I was all proud of myself for not going off on a TVTrope delve, only to realize it has been 4 hours, and I had been rereading several of the comics listed in the tropes’ article (but I never clicked a link on the page, so… victory?!)
In real time, she’d be 25 or 26 by now, given that she was a 17 or 18 year old freshman back in 2010. Of course, by the time freshman year ends in-comic, she’d be retirement age in real time. (Only slight exaggeration needed, they’ve not even hit fall break yet, and it’s been 8 years. Willis is younger than I am, so I might not even live long enough to see spring break.)
I’ll go see it, if only because that’ll make my moviephile dad go see it with me, and I’m kind of a sadist that way.
Also, I’ve seen a bunch of the show and not hated it. It’s not *good*, per say, but it’s mildly entertaining at times and whenever I watch it I find myself saying to myself “I like these actors and am happy that they’re still working and drawing paychecks”.
Yes! Though I’m the other half… I only seem to play high charisma characters but their charisma can only possibly come from sheer awkwardness, because I myself have the approximate charisma of a shoelace.
Fake ID Detection is part of the job, though. and failing a random check can lose a store its liquor license. The store I used to work for made about 30% of its gross sales in alcohol, and therefore had ironclad, get-a-manager-written-up-if-they-don’t-back-you-instead-of-the-customer rules for handling booze. if the cashier feels anything is shady about the transaction, you refuse and process the rest of the order, and you scan EVERY bottle by hand. Customers HAVE tried re-sealing cases of bottom-shelf they emptied and re-filled with the mid-shelf.
Khyrin
That is to say, remove bottom-shelf bottles, replace with more expensive bottles. Not emptying bottles in the store.
Elsendor
holy fuck how do bartenders even keep their jobs. cashiers miss fake ids and fake checks and fake shit all the time and it’s just expected since there are so many variations of ids and checks that no one can realistically be expected to know every single one flawlessly.
BBCC
My sister took a course to get certified to be an alcohol server (not a bartender, just a waitress who could bring booze) and it tested her on like ten zillion different ways to detect fake IDs. This was in Canada, not the US, but yeah, those alcohol server tests do not fuck around on fake IDs.
Related to Jason’s situation:
What DO you do if a student comes onto you?
(Related questions: Does a TA count as a teacher or a student? Can they get fired for having a relationship with a student they don’t teach?)
Say no. Same as if you’re a boss w/an employee or an adult w/someone underage. Turn them down, politely but firmly. You’re the one with power, you need to be responsible. Then document the incident and report it to someone else, so there’s a record that you are actively avoiding the problem.
Sensible answer. What about the other two questions?
krveale
TA counts as a teacher, because they have a direct impact on the grades of the students in their care. MAJOR power disparity.
I have known situations where dating a student was not a problem, but that was very firmly ring-fenced at the level of “I am teaching in the college of humanities; you are a student in the college of sciences – there is NO POSSIBLE WAY I could have power over you because we operate in entirely different spheres.”
And even then, if the age disparity was significant it’d still be skeevy.
Hell, I’ve asked colleagues to double-mark students in my classes when they’ve been the siblings of old friends of mine, despite the fact I barely know them and don’t have contact with them: that way there’s no possibility it’ll look either like I’m showing favouritism OR that I’m being extra harsh to hassle them.
LeslieBean4Shizzle
You think the age difference between undergrad and grad (as little as 1 year, on average something like 4 years) is a skeevy? Yeah… I think you and I may have to agree to disagree. My dating life would likely shock and confuse you.
thejeff
krveale did say “if the age disparity was significant”
Axel
afaik – question 2/3: Both in different ways (they’re a student to profs and a teacher to students), and usually no but if there’s a risk they’ll end up being a TA for that student they might be jeopardizing their chance at TAing
krveale
oh shit yes – relationships between TAs and professors are skeevy in exactly the same way it’d be between TAs and students. Extra-specially so if the TA in question has that prof as their supervisor for postgrad work.
