MA-01: As Morse defends conduct, UMass policy 'strongly discourages' faculty-student relationships

[RandySF]

AMHERST — For more than a quarter century — and likely longer — there has been ongoing debate at the University of Massachusetts and on college campuses across the country about the propriety of romantic relationships between faculty and students.

Congressional candidate and Holyoke Mayor Alex B. Morse isn’t the first to be caught up in the debate. He is, though, facing claims raised just weeks before the Sept. 1 primary in which he hopes to unseat U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, one of the most powerful Democratic members of Congress.

The recent controversy involving claims that Morse dated UMass students while he was a part-time lecturer there is the latest chapter in an ongoing campus discussion about what constitutes a proper relationship between faculty members and students.

Morse has been on the spot since the Massachusetts Daily Collegian reported Aug. 7 that the College Democrats of Massachusetts, and its chapters at UMass and Amherst College, disinvited Morse from future events, both online and in person.


https://www.masslive.com/news/2020/08/alex-morse-defends-role-at-umass-says-dating-college-students-while-on-faculty-is-not-violation-of-campus-policies.html

[stillcool]

1. this could be interesting...

COLLEGE DEMOCRAT CHATS REVEAL YEAR-OLD PLAN TO ENGINEER AND LEAK ALEX MORSE ACCUSATIONS
“This will sink his campaign,” predicted a College Democrat leader hoping to work for Rep. Richard Neal.

https://theintercept.com/2020/08/12/alex-morse-college-democrats-chats/
August 12 2020, 6:55 p.m.
THE LEADERSHIP OF the University of Massachusetts Amherst College Democrats began discussing an operation they believed could sink the campaign of Alex Morse for Congress as far back as last October, a plan they then helped engineer and which came to fruition on Friday, after the College Democrats sent a letter regarding Morse to the Daily Collegian, the school’s student newspaper.
The letter, sent three weeks before his primary challenge to Rep. Richard Neal, informed Morse that he was no longer welcome at College Democratic events, alleging he used such opportunities to socialize with students and later connect with them on social media in ways that made them feel uncomfortable. Message logs obtained by the Intercept — both from leaders of the College Democrats UMass Amherst chapter group as well as chats one of them had with Morse — shed new light on how this purported scandal was deployed. As a condition of obtaining the logs, The Intercept agreed to publish some of the chats and paraphrase others.
On Wednesday, following a statement by Morse, the statewide College Democrats chapter clarified that he had in fact only attended a single event during the course of his campaign. It was after that event in October 2019 that the leadership of the UMass Amherst chapter began to talk about leaking a story damaging to Morse, according to those online communications.

[bottomofthehill]

3. Does not matter who broke the story

He was dating students where he teaches. That’s a NoNo. The power dynamic tilts entirely to the Professor and should never happen.

[stillcool]

5. I don't care who broke the story...

I don't even care who wins. Neal is not my Congressman, but it sure is interesting....and if you read the article you will see that there is no rule against a teacher dating a student not in their class. Also, who did he date? In any case I don't think this is going to bode well for UMassAmherst

[bottomofthehill]

2. If you are a teacher on any level

Keep your hands off the students. Once they graduate, if you want to peruse a relationship and the former student expresses interest, that’s great, but as long as they are a student where you teach, keep your hands to yourself.

[bluedye33139]

4. When I had a faculty position, you could not have paid me to date students

I suppose partly because if I was paid to date students, I would have been a prostitute. But, to be serious, it is common and it is problematic.

The policy explicitly forbids relationships when there's any supervision relationship. However, this allows for relationships with all other students who are not in one's classes.

Some universities like to point out that we should also avoid relationships with people who might become our supervisors or students, which some faculty interpret is meaning that one should not date within one's department.

There is zero possibility that Morse violated university policy unless he actually dated someone that was his student at the time. The UMass policy is explicit:

https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/new-policy-governs-consensual

And a PDF of the policy is available at the site. I don't want to post a link directly to a PDF because this is a security risk, and I don't want people to pick up the habit of clicking on links that download PDFs directly. If you search for consensual relationships through the university website, it will give you the PDF of the policy.