career if they looked the other way.

"The university had allowed lecturers to sleep with students," they said.

Dr Presser, who has been working in universities since 1973, said he had never seen such irresponsible behaviour by lecturers and management.

"It just sends out the complete wrong signal to students 'Come to USQ, **** a teacher, and pass'," he said.

Months later after pressure from staff and students, USQ management set up a three-person committee to look into the cases.

Almost a dozen students had written to management, including one letter which stated that "girls were afraid to be alone in a room with (the lecturer)", Dr Presser said.

Dr Presser said the "investigation" was flawed from the start as one of the three committee members was a close colleague and personal friend of the female lecturer.

Then on December 4, the day before the committee's first meeting, there were three "Watergate" style robberies.

Three lecturers' offices were broken into and all the paperwork relating to the marking incident was stolen.

The culprits even went as far as taking single papers from stapled documents and then re-stapling them.

"I was told I was being 'hysterical' by saying that this (robbery) should be a police matter," Dr Presser said.

Police were not involved.

However, copies of these documents still existed and were handed to management.

In January this year, the committee released a report stating that the incident was an example of "quirky marking".

A second USQ source said that student favouritism was rife.

"The favouritism went along with giving inflated marks," they said.

"We were just astounded that nobody who was doing something wrong was ever pulled up for it.

"The uni thinks that it is a law unto itself.

"I think this pattern of behaviour was pretty longstanding (at USQ)."

The first USQ source said that one female student expressed that she was unhappy with an assessment mark and was surprised when she received her paper back and the mark had been increased by 10 points.

However, this student then became worried that this new mark would come with a price.

"These marks were being changed quite a lot, by 10 and in one case 12 points.

"It pushed their results in the next bracket (for example from credit to distinction).

"This student became stressed about whether there was an expectation for her to sleep at the (lecturer's) house.

"Certainly, the students felt there was a risk and they were afraid.

"It's just been so appalling. The students are treated so badly."

USQ has made significant moves to silence both staff and students from talking to The Chronicle.

An email was sent to staff on Tuesday from the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Professor Peter Goodall, stating in part: "If you should be asked for comment, can I remind you (for your own protection) of the University's policy that the Vice-Chancellor is the only member of staff who is authorised to comment to the media on management or human resources issues."

A similar email was sent to staff last year.

Students from the faculty involved were also sent an email and directed to attend a meeting with a member of management on Monday, May 26, after talking to The Chronicle.

Students were informed that they were to go through the "proper USQ protocols" before talking to the media in future.

Dr Presser said it was unclear how long this female lecturer had been involved in these inappropriate relationships and mark changing.

"She could have been doing this for years.

"She was protected. The whole thing was a whitewash."

The female lecturer has left USQ.

The Chronicle contacted USQ for comment.

A response from legal firm Clayton Utz, representing USQ, said in part: "As already outlined by the University, the University terminated Dr Presser's employment in the probationary period, in accordance with University procedure.

"The questions raised by the email (sent by The Chronicle to USQ director of corporate communication Dr Aidan Burke) and the context of how they have arisen give rise to significant concern as to the accuracy and relevance of information being provided to The Chronicle.

"Given the spectre of litigation, the University will not, however, make any further comment at this time, save only to put The Chronicle on notice that it will view any false, misleading or defamatory publication of matters very seriously."

Dr Burke said: "The University denies the allegations made by Dr Presser.

"The university will make no further comment in relation to the matter in light of the allegation that it is the subject of actual or foreshadowed legal proceedings by Dr Presser."

So much for the reputation of USQ. *sigh* Just when I moved here too. Gosh. But thank goodness it isn't in my faculty. The worst thing is... the girls were Catholics?! What shame!

No wonder the Faculty of Arts has gone through so much down-staffing. *shakes head* I sure hope nothing like this ever EVER happens in the Faculty of Business and the Faculty of Science.