Though in British English, “boffin” is slang for scientist (in particular physicists and chemists), so a boffin student would be be into math.
(Hi, I’m new, long-time reader, first-time commenter.)
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard boffin get shortened down to boff for conversational purposes too. “Oh, I see you’re a right boff, aren’t you.” Or something like that.
I think that was a bit overtly mean for Penny to ruin the career of her supposed friend and bestie in the country. Then again, there’s been no sign Penny is meant to be a remotely redeemable person.
To be fair, I doubt anyone can scheme their way out of a sopping wet paper bag. I mean, sure they could remove the bag or rip it apart, but scheming is only thinking about doing things not actually doing them so scheming along would accomplish very little.
1. It doesn’t matter whether people learn in college or not (a VERY common attitude among my fellow academics)
2. Nobody in the department liked Jason. Which is entirely understandable.
No, actually, that’s exactly what I’d tell a friend. But then, I prefer irreverence and bluntness, and that’s the kind of rapport I have with my friends.
Wait, is Jason actually fired because she lied about him screwing students? I know he did so he deserves to be fired as much as she does, but it’s super messed up if she just didn’t know about it but just lied that he did for no reason other than she’s a bitter ex
Not because she’s a bitter ex but because she’s not going down alone. I mean, granted, it’s shitty of her to lie (as far as she knew) but since he actually did do it….I’m hard pressed to be sympathetic to Jason.
And she didn’t come off well before, either. Like yeah, hard to feel too bad for Jason given he was guilty, but she could’ve wrecked some other TA’s career while she was at it. (I’m hoping the claims are being investigated and Penny was just fired when she did because the rest of the department knew, but drama. Willis. Y’know.)
Nobody expects you to be sympathetic to Jason – but when someone frames somebody else for something and it turns out it was actually true AFTER the fact, they don’t deserve any brownie points either.
If you’re a spiteful arsehole, it doesn’t matter if you were accidentally right.
Unsubstantiated allegations, leading to overreaction on the part of the administration, resulting in the rapacious destruction of careers, reputations, and possibly even lives. Welcome back to Salem, Massachusetts circa 1692.
Right, so the only acceptable response is treat it as a criminal matter, keep the administration out of it completely and leave rapists and abusers in place until and unless there’s a criminal conviction.
Seriously, this idea that there’s some kind of witch hunt going on is nonsense. There are occasional cases of overreaction. There are far more of allegations ignored, of abusers protected by the system and rapists going unpunished, or lightly punished.
That said, no way Jason should be fired, based solely on an allegation from another TA’s who’s being disciplined herself, with no corroboration or details that could be verified. Of course, now that there are two witnesses to him admitting it. 🙂
Honestly, Penny shouldn’t be fired based only on the Do list, at least not without tracking down Joe.
Walky’s the only witness’s here: Polly made the original accusation, so she can’t testify on this evidence without compromising her credibility. Walky is a witness, but unless he or Polly volunteers his identity, how would administration reach out to him?
Considering that there’s at least one case where the investigating body of the university found that one student who was passed out at the time “raped” another student who was performing fellatio on him… Yeah, my opinion of the way US colleges nd universities handle allegations of sexual misconduct is about as low as it can be.
schools tend to care more about reputation then truth nowadays. If you run the risk of making them look bad they’ll cut you off without even bothering to look into it.
Also he can probably contest it? He wasn’t accused directly by the school or even informed so he could probably be like hey no she’s full of shit I’m not actually fired am I?
What math class is Joe in? I mean, presumably one Penny TAs, but is it like another section of the class Joyce, Walky, and them are in? Or is it a different course?
Well, Jason deserves to be fired because he’s an awful teacher, he slept with a student, and he treated both her as well as Walky with such contempt that I’m pretty sure there was a racial element involved. Certainly, he considered Sal overtly sexualized and stupid. Which means there’s only one place left for him to go: BECOME ROBIN DESANTO’S CHIEF OF STAFF!