The only way I’ve seen such a thing handled in a way that wasn’t A Problem was where the people involved were clearly attracted to each other, but kept things entirely professional until the junior partner was entirely graduated and had a job somewhere else. They then said, “That felt like it could have been a thing. Do you think it could be a thing?” and it turned out that it worked, and the relationship accelerated from there because they’d already worked together for years and knew each other well.
They were just careful not to pull the trigger on trying things out until there was NO POSSIBILITY that power-dynamics might fuck them up.
Mr D
This is really interesting for me because in my country there isn’t any such thing as a TA, you are either a Teacher or a student. If you’re teaching, then that means you have already graduated.
The closesty thing would be Tutors, and those are informal things that are arranged between students.
Khno
I’m not sure where you’re from then, I thought you were from F?
Because if that’s the case, it’s not that old but 3rd year License students get to teach and grade 1rst year License students. of course, you would have to know them to know they’re not teachers because they present themselves as teachers. A side effect of Bologna and universities’ autonomy…
krveale
In the context I’m coming from – NZ, which is different from the US but overlaps in some ways – postgraduate students are often responsible for teaching university courses.
In that way they’re senior to the undergrads, but still under the professors.
Careful not to pull the trigger on trying things. — As far as you know that’s what happened.
krveale
*shrug*
Sure. I mean, I was friends with them and saw that they avoided opportunities to move to the same city that came up and were comfortable discussing the situation and Why Boundaries.
I’m taking them at their word.
Huehuetotl
A TA is in a student, but they’re in a position of authority over students in the class of the professor they’re working for. They’re allowed to have relationships, it’s when there’s a conflict of interest there’s a problem. If they’re not sure, they should talk to the head TA for the department, or the professor, however it’s set up.
As an additional reason, even if there were no exploitation of the power imbalance, and no inappropriate favors in terms of grades given or test answers leaked or whatever, even if everything about the relationship were completely healthy and consensual with no corruption of job responsibilities at all, there would still the APPEARANCE of impropriety.
Failing to avoid that appearance casts significant doubt on whether the student actually earned their grades, even if they in fact did. It can invite rumors, distrust, feelings of favoritism, and propositions from other students who believe there was impropriety and so can damage the teacher’s relationship with this entire class as well as future ones. And if enough teachers do it, it creates a culture where genuine abuse can happen and have solid camouflage, even if most of the relationships are on the up-and-up.
And also, with a power imbalance like that, it’s quite possible to be in a relationship, believe it’s on the up-and-up, and be mistaken.
Replying to the Original Question:
When I was a TA, I didn’t even consider the possibly that I couldn’t date/sleep with students who weren’t in my class. I did so several times. No one noticed or cared.
I will also say that I was never told by any person that I wasn’t allowed to date students that I taught. I just never did because it seemed like a bad idea (and I never met anyone in a class that I wanted to date).
So yeah – I have to say, I found Jason getting fired with no proof for an offense that I was literally never told not to do when I was a TA and, so far as I know, could have done with no repercussions… it seems a bit odd.
That’d all be career-jeopardising moves where I’m from, and clearly communicated as such.
LeslieBean4Shizzle
Why for dating undergrad students not in the classes I taught? To everyone outside of those Workshops, I was just another student. There was never a perception that I had any kind of power.
I met the people I dated through the tabletop gaming club (which had both grad and undergrad members). There was literally 0 connection to the classes that I helped to teach.
You may have been in an area where TAs have different responsibilities? Some others have commented on this. The problem is significantly less if the TA has no supervisory or grading role.
Not sure when you TA’d, but I wouldn’t be surprised if standards have changed over the years as well. We’re far more aware of the potential for abuse in such cases than we were a few decades back.
LeslieBean4Shizzle
My role was… weird?
I taught (some) classes and provided feedback to students – BUT I did not grade them directly. Instead, I provided notes for the professor.
Specifically, the class I TAed was a series of Fiction Writing Workshops. The reason I TAed them is because the professor was ill (chronically) and needed help with the workload.
Maybe it wasn’t an issue because I had no power to grade?
