Oregon State Outrage

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Matthew Robinson

Matthew Robinson (one of the three Robinson students targeted for dismissal at Oregon State University) earned a GPA of 3.98 while completing his BS in chemistry at Sothern Oregon University in just two years. He then worked with Harry Gray at Caltech and Noah Robinson at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, did excellent research work, and coauthored a paper with them on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

Matthew scored higher on the Graduate Record Exams (SATs for graduate school) than has any entering student ever in the history of the OSU nuclear engineering department. He was offered $57,000 per year by the MIT chemistry department to be a graduate student there, but went to OSU instead - partly to remain near his family home in Oregon, partly to help his sister (also targeted at OSU), and primarily because he wants to earn a PhD in nuclear engineering.

Matthew took a double load of nuclear engineering courses (two years of courses in one year) his first year at OSU and still scored a 3.91 GPA. He is conducting excellent graduate research.

Matthew, by every measure, is the most outstanding student in the OSU nuclear engineering department. He is one of the most outstanding graduate students ever to enter OSU.

Matthew is a quiet, Christian, conservative, very hard working young man. He has never been involved in even the slightest wrongful or improper behavior.

Yet, the OSU nuclear engineering department has deliberately un-formed Matthew’s graduate thesis committee. His graduate thesis committee is being obstructed by faculty members and administrators in the department of nuclear engineering. This prevents Matthew from taking the OSU PhD qualifying examinations and from progressing in the graduate school. It is exactly the same tactic being used to prevent Matthew’s brother Joshua from progressing in that school and is intended to justify and force the dismissal of both students from OSU.

Matthew (like his brother and sister) is targeted for dismissal by certain OSU faculty administrators primarily because Art Robinson is his father. Matthew is also targeted because OSU nuclear engineering faculty members have made a pact not to allow any graduate student whose thesis advisor is 24-year nuclear engineering Professor Jack Higginbotham, President of the OSU faculty senate, to progress in the graduate school. Matthew and Joshua are both students of Professor Higginbotham. Professor Higginbotham has been black balled because he stepped forward to help the three Robinson students.

OSU attorneys are trying to induce the Robinson family to sue OSU. This would allow the OSU faculty to avoid comment (“we cannot comment because litigation is in progress”) and to hide their actions under years of tax-payer funded litigation. Damages in such litigation would also be paid by the tax payers. So far, the Robinson family has avoided this action.

What sort of unprincipled predators on the faculty of the OSU nuclear engineering department will do this to this outstanding student?

What sort of cowards on the faculty of the OSU nuclear engineering department will sit silent and watch them do it?

What sort of campus administrators and President of OSU will permit and condone this action on the OSU campus?

POLITICAL PAYBACK - OREGON STYLE

Article by Paul Driessen published at Townhall.com on 4/23

Confused visitors will be forgiven for thinking Oregon State University is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Congressman Pete DeFazio and the “progressive-socialist” wing of the Democratic Party. Or for likening what’s going on there to political retribution as practiced in Third World thugocracies.

The idea that three outstanding students – PhD candidates at OSU – could face dismissal, and worse, shortly before receiving their degrees, is simply shocking. That this could be happening because their father had the temerity to challenge an entrenched 12-term Democratic congressman (and OSU earmark purveyor) could make people think the university is in Zimbabwe, not America.

CLICK HERE TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE AT TOWNHALL.COM

What you can do to help!

Please help us. Only public pressure can save these students and also the career of a prominent professor at OSU who warned them and tried to help them. In retribution, these same people are poised to destroy his career, too. Please ask these people why the destruction of the academic work and careers of the Robinson students and Professor Higginbotham is so important that they are willing to sacrifice the good name of Oregon State University.

Please ask them to stop the attacks on the Robinson students and Professor Higginbotham.

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.
david.hamby@oregonstate.edu
(541) 737-8682

Kathryn Higley, Ph.D.
Kathryn.Higley@oregonstate.edu
(541) 737 0675

Steven R. Reese, Ph.D.
Steve.Reese@oregonstate.edu
(541) 737 2344

Todd S. Palmer, Ph.D.
Todd.Palmer@oregonstate.edu
palmerts@engr.orst.edu
(541) 737 7064

Abi T. Farsoni, Ph.D.
abi.farsoni@oregonstate.edu
(541) 737 9645

Andrew C. Klein, Ph.D.
Andrew.Klein@oregonstate.edu
(541) 737 2343

Camille Lodwick, Ph.D.
lodwick@engr.orst.edu
(541) 737 7059

Wade Marcum, Ph.D.
wade.marcum@oregonstate.edu

Alena Paulenova, Ph.D.
alena.paulenova@oregonstate.edu
(541) 737-7070

Jose N. Reyes, Ph.D.
Jose.reyes@oregonstate.edu
(541) 737 7065

Brian G. Woods, Ph.D.
Brian.Woods@oregonstate.edu
(541) 737 6335

Qiao Wu, Ph.D.
Qiao.Wu@oregonstate.edu
(541) 737 7066

Jack Higginbotham, Ph.D.
jack.higginbotham@oregonstate.edu
(541) 737 2414

Friday

Mar182011

Please help. OSU moves to stop Joshua Robinson's PhD work

Posted on

Friday, March 18, 2011 at 8:38AM

Regardless of OSU's press releases to the contrary, Joshua Robinson is now actively being prevented, by OSU employees, from carrying out his PhD research at OSU.

For his graduate work at OSU, Joshua Robinson, under the guidance of his mentor Dr. Michael Hartman, constructed a prompt gamma neutron activation elemental analyzer that is attached to the OSU nuclear reactor, which serves as its source of neutrons. Joshua won an OSU award for this work. This analyzer has been enthusiastically complemented by scientists at two prominent U.S. research facilities with whom Dr. Hartman and Joshua have collaborated in its use.

Joshua has been making improvements in this apparatus and using it for various analytical purposes in order to complete work for his PhD degree.

On Thursday, March 17, Joshua entered the reactor control room, through which he must pass in order to enter the reactor bay in which his analyzer is located.

Click to read more ...

Tuesday

Mar152011

OSU Stone Walls the Public and the Press

Posted on

Tuesday, March 15, 2011 at 9:51AM

Thank you for the many emails and phone calls that you have made on behalf of the Robinson students. Your continued inquiries are very helpful to them.

Meanwhile, there is no indication as yet that the OSU faculty administrators who plan to see that the Robinson students are unable to complete their PhD work regardless of their examination, academic, and research performance (the three things that ordinarily govern PhD work) have altered their course. These people are continuing their reprehensible maneuvering - and are attempting to keep their actions from public view.

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Wednesday

Mar092011

Higley tries to build case for Joshua’s dismissal

Posted on

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.

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Saturday

Mar052011

Art Robinson’s family is under political attack. Please help!

Posted on

Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 10:02PM

Since the November 2 election and our announcement that we would run again against Democrat Peter DeFazio in 2012, we have suffered some annoying personal and political attacks by the DeFazio political machine. While these attacks have cost us personally some time and money, they were the sort of thing that many political candidates endure behind the scenes.

Unprecedented, however, has been an effort to arrange the expulsion of my three children, Joshua, Bethany, and Matthew, from their graduate studies in nuclear engineering at Oregon State University – a DeFazio political stronghold. This attack is, so far as I know, unprecedented in American politics.

We need your help!

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