Disciplined prof has course cancelled
An Ontario university has reversed its plan to let a professor who was disciplined for sexually harassing a female student return to the classroom — announcing on the eve of his first lecture that the history course David Schimmelpenninck was scheduled to teach this winter has been cancelled. Students at Brock University in St. Catharines intended to stage a silent sit-in protest at Schimmelpenninck’s classroom door as the course got underway on Thursday after a provincial arbitrator ruled the professor, who hadn’t taught at Brock since an investigation into his conduct concluded in 2016, should be allowed to resume his regular duties.
The university emailed students in the undergraduate course on Wednesday to inform them it would no longer be held this semester. A Brock spokesperson declined to explain why the course was cancelled or to specify when the decision to cancel it was made, noting the university doesn’t comment on personnel matters. In a written statement Schimmelpenninck said, “I regret my past behaviour, and if I could undo it, and the harm I caused, I absolutely would.
“I had a drinking problem for a very long time. I have gotten help for my alcoholism and stopped drinking completely. Over the past three years I have worked very hard to address my problems and done everything the university has asked of me. “I made serious mistakes and the university has disciplined me for them. I know that some people will never accept me back at the school. I have devoted my life to being an educator, and my only hope is that I will be able to give back to the university community the best way I know, as an educator.” Students have called for Schimmelpenninck to resign in light of his behaviour one night in October 2014. Schimmelpenninck had met some of his students at a bar after class when he suggested to one male and one female in the group that they accompany him to his office to keep drinking. An internal Brock investigation later sided with the female student, who has not been named, when she alleged Schimmelpenninck made sexual advances and comments to which she objected after her male counterpart went home. Schimmelpenninck was away from Brock from the end of the investigation in March 2016 until this past summer due to disciplinary reasons, “as well as for related health issues and accrued academic leave,” the school said recently.