Anyway…
Well, I can tell you that a lot of universities do have a written policy, that usually say something along the lines of “definitely not anyone whose academic career you have any perceived influence over”
1.) I have had students have crushes on me, just as I have had what felt like *life-threatening* crushes on some of my own “cool” professors (this is NOT to say that I am cool!). I remember one professor in particular on whom I was kind of fixated for a while: he was friendly (we were close in age), pretty cute, collegial, helped me move on to graduate school (he wrote one of my recommendation letters), and talked to me outside class about various authors and texts. At the same time, he set VERY clear boundaries and kept our relationship professional. He treated me more like a colleague than a “love interest” (which was the right response, IMHO) and I think of him when I have students who crush on me. (And that is NOT meant to be egotistical – there is a lot of projection and other stuff going on with students, especially students in the humanities.) I set boundaries. After class I often talk to some of my students about stuff outside class (one of my current students is a HUGE fan of horror! *squee!*). However, I would NOT invite any of them to go out drinking or to a horror movie, for example.
2.) In the U.S., the status of TAs depends on the school. Back when I was in physics, I was a lab TA for intro physics classes. I also worked as a “grader” for a few of the full-time professors in the department, and also as a lab assistant to the person who oversaw the lab materials and equipment for the entire physics department. To the best of my recollection, I was paid at the same rate as Adjunct Professors were in my department. I *also* got tuition remission (for anyone who doesn’t know, there is a LOT more money for STEM fields in the U.S. than there is for the humanities, so I’ve no doubt that part of my pay was through government grants and such). When I switched fields to English, I went to a graduate school that is part of a VERY large network of colleges (trying to not give too much personal info on the internet). One of the reasons I chose to go to that school was that they pretty much *guaranteed* that any graduate student who wanted to teach could do so at one of the 2- or 4-year colleges in the system. That made us Adjunct Professors, not TAs. I have a friend who TAd for a Distinguished Professor and, while she wasn’t paid in money, she got some credit reduction towards her degree and the prof. in question helped her A LOT with her academic career.
3.) That…depends on the school. At the school where I currently teach, until VERY recently, it was not against regulations for any Adjunct or full-time professor to have a relationship with any student. My school has since changed that policy because it apparently led to trouble. I personally know that several of my colleagues are married/have relationships with each other. However, as an employee of the college, I am SURE Jason was presented with the “fraternization” rules for his school.
In terms of the ethics of being a TA and being in a relationship with someone you don’t teach – as krveale says, it feels “skeevy” to me. Of course this is all IMHO, but I can’t IMAGINE getting into any kind of relationship with any of my students or, for that matter, other students at the school where I teach. It’s kind of like my head just shuts down if I try to think about that. A number of years ago I ran into one of my students at a club that I’d gone to with one of my friends who was NOT one of my students. Unbeknownst to me, my friend and this student were friends and apparently this encounter was completely random (we all had similar tastes in music, which was why we were at the same show). Instead of making polite excuses and leaving, I hung out and got kind of drunk with my friend and my student. THAT BACKFIRED. During the rest of the semester, this student kept expecting special treatment.
When I was working as a physics TA, I made friends with a bunch of undergraduates at my school (including someone who eventually became my long-term partner). I would also note that at the time I was about 21 and many of the people with whom I made friends through our campus gaming club were only two or so years younger than me. However, after I started hanging out with them, I requested my class list for my next semester from my department. I was more than ready to request that I be moved to a different lab section if it turned out that some of my friends were assigned to my class.
I mean…YMMV? It seems to me like Jason is being VERY unprofessional. By the same token, I have always gone to urban universities where the students and professors aren’t as isolated as they may be elsewhere, so I can maybe understand how people in those “isolated” college communities turn to each other. That’s just never been my personal experience.
Okay, I am hungry and done rambling now. I also think that Willis is doing something very interesting with Jason in the current #metoo era – it seems like a lot of people here (myself included) sympathize with Jason. BUT…he did a lousy thing. And, IMHO, shouldn’t be “given a pass” for that, despite the fact that he has an English accent and a bow tie. 😛
165 thoughts on “Backpacked”
Ana Chronistic
“It’s called Comic Book Time, my good man”
LeslieBean4Shizzle
**reads first comment**
**clicks Link**
**spends nearly 40 minutes reading**
**finally returns to comment**
Damn you TV Tropes!
