Higley tries to build case for Joshua’s dismissal
Wednesday, March 9, 2011 at 9:28AM From Art Robinson, March 9, 2011
Breaking OSU rules, breaking the law, and exhibiting remarkable unethical conduct, Katherine Higley at OSU is trying to build a bureaucratic excuse for OSU action against Joshua.
Ms. Higley at Oregon State has been implying to the press that Joshua will be dismissed because he has not complied with her demands to form a thesis committee. She is concealing the fact that Joshua already has a thesis committee, with one potential vacancy because Higley’s husband has expressed his desire to resign. She also demands that he get a new research project, even though under the direction of his current thesis committee, he is well along with his PhD work on the research project that they approved long ago.
Higley has no authority to demand that Joshua disband his committee and begin his research work over. Of interest, also, is that Higley’s husband, Instructor Reese, has said that he personally will take over the equipment that Joshua has built and the research that Joshua has conducted, using it for his own professional gain.
In summary, Higley plans to use improper and unethical procedures, to dismiss Joshua and turn over all of his equipment and work in progress to her husband. Reese may hope that Joshua’s work will enable Reese to obtain a better position than mere instructor.
Of course, Higley realizes that after the faculty has seen a professor of great stature at the university, Jack Higginbotham, president of the OSU faculty senate, being attacked by OSU and his career destroyed, because he helped Joshua, they obviously are reticent to help Joshua themselves. The situation is further made worse by false defamatory rumors, that Higley and her retainers are spreading about Joshua at OSU.
Higley’s letter to Joshua and his response are shown below.
Letter from Higley: (click here to download PDF version)
Response from Joshua Robinson:
March 6, 2011
Dear Professor Higley,
This letter is in response to yours of January 20, 2011 and February 16, 2011.
I have passed the referenced oral examination and have been passed by the graduate committee.
While I have made an effort to form a new thesis committee in order to accommodate you, I have been unable to do this for reasons not of my making and beyond my control.
Therefore, in accordance with OSU handbook rules, I will continue to rely on and report to my current thesis committee. There is, however, no immediate reason for this committee to act, since it approved my PhD program of research long ago. That research is well along and proceeding satisfactorily along the lines that Dr. Hartman and I designed when it began. I am in regular communication with Dr. Hartman. During the past two months, I have continued to make measurements using the facility I built.
Also, I can personally provide any funding required to complete my PhD work.
Your husband Instructor Reese, has written to Dean Fisk stating that he wishes to withdraw from my thesis committee. I have no objection to his withdrawal, so long as he arranges for a suitable replacement who is acceptable to me. In any case, I expect that a replacement can be found before it is again necessary for my committee to act.
I recognize, of course, that Instructor Reese has been involved in my PhD work, and I will make certain that he and any other entity involved receives appropriate credit when it is published.
I intend to complete my PhD research work at OSU as effectively and expeditiously as possible. I am looking forward to postdoctoral work and already have an informal offer to do so in a prominent national laboratory.
Sincerely yours,
Joshua Robinson
CC Dr. Reese, Dean Adams, Dean Fisk
Please continue to contact the University about this matter
Contact information for the
OSU nuclear engineering department is:
Phone: 541-737-2343. Fax: 541-737-4678. E-mail: joan.stueve@oregonstate.edu.
Mailing address: 116 Radiation Center, Corvallis, OR 97331-5902.
Please also contact the President of OSU, Edward Ray. Phone: 541-737-4133. Fax: 541-737-3033. E-mail: pres.office@oregonstate.edu. Mailing address: 600 Kerr Administration Building, Corvallis, OR 97331-2128.
The email address of the OSU Vice-President for University Relations and Marketing, Todd Simmons, is todd.simmons@oregonstate.edu
Department of Nuclear Engineering
and Health Physics Professors:
|
David M. Hamby, Ph.D. Kathryn Higley, Ph.D. Steven R. Reese, Ph.D. Todd S. Palmer, Ph.D. Abi T. Farsoni, Ph.D. Andrew C. Klein, Ph.D. |
Camille Lodwick, Ph.D. Wade Marcum, Ph.D. Alena Paulenova, Ph.D. Jose N. Reyes, Ph.D. Brian G. Woods, Ph.D. Qiao Wu, Ph.D. Jack Higginbotham, Ph.D. |