From Jason’s perspective, Walky is a giant asshole. I mean imagine if someone ignores you for weeks when you initially offer to help them, they eventually come back and rather then actually trying to listen to anything you say, make insults based upon your country of origin. I would also treat Walky with contempt.
Note, this doesn’t mean I think Walky is a bad person, but that’s only because I know why Walky acts the way he does. I also don’t think Jason is a bad person, or that Penny is a bad person. I can’t know if someone is a bad person until I can know what led them to make certain decisions.
Saying somone is a bad person is a difficult thing, because it tries to boil down a person to one thing, and people are a mess of things they do, decisions they make and things they feel. Saying they act like an asshole is much easier, because it doesn’t try to say that’s all they are.
And it’s easy to see that all three of them sometimes act like assholes but we saw Penny do so more often than the others.
Understanding why someone acts a certain way might be interesting to see, to find a way to influence them or just find some compassion. But in the end, if they are doing acts that need to be stopped, stop first and ask why later.
TAs shouldn’t sleep with their students. They shouldn’t offer better grades in return for sex (which I understand is what Penny did).
It still is weird that Penny loses her job for having sex with Joe, who we know liked it and didn’t do it for grades.
Like, she is one of umpteen people he had sex with, and I don’t believe a skinny minute they will start to investigate into the behavior of all other TAs and there will be somone out there who actually puts the pressure on his students to have sex with him.
He is being an asshole, but if your reaction to someone being immature, having no sense of priorities, and making irritating jokes is contempt, you may have a valid point of view but also REALLY should not be teaching undergraduates, much less freshmen.
It’s notable to me that Jason takes one look at Sal and pretty much judges her as stupid, criminal, and yet still makes a pass at her with his first statement. Given a large part of Sal’s arc is her casually dealing with racism, it’s notable Jason doesn’t know Walky but treats him with every bit of contempt and blistering scorn as he does Sal.
I think it’s more he judged her on her appearance/the way she presents herself. The motorcycle, the cigarettes, the outfits, the general rebellious attitude. Maybe there was a subconscious racial element, but remember another part of sals arc is people judging her based on the things listed above.
I looked it up, and at first he thought Sal was attractive, then apologized when she noticed him staring and told her that he would help her with her studies on tuesday. He continued to piss her off by referring to his accent as the “Queen’s English”. So much for first impressions.
If he’s judging her by something, it’s much more likely to be her Southern dialect or her tattoo, because both was mentioned before. And also that she’s not good in math, he very much seems like an intelectual elitist.
His first impression of Walky was Walky not taking notes, but drawing a dinosaur, and Jason cringes because of it (maybe he knows where this kind of carelessness leads, dunno).
And the second time, when he approached him about his grades, Walky yelled at him he was grading his papers wrong.
Jason is not a very nice or tolerant guy, but I doubt his problems with the Walkerton twins are racially motivated.
Don’t you know, anytime anyone is even remotely unpleasant to a POC, there must be a racial element involved. This is 2018.
Wake me up when society has reached an acceptably ambiguious shade of brown-ish that being an equal-opportunity asshole is (borderline) acceptable again.
He’s also a TA. In my experience they hate all undergrads, especially ones who are doing poorly in their classes and are deliberately rude to him.
And because Jason is a fictional character: we know that his is priggish, judgmental and condescending to everyone, and if subconscious or lowkey racial hostility were meant to be part of his character it’s likely David would have discussed it before now.
wait wouldn’t staff misconduct be investigated instead of firing someone based one hearsay (it is CANON that Joe bragged about sexual conquests he had not made)
then again we saw how Puddinghead handled Ruth so maybe that’s just university government policy in general
I think it’s been established Indiana U is a shitty shitty college in Willisverse (I can’t speak for reality but working in academia–even good schools are often terrible places). How bad of a college is it? Jason takes the students NOTES after class–the thing which they NEED TO STUDY.