Paidraig
I was all proud of myself for not going off on a TVTrope delve, only to realize it has been 4 hours, and I had been rereading several of the comics listed in the tropes’ article (but I never clicked a link on the page, so… victory?!)
Victor
I managed to avoid getting sucked in.
In real time, she’d be 25 or 26 by now, given that she was a 17 or 18 year old freshman back in 2010. Of course, by the time freshman year ends in-comic, she’d be retirement age in real time. (Only slight exaggeration needed, they’ve not even hit fall break yet, and it’s been 8 years. Willis is younger than I am, so I might not even live long enough to see spring break.)
Reltzik
*mouses over link*
*sees which trope it is*
*doesn’t click because he has it memorized*
…..
…. I am not sure whether this means I win or I lose.
shadowcell
whynotboth.jpg
Nono
The scary thing is, if we didn’t know for a fact that Billie was underage, she’d be pretty convincing.
Ana Chronistic
she has a lot of practice in bullshitting
DailyBrad
Today’s my birthday. This sass will be a suitable present.
Mr D
PEOPLE:
STOP THE PRESSES
TARA STRONG SAYS TAHT THE OG TEEN TITANS SHOW MAY GET RENEWED FOR ANOTHER SEASON
If the Teen Titans Go movie does well at the box office. TAKE ONE FOR THE TEAM!
Yumi
No.
Mr D
I mean, it’s not like you have to sit at the theater to watch it, just paying 5 bux for the resurrection of the old series.
Doctor_Who
Where do you live that movie tix are still only 5 bucks? 12 here, minimum.
Yumi
If you do a matinee around here, it’s $5, I believe. Maybe $6. I mostly only go to movies when I can do so for free.
Mr D
Wednesday’s is a slow day at the local theater, so they have every movie at 50% off. every week, no exceptions.
Mr D
combine that with Matinees and you get movies for under 5 bux.
LookingIn
matinees and bargain days, even the largest chains have bargain days(Tuesday or Wednesday, slowest days overall) so it’s not unheard of…
Yumi
The show you want to see is just a memory.
Mr D
Look, Young Justice got its third season, let me hype, will ya?
Yumi
Okay, but at least tell me you got the reference.
BBCC
I dunno about Mr D but I got that reference.
DarkoNeko
Nah.
Delicious Taffy
It wouldn’t be good enough for people, anyway.
Shiro
Honestly, I trust that about as far as I can throw it
I can’t throw an incorporeal statement on twitter very far
begbert2
I’ll go see it, if only because that’ll make my moviephile dad go see it with me, and I’m kind of a sadist that way.
Also, I’ve seen a bunch of the show and not hated it. It’s not *good*, per say, but it’s mildly entertaining at times and whenever I watch it I find myself saying to myself “I like these actors and am happy that they’re still working and drawing paychecks”.
Purblebirb
“Your powers are weak, old man”
King Daniel
“You should not have come back”…to Galasso’s.
Tacos
Now Billie needs to show him the power of the Dark Side.
Doctor_Who
“When I left you I was but the learner, now I am the master.”
“I’m still not serving you.”
“Fuck.”
jeffepp
“When you put it that way, maybe we can come to an… arrangement.”
Dean
“It’s over, Jason! I have the high ground!”
Keulen
“You can’t win Billie. If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”
Fire_daws
“You were the chosen one! You were meant to destroy the Alcoholics, not join them!”
Pablo360
Billie is half of everyone’s D&D characters with a Charisma higher than 11
Lilyliv
Yes! Though I’m the other half… I only seem to play high charisma characters but their charisma can only possibly come from sheer awkwardness, because I myself have the approximate charisma of a shoelace.
Doctor_Who
I’d say she needs a Glibness potion, but I think you need to be 21 to buy those anyway.
