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College of Ed professor leaves UO after sexual harassment allegations

Last updated on 05/13/2016

Good for the student for reporting this. It must have taken a lot of courage. From the Diane Dietz scoop in the RG, it sounds like UO handled it pretty quickly:

The freshman, in a recent interview with The Register-Guard, said UO officials took her report seriously and “acted upon it as fast as they could.”

Two months after the report, Professor CHiXapkaid Pavel was gone. That’s a big speed improvement from the 3.5 months it took UO to get rid of the 3 alleged basketball rapists.

But then professors don’t help Rob Mullens get his bonus, or sell Matt Court season tickets, or count towards Dana Altman’s NCAA APR ratings, or provide circuses for the Duck’s big-time sports boosters. So it will be interesting to find out if our colleagues in the Johnson Hall administration, under the expert guidance of Interim GC Doug Park and his 5 mysterious Assistant GC’s, followed appropriate discipline procedures and due process for firing a tenured professor.

Full Dietz report here:

A high-profile educator, scholar and public speaker in the University of Oregon’s College of Education left the university Jan. 20 without ­explanation.

Donald Michael Pavel, 55, was a fully tenured professor at the university for more than five years, according to a UO spokesman.

Pavel made a “full departure” from the university, College of Education Dean Randy Kamphaus confirmed. But Kamphaus declined to say why the professor left. “That’s a sensitive personnel issue that — unfortunately — I can’t comment on. I regret that,” he said.

Pavel declined multiple ­requests for comment on the reasons for his departure.

Two months before Pavel’s departure, a UO freshman reported to the UO Police Department that Pavel ­repeatedly touched her inappropriately during a Nov. 14 event in Portland.

Pavel, who goes by his Native American name, CHiXapkaid, and the freshman — in her first quarter at the UO — were separately attending the annual gala of the Native American Youth And Family Center at the Portland Art Museum, according to the police report, which The Register-­Guard obtained under a public records request. …

FWIW, myedu.com reports that Professor Pavel was a remarkably generous grader – not that that’s a crime:

Screen Shot 2015-03-08 at 12.23.47 AM

Note: I’m happy to post comments on the process or principles at stake here, but I’ll try and delete gossip that speculates about the student or the professor. If something slips through let me know.

6 Comments

  1. Anonymous 03/08/2015

    Stay classy, UO.

  2. Working GTF 03/08/2015

    This:

    “the freshman was accompanied by Janne Underriner, director of the Northwest Indian Language Institute, who provided moral support, the police report said. During the interview, Underriner stated that she, herself, has ‘been advised’ when she first started to work at the UO to ‘never be alone in a room with Pavel,’ according to the police report.”

    implies that UO didn’t really act quickly, at all. Instead improper behavior was tolerated (and even warned against!) for some time until a brave undergraduate spoke up.

    • uomatters Post author | 03/08/2015

      Thanks for pointing this out. AAEO Director Penny Daugherty is in charge of sexual harassment allegations against UO employees. Daugherty is famously incompetent. I don’t understand why Presidents Frohnmayer, Lariviere, Berdahl, Gottfredson, and now Coltrane have refused to replace her.

  3. Hippo 03/09/2015

    I conjecture UO gave the choice of leaving vs. some kind of internal investigation/sanction. The advantage of leaving is that probably now this former faculty member has no official finding against him at UO, and no doubt will find a faculty position elsewhere without the UO mentioning the incident to future employers. Hopefully future employers know how to Google (bringing up the RG story and maybe UOM), but I am not optimistic…

  4. A little bird 05/06/2015

    First off, the student was very brave to speak up and bring this incident to the schools attention.. Second: This is not the first incident involving this shady figure, it has happened at previous colleges where he worked as a professor, and he has even been denied jobs because of this history. How did the UO not catch this? Employers need to do better research on potential employees to prevent incidents such as this from happening.

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