Yes, it’s a sign the entire university is shit. Puddinghead, Professor, and so on. The only decent teacher is the one who was replaced with his double from another universe.
Though Leslie does have a few teaching fuckups. But by in-universe standards, she’s pretty great, and out-of-universe, I’d still like to have her class.
Willis replaced the original teacher of computer programming with a female version of the original. Both of which are based on his transgender friend (who, congrats on that) but which don’t have that element in the story. No, instead, they’re just very similar looking people. They also have completely different teaching styles.
Glad i’m not the only one still annoyed by that business of taking the notes. Makes zero sense. Aside from the fact the students need them to study, what will student notes tell a teacher? How well they take dictation?
Hell, you can just take pictures of everyone’s notes with your camera phone if you want to assess their progress without depriving them of study material.
Or like, I had a lecture hall class that was like, “There will be five random short quizzes throughout the semester. Said quizzes will count toward the attendance part of your grade.”
(Said quizzes were really easy, so basically they were just random attendance checks.)
O, but if you do that, someone could scan the ids of all his friends.
I don’t see why attendance should matter. If you pass the tests (and there, yes, ID evryone) you passed, it shouldn’t matter if you learned the stuff by listening to the lectures, knew it all along, or learned it from a text book the prof didn’t write.
We just had attendance sheets we signed every once in a while at my uni (but then, we weren’t ever marked for attendance anyway, just exams and coursework)
I’m pretty sure the whole ‘taking the notes’ thing was just a plot device whereby one of the main characters (Joyce i think?) could become aware that Walky was having trouble with his grades.
The thought that faculty would take the students’ notes is SO foreign to how postsecondary education actually works that it reaches “God is not dead” levels of misprepresentation. Your note are your property, the university has no claim on them. Also, student performance is private information. Nobody knows what marks you get on anything unless you show them personally. In the situations where it’s possible for someone else to see your score, the professor or TA will call out your name and hand it to you when you come up to the front. Publicly posted marks will have concealing information like your student number, and given that nobody except you knows what that it (it’s on your student ID), any privacy breaches there are your fault (or someone’s stolen something that belongs to you).
So, plot device. The author didn’t or couldn’t think of a way to have one character learn that another character was having learning issues and came up with this absurdly unlikely scenario. This is my best explanation for the whole notes/marks thing. I ignore it because … well … just roll with it. Right?
Also, no one cares if you attend class or not. Being there is your responsibility, you’re an adult now. If you fail out you only have yourself to blame.
The stated reason is to take attendance and so the TA can ascertain how well you understand the lecture.
Also, Joyce learned about his test score when she passed his test to him, not from the homework.
Finally, I think how private those scores are largely depends on the teacher. I’ve had college teachers who just leave your stuff on the table at the front and people came up to get them. The grades were right there, and several teachers require your student number on papers. Really not that private. Hell, I’ve graded my classmate’s papers before (when I was in elementary school, not college, but still – grades are not necessarily private).
Well, sure i get that the stated reason for taking the notes is to see how well you understand the lecture, it’s just that -that is what tests are for- and is a flimsy rationalization. Plus a huge work burden on the TA’s. Plus speaking personally, i can barely read my own handwriting. This excuse falls apart under examination, that’s why i speculated that it must be happening for some other reason.
Marks are supposed to be private, i’m sorry for your experience. TA’s and professors can get in shit for that sort of thing nowadays. And yes, i have occasionally had other students pass me my graded work but those were the rare exceptions and minor things like a quick quiz that took like 10 minutes to write.
Incidentally, i find the university’s treatment of the two TA’s here plausible if not realistic. Penny certainly could have been fired after a simple meeting like that but Jason almost certainly would be called in first too and not be fired this way. So it’s more likely Penny is just tweaking Jason here.