AnvilPro
Jason don’t ruin your new, fake job by giving her beer
Reltzik
Eh, he can say, “I carded her, she had ID, what more can I do?” It’s not like the drinking age is a deep, inviolate principle for him.
Khyrin
Fake ID Detection is part of the job, though. and failing a random check can lose a store its liquor license. The store I used to work for made about 30% of its gross sales in alcohol, and therefore had ironclad, get-a-manager-written-up-if-they-don’t-back-you-instead-of-the-customer rules for handling booze. if the cashier feels anything is shady about the transaction, you refuse and process the rest of the order, and you scan EVERY bottle by hand. Customers HAVE tried re-sealing cases of bottom-shelf they emptied and re-filled with the mid-shelf.
Khyrin
That is to say, remove bottom-shelf bottles, replace with more expensive bottles. Not emptying bottles in the store.
Elsendor
holy fuck how do bartenders even keep their jobs. cashiers miss fake ids and fake checks and fake shit all the time and it’s just expected since there are so many variations of ids and checks that no one can realistically be expected to know every single one flawlessly.
BBCC
My sister took a course to get certified to be an alcohol server (not a bartender, just a waitress who could bring booze) and it tested her on like ten zillion different ways to detect fake IDs. This was in Canada, not the US, but yeah, those alcohol server tests do not fuck around on fake IDs.
DarkoNeko
YOUR JEDI TRICKS DO NOT WORK HERE
Keulen
Jason’s a Toydarian, mind tricks don’t work on him.
Bagge
Wonderful call-back to Ruth’s description of their hypothetical European vacation.
Billie is such a romantic.
Deathjavu
Specifically, a Shakespearean teenage romantic: young, dumb, and recklessly pushing towards a double suicide
Bagge
But it would be for looooooooove <3
Reltzik
It would be for stupid timing and failing to actually tell the kids what the plan was.
Mr D
Related to Jason’s situation:
What DO you do if a student comes onto you?
(Related questions: Does a TA count as a teacher or a student? Can they get fired for having a relationship with a student they don’t teach?)
Viktoria
Say no. Same as if you’re a boss w/an employee or an adult w/someone underage. Turn them down, politely but firmly. You’re the one with power, you need to be responsible. Then document the incident and report it to someone else, so there’s a record that you are actively avoiding the problem.
Mr D
Sensible answer. What about the other two questions?
krveale
TA counts as a teacher, because they have a direct impact on the grades of the students in their care. MAJOR power disparity.
I have known situations where dating a student was not a problem, but that was very firmly ring-fenced at the level of “I am teaching in the college of humanities; you are a student in the college of sciences – there is NO POSSIBLE WAY I could have power over you because we operate in entirely different spheres.”
And even then, if the age disparity was significant it’d still be skeevy.
Hell, I’ve asked colleagues to double-mark students in my classes when they’ve been the siblings of old friends of mine, despite the fact I barely know them and don’t have contact with them: that way there’s no possibility it’ll look either like I’m showing favouritism OR that I’m being extra harsh to hassle them.
LeslieBean4Shizzle
You think the age difference between undergrad and grad (as little as 1 year, on average something like 4 years) is a skeevy? Yeah… I think you and I may have to agree to disagree. My dating life would likely shock and confuse you.
thejeff
krveale did say “if the age disparity was significant”
Axel
afaik – question 2/3: Both in different ways (they’re a student to profs and a teacher to students), and usually no but if there’s a risk they’ll end up being a TA for that student they might be jeopardizing their chance at TAing
krveale
oh shit yes – relationships between TAs and professors are skeevy in exactly the same way it’d be between TAs and students. Extra-specially so if the TA in question has that prof as their supervisor for postgrad work.
The only way I’ve seen such a thing handled in a way that wasn’t A Problem was where the people involved were clearly attracted to each other, but kept things entirely professional until the junior partner was entirely graduated and had a job somewhere else. They then said, “That felt like it could have been a thing. Do you think it could be a thing?” and it turned out that it worked, and the relationship accelerated from there because they’d already worked together for years and knew each other well.
