Students entitled to explanation

UBC Okanagan students deserve a detailed explanation re the disciplinary actions of Dr. Stephen Porter.

Porter, a psychology professor at the Kelowna campus since 2009, won a Canadian Psychological Society Association teaching award in 2015. He’s noted for his work on lie detection, training law enforcement agents and trial judges.

Over the Christmas break, the College of Psychologists of British Columbia posted that he consented to having his practice put under regulatory supervision for 18 months with a “particular focus” on boundary issues, sexual harassment and power differentials. There have been no criminal charges.

He is presently not teaching and agreed to send letters of apology to an undisclosed number of students. That’s about all the students know. By comparison, when high school teachers have been reported to have acted inappropriately (whether they’ve broken a law or not), a full expose is posted and the school board chair or superintendent offers some kind of statement and reassurance.

The Porter story broke the news late last week and has drawn attention from the likes of

and University officials have said nothing and requests for interviews by CBC resulted in brief statement from UBCO’s media department.

The fact the ruling was posted on Dec. 29, when regular classes were not in session and students distracted with holiday activities, is perhaps coincidental. Students, not trolling the CPBC website, learned of the disciplinary actions from the media.

What’s happening now on the Kelowna campus, especially in the faculty of psychology, is a whirlwind of rumours.

“What’s most concerning is so many people don’t know about it,” said English major Brie Welton, the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper on campus. “It’s sort of been swept under the rug and that’s concerning for the future of sexual assault policies. It’s not being dealt with publicly. The students are in the dark. There’s a lot of questions that need to be answered that are not being answered.”

The term sexual harassment is a broad one. The silence by university officials is deafening. The public also needs to be educated on what’s acceptable and non-acceptable behaviour.

The university states privacy concerns.

Many of the worries students have can be answered without revealing the identity of the complainants.

In the age of #MeToo, the university’s top brass needs to be far more transparent.