It’s not like ‘huge work burden on TAs’ is exactly a deal breaker for university professors. Plus, again, they’re using them to take attendance since apparently Rees cares about that.
I think it depends on where you are, because pretty much every class I’ve been in has done something like that. Also, the only tests we’ve seen have been of the ‘weekly’ variety, so I’m assuming these are not worth a whole lot at the end of the day. So probably closer to ‘quick quiz that took like 10 minutes to write’ than anything actually important.
As for Jason, I’m sure the admins were planning on notifying him, but Penny got there first. Or she just told them a few minutes ago when she was fired and they haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet.
Nonetheless, they should never discuss firing decisions with with a co-worker like that, especially one they’re firing as well. The most she should have gotten is a “Thank you for the information. We’ll look into it.”
I suspect that’s most likely – she told them and assumed that’ll get him fired as well.
Yeah my college pretty blatantly hands out everyone’s grades, and I have had notes taken as participation credit, so maybe that’s just the way it is at some schools. It’s a pretty arrogant assessment to assume anything that was different than your experience is a plot device
Generally most Universities departments would launch an investigation and not take on a leaked sex list as the only evidence its flimsy.Also While Penny and Jason are terrible TAs they should be talking to their union reps TAs cant be fired this easily. although the university may have already conducted an investigation and Penny was found to be in violation of her contract. Also IU is tate school they have a union. also apolgies for poor spelling i wrote this on a phone
Yeah, unions for graduate assistants are…not as sure a thing as you think they are. I don’t know if IU grad assistants currently have a union in real life, but as of a couple years ago, they were just in the stages of advocating for one.
looking it up it appears IU does not have a union however the effectivness of said union varries from university to universiry. My contract stipulates that my union is to be consulted if i am under threat of being sacked. I dont tjink they would be an effective deterent if I was going to be sacked but its one line of defense. If you are an adjunct however you are at the mercy of the university.
I have a “union,” but it’s toothless, and it doesn’t even attempt to advocate for us anyway. And I’d guess that’s the case most places. T.A.s are, after all, eminently replaceable.
Yes, my university is very much of the view we’re mooks in their Legion of Doom. Shoot a few to keep the others in line or just on a whim. They have more.
I have trouble vilifying the university for taking claims of sexual misconduct by its employees *too seriously*, given how most institutions prefer to ignore it altogether.
Fired him just on the basis of the accusation without even confronting him … That it turns out to be true is good for a humorous twist in the story, but fans of due process can’t be too thrilled — if there are any in this land of ends-justify-the-means.
I find that kind of unintentionally hilarious – Penny is nasty and a piece of work, but out of the two of them, she’s the one that got fucked over while Jason got punished for something he did do
While on one hand they likely wouldn’t have caught him otherwise as Sal and Jason were unlikely to admit it, on the other DUE PROCESS *pterodactyl screech*.
But also, if people complained about Jason before for other reasons, this could have just been the last straw that allowed them to just toss him overboard at last so… we’ll see if he actually asks and gets an answer with time or if it really was ‘POSSIBLY FRATERNIZING WITH STUDENTS? GET OUT.’
It varies. On some things? It works great. On possible sexual relations between TAs and students? One half of me is like ‘I would want to fire them right away’ and another half is like ‘but due process is to protect innocent people’. However, since we know Jason is guilty… my lenience for him is non-existent.
This. And it doesn’t just apply to TAs – adjuncts have to deal with this shit too. I have been soft fired (ie, no longer offered classes without warning) for the following reasons:
1) I was hired by the previous administrator and the new administrator let everyone go who was hired by the previous person.
2) For doing what I was told to do by my superior.
3) Because one student didn’t like a video I showed in class and bongoed to the Dean about it.
And I am considered a “successful” adjunt professor” who is popular with students and gets consistent testing score improvements.
Seriously, the current climate for people working on the lower rungs in Academia is utter tripe. There is little/no opportunity for advancement, no benefits, and you can be fired at any time for any reason with no recourse.