They were just careful not to pull the trigger on trying things out until there was NO POSSIBILITY that power-dynamics might fuck them up.
Mr D
This is really interesting for me because in my country there isn’t any such thing as a TA, you are either a Teacher or a student. If you’re teaching, then that means you have already graduated.
The closesty thing would be Tutors, and those are informal things that are arranged between students.
Khno
I’m not sure where you’re from then, I thought you were from F?
Because if that’s the case, it’s not that old but 3rd year License students get to teach and grade 1rst year License students. of course, you would have to know them to know they’re not teachers because they present themselves as teachers. A side effect of Bologna and universities’ autonomy…
krveale
In the context I’m coming from – NZ, which is different from the US but overlaps in some ways – postgraduate students are often responsible for teaching university courses.
In that way they’re senior to the undergrads, but still under the professors.
Clif
Careful not to pull the trigger on trying things. — As far as you know that’s what happened.
krveale
*shrug*
Sure. I mean, I was friends with them and saw that they avoided opportunities to move to the same city that came up and were comfortable discussing the situation and Why Boundaries.
I’m taking them at their word.
Huehuetotl
A TA is in a student, but they’re in a position of authority over students in the class of the professor they’re working for. They’re allowed to have relationships, it’s when there’s a conflict of interest there’s a problem. If they’re not sure, they should talk to the head TA for the department, or the professor, however it’s set up.
Reltzik
As an additional reason, even if there were no exploitation of the power imbalance, and no inappropriate favors in terms of grades given or test answers leaked or whatever, even if everything about the relationship were completely healthy and consensual with no corruption of job responsibilities at all, there would still the APPEARANCE of impropriety.
Failing to avoid that appearance casts significant doubt on whether the student actually earned their grades, even if they in fact did. It can invite rumors, distrust, feelings of favoritism, and propositions from other students who believe there was impropriety and so can damage the teacher’s relationship with this entire class as well as future ones. And if enough teachers do it, it creates a culture where genuine abuse can happen and have solid camouflage, even if most of the relationships are on the up-and-up.
And also, with a power imbalance like that, it’s quite possible to be in a relationship, believe it’s on the up-and-up, and be mistaken.
krveale
Also all true.
LeslieBean4Shizzle
Replying to the Original Question:
When I was a TA, I didn’t even consider the possibly that I couldn’t date/sleep with students who weren’t in my class. I did so several times. No one noticed or cared.
I will also say that I was never told by any person that I wasn’t allowed to date students that I taught. I just never did because it seemed like a bad idea (and I never met anyone in a class that I wanted to date).
So yeah – I have to say, I found Jason getting fired with no proof for an offense that I was literally never told not to do when I was a TA and, so far as I know, could have done with no repercussions… it seems a bit odd.
krveale
Interesting.
That’d all be career-jeopardising moves where I’m from, and clearly communicated as such.
LeslieBean4Shizzle
Why for dating undergrad students not in the classes I taught? To everyone outside of those Workshops, I was just another student. There was never a perception that I had any kind of power.
I met the people I dated through the tabletop gaming club (which had both grad and undergrad members). There was literally 0 connection to the classes that I helped to teach.
thejeff
You may have been in an area where TAs have different responsibilities? Some others have commented on this. The problem is significantly less if the TA has no supervisory or grading role.
Not sure when you TA’d, but I wouldn’t be surprised if standards have changed over the years as well. We’re far more aware of the potential for abuse in such cases than we were a few decades back.
LeslieBean4Shizzle
My role was… weird?
I taught (some) classes and provided feedback to students – BUT I did not grade them directly. Instead, I provided notes for the professor.
Specifically, the class I TAed was a series of Fiction Writing Workshops. The reason I TAed them is because the professor was ill (chronically) and needed help with the workload.
Maybe it wasn’t an issue because I had no power to grade?