TAs depending on the university have a union, usually not effective but they have one its a minor one. But your description of being adjunct professor seems about par for the course I hope you find a tenure track postion or a job with some security.
Well, given how… discrete Penny was about boffing said student, it’s very possible that faculty already knew and this is not a case of them PROVING it, them no longer being able to keep up plausible deniability and HAVING to act on it.
Penny should have been fired a long time ago, but now they will get negative press if they don’t arse themselves to do it.
That’s quite possible and tends to be how things go. Everybody knows and no one talks about it and then something goes public and they can’t keep it quiet anymore.
Jason’s even more problematic – especially if he’s actually been fired and Penny told about it, based simply on Penny’s word and without even talking to him about it. She couldn’t even have told them anything more than “he’s been doing it too”, unless she was just making up details.
Any workplace I’ve been in, telling someone that someone else was going to be fired was a huge no-no. It might be that Penny’s just assuming he will be, because of what she said, but they’re still looking into it.
In real life, universities exist to bilk the students of tuition or the government so they can bilk the students of tution as well as make money from sports. The cynicism of many educators is tremendous and it passes down to TAs.
I am trying to figure out a way to respond to this in a way that doesn’t violate item 3) of the “About/Read before posting” page, and I am mostly failing.
But on behalf of thousands of years of scholars, stretching back at least as far as Ashurbanipal’s librarians, I have to say this: the fact that you believe that ignorance is preferable to universities says more about you than it says about universities.
If someone says “many,” it does not automatically mean “all.” I don’t know how that could be clearer. Also, cynical, yes. Grifter? No, that seems much more your interpretation of what was said.
The university system has flaws. Surely you recognize that? And if someone sees those flaws as more integral to the whole thing than you do, maybe try to see where they’re coming from a bit before responding. Doesn’t mean you have to agree with them, just that they have a different perspective on something that is not perfect. And, of note, C.T Phipps has also mentioned being in academia.
For the sake of illumination, I am an educator or at least was until I moved onto full-time writing and my statement was reflecting on my sadness at how the system has failed so many students. Academia should be the bringer of higher education to students and often is but the sheer corruption and economic exploitation of the system going on in America’s universities. It’s the perspective of the Catholic priest who witnessed the Borgias act–a despair born of a love of the system not of a hate.
Zero tolerance for sexual misconduct that BECOMES PUBLIC, however….
…. I’m sure somewhere in the background there’s a group of concerned students who poured over the creepazoid’s sex list, discovered there was a TA involved, and made a stink about it.
For a TA it’s far more believable. TAs are easy to replace. There are often several graduate students without funding clamoring for those positions. And unlike students, the school isn’t generally being paid tuition for TAs, nor do they often risk losing the financial support of some rich donor by firing one.
Basically, schools are most spineless when it affects their bottom line. Firing a TA almost never does, so it’s the school’s chance to put on a face of competence and do something.
Are we sure the university didn’t confirm the allegations? I mean, we have no indication one way or the other, but it’s entirely possible that they confronted Penny, she went “Jason’s doing it too!” and they fired her for the “too”. Then they pulled up security footage of Jason’s office and saw Sal leaving with her bra in her pocket and decided to fire him off that.
Actually, hell, maybe Jason isn’t fired. Penny went down like I said, but they haven’t decided what to do about him yet and she just assumes he’ll be fired, too.
That’s fair speculation, though I’d be disappointed if Jason didn’t end up getting fired. I mean, I’m kind of interested in him, but that only goes as far as being okay with him not being fired YET.
Without checking the old strips, I don’t recall Penny being subtle about her student screwing to begin with. Could be there were already rumors and that clinched it?
Yeah I just bothered to check, her first comic is her asking Jason if he needs to use their office to bang a student, then being disappointed when he claims otherwise because that would ‘make him interesting’. Then we get the honor code only you abide by line and the Joe bit in her only other interaction onscreen, and when Jason asks if she thinks ‘blatantly’ having sex with students is a good idea she basically says ‘it doesn’t matter, I’m popular, no one likes you so you couldn’t get away with it.’ No defense that he’s the only one who knows or anything. I think it was an open secret among the other TAs for a while and university apathy was the only thing saving her. Jason might be able to wrangle out of this yet (though I hope not since he is only slightly less terrible)
Yeah, Walky’s screwed unless he can find someone else to help him with math. Though I think he was already screwed since Jason is a terrible teacher anyway.
Jason’s problem is that he doesn’t know how to view math from the perspective of someone who knows less than he does.
Walky’s problem is that he doesn’t know how to study. Or slightly more accurately: he can retain ~some~ information without effort, enough to pass high school coursework but not enough to pass college coursework. The information in college classes is both greater by volume and trickier to understand. Studying is putting in the time needed to learn the concepts and memorize the large volume of information. Doing it well is a learned skill.
Walky had better learn how to learn FAST or he’ll probably flunk out.
I think Walky not knowing how to study is an overstatement of his problem. Even if we question Dorothy’s study methods, she has been spending time with him trying to help him with math, but he hasn’t seemed to make any progress that we know of.
We also know that Sal also had trouble understanding the class. Considering that they were most likely exposed to similar educational environments (until she was sent away), I’m thinking a different way of looking at it would help him like it did her.
Of course, he doesn’t have a lot of options for help that would make him happy.
Jason, the bad teacher.
Joyce, who can’t stand him half the time.
Sal, which would most likely be awkward.
Danny, who’s Danny (and also Dorothy’s ex). Walky didn’t even like borrowing shoes from him.
Mike, who’d probably do it if he could punch Walky in the face.
Billie, who is transitioning into treating him like a friend and has her own issues right now.
Really, the best math tutor, for his mental and emotional wellbeing, would probably be Dina.
My worst (weeder) class was difficult not because of studying, nor volume, nor anything except I could understand only 2/5 of the professor’s words.
The monosyllabic words.
Given the current state of the education system in the U.S., this particular strip fills me with a delicious sensation of schadenfreude. In real life I would have preferred a suspension while an in-depth investigation was launched, but as it’s fictional I’ll take this just fine.
I find whenever someone talks about how many people like them, most people do not in fact like them. Penny seems to be the kind of person people act like they like when she’s around, but talk piss about her when she isn’t.
Yeah, especially since the few interactions we have of her kind of imply she’s the sort of person who assumes everyone’s like her. (Not only does she not bother to hide her student boffing, her first reaction to Jason needing the office is to either joke or assume he needs it for the same. Even if it’s a joke, that’s inappropriate at least and possibly a hostile work environment complaint.) I wouldn’t be surprised if other TAs knew and maybe even complained about her before privately.
Okay so first off, I’m going to assume Jason isn’t fired…yet. I find it highly unlikely that a single accusation, without any details would be enough to get someone fired. Especially if it came from someone you literally just fired.
However Jason will be investigated, and their is only one person who isn’t Jason and knows for sure…Sal.
Walky now needs Sal to lie, so that Jason doesn’t get fired and can teach him math. Sal probably doesn’t care if Jason is fired or not, and as such it all comes down to what Jason and Walky can offer her.
Yeah, but Walky has reasons to want Jason to stay, so he is unlikely to confirm any allegations against him. The biggest risk is that Walky blurts out something stupid, he would never go to the administration on his own, but he would make an incriminating joke without thinking about it under pressure.
It IS Walky’s own fault. He hasn’t paid a shred of attention to Jason in favor of calling him names and staring into the middle distance. Like, no – Jason is a poor teacher thanks to total lack of both training and inclination to the role, but saying that Walky’s failure to be successfully tutored is all on Jason is utterly ridiculous to me.