Anyway…
asp55
Well, I can tell you that a lot of universities do have a written policy, that usually say something along the lines of “definitely not anyone whose academic career you have any perceived influence over”
And, since DoA takes place at Indiana University, here’s the guidelines that governed Jason: Indiana University Policy on Consensual Relationships
Jaime
Okay, my 98 cents…
1.) I have had students have crushes on me, just as I have had what felt like *life-threatening* crushes on some of my own “cool” professors (this is NOT to say that I am cool!). I remember one professor in particular on whom I was kind of fixated for a while: he was friendly (we were close in age), pretty cute, collegial, helped me move on to graduate school (he wrote one of my recommendation letters), and talked to me outside class about various authors and texts. At the same time, he set VERY clear boundaries and kept our relationship professional. He treated me more like a colleague than a “love interest” (which was the right response, IMHO) and I think of him when I have students who crush on me. (And that is NOT meant to be egotistical – there is a lot of projection and other stuff going on with students, especially students in the humanities.) I set boundaries. After class I often talk to some of my students about stuff outside class (one of my current students is a HUGE fan of horror! *squee!*). However, I would NOT invite any of them to go out drinking or to a horror movie, for example.
2.) In the U.S., the status of TAs depends on the school. Back when I was in physics, I was a lab TA for intro physics classes. I also worked as a “grader” for a few of the full-time professors in the department, and also as a lab assistant to the person who oversaw the lab materials and equipment for the entire physics department. To the best of my recollection, I was paid at the same rate as Adjunct Professors were in my department. I *also* got tuition remission (for anyone who doesn’t know, there is a LOT more money for STEM fields in the U.S. than there is for the humanities, so I’ve no doubt that part of my pay was through government grants and such). When I switched fields to English, I went to a graduate school that is part of a VERY large network of colleges (trying to not give too much personal info on the internet). One of the reasons I chose to go to that school was that they pretty much *guaranteed* that any graduate student who wanted to teach could do so at one of the 2- or 4-year colleges in the system. That made us Adjunct Professors, not TAs. I have a friend who TAd for a Distinguished Professor and, while she wasn’t paid in money, she got some credit reduction towards her degree and the prof. in question helped her A LOT with her academic career.
3.) That…depends on the school. At the school where I currently teach, until VERY recently, it was not against regulations for any Adjunct or full-time professor to have a relationship with any student. My school has since changed that policy because it apparently led to trouble. I personally know that several of my colleagues are married/have relationships with each other. However, as an employee of the college, I am SURE Jason was presented with the “fraternization” rules for his school.
In terms of the ethics of being a TA and being in a relationship with someone you don’t teach – as krveale says, it feels “skeevy” to me. Of course this is all IMHO, but I can’t IMAGINE getting into any kind of relationship with any of my students or, for that matter, other students at the school where I teach. It’s kind of like my head just shuts down if I try to think about that. A number of years ago I ran into one of my students at a club that I’d gone to with one of my friends who was NOT one of my students. Unbeknownst to me, my friend and this student were friends and apparently this encounter was completely random (we all had similar tastes in music, which was why we were at the same show). Instead of making polite excuses and leaving, I hung out and got kind of drunk with my friend and my student. THAT BACKFIRED. During the rest of the semester, this student kept expecting special treatment.
When I was working as a physics TA, I made friends with a bunch of undergraduates at my school (including someone who eventually became my long-term partner). I would also note that at the time I was about 21 and many of the people with whom I made friends through our campus gaming club were only two or so years younger than me. However, after I started hanging out with them, I requested my class list for my next semester from my department. I was more than ready to request that I be moved to a different lab section if it turned out that some of my friends were assigned to my class.
I mean…YMMV? It seems to me like Jason is being VERY unprofessional. By the same token, I have always gone to urban universities where the students and professors aren’t as isolated as they may be elsewhere, so I can maybe understand how people in those “isolated” college communities turn to each other. That’s just never been my personal experience.
Okay, I am hungry and done rambling now. I also think that Willis is doing something very interesting with Jason in the current #metoo era – it seems like a lot of people here (myself included) sympathize with Jason. BUT…he did a lousy thing. And, IMHO, shouldn’t be “given a pass” for that, despite the fact that he has an English accent and a bow tie. 😛
krveale