Jason could have been the best tutor in the universe, but Walky’s zero effort would still have resulted in Walky not being helped at all.
I agree that it’s a failure on both their parts. Jason’s not a good tutor and Walky’s not a good student. My point is that Walky is increasingly blaming himself and not Jason. … well, he says he blames Jason, but I don’t believe him.
Nope, they don’t talk about stuff. Which means we get this conversation in the future:
Walky: “Hey, Sis. Turns out I’m going to fail math because our TA stopped tutoring me because he got fired for banging some student.”
Sal: “…”
Walky: “I mean who would go for a ganky beanpole in suspenders and ties unless she was just some skank trying to inflate her grade by-”
Sal: “SO WAIT YOU’RE FAILING MATH let’s talk about that… hey, Wonderbread! Get over here, I’ve got someone for you to talk geeky to!”
I’m sure Sal is not the only student Jason tutored. For that matter, there’s no need for anyone to assume the “rumored” student is a woman.
So if Walky guesses Sal is who Jason is referring to, it would be more “conclusion jumping” than “figuring it out”
Sal knows, but no one else knows it’s Sal. Penny didn’t know and so probably didn’t name names – if she did it would only be by chance she picked Sal’s name.
Most likely Sal wouldn’t have to lie since administration would never know to ask her.
OTOH, Jason essentially just admitted it to Penny and in front of Walky, so that’s not good for him.
She might have picked Sal just because of her dragging Jason into his office off hours and also because she’s most likely ‘the other TA’ who he asked to grade her work.
That’s a fair point, but Sal hasn’t been asked as of yet, and would never narc. Also, I’d be surprised if Penny remembered Sal’s name to point them in her direction.
Joe just had to imply a TA will “boff students”, even if it is an abuse of some power. Will the list fallout continue for other co-eds? And the leaker is still unknown.
1. Raidah didn’t even know about the list originally, and the last time we hear about it prior to it being leaked is Joe giving her access to it.
2. Raidah wants to manage Jacob, who he’s friends with and how they might influence him. She views his relationship with her on how much he can benefit from being with her, not just about him liking her, so it’s not a leap to say she views other relationships in regards to benefits. Joe has very little benefit to Jacob from her perspective.
3. Following that train of thought, exposing the list does one thing she’d like and allies the possibility for one of two positive outcomes for her. First, it gets ?Joe in trouble, making him a liability (in her eyes) to Jacob. So, because of said trouble, in her shoes, she would write Joe off, so would hope Jacob would do the same. Or Joe might be in so much hot water that he can’t really hang out with Jacob anymore. Either way, friendship is over. That’s the first positive outcome for her. Second, they remain friends, but Joe is forced to be on his best behavior, making him a more suitable friend for Jacob to be around (which seems to be the case at the moment). Provided she’s not found out, it’s a win-win.
Oh my glob, I just figured it out. The leaker is Amazigirl. Amber was in position to know about the list, she has the technical skills, AG tends to ignore long-term consequences like the girls who were hurt by the list coming out, and it’s exactly the sort of vigilante punishment for Joe that AG prefers. Plus it fits Amber’s arc for AG to leak the list without her knowing and for Danny to figure that out later.
I’m going to say no to Danny.
Assuming the leak was done on purpose. The only reason Danny would do that would be to make Joe a better person.
But in the strip immediately before the one you linked to, Rachel asks Danny if he’s doing anything to facilitate Joe learning from this, and Danny admits that he hasn’t even tried because Joe isn’t up for such discussions. So if Danny leaked the list, he’s specifically not doing what his personality would have had him do it for in the first place.
Also, he’s always known about the list and has no reason to suddenly leak it since he hadn’t done it in all this time.
seems like an experimental “let’s see what happens when Joe has to face consequences” (admittedly a bit of work for Danny to practice lying with a straight face, but we’ve seen the Whiteboard Ding-Dong Bandit saga), immediately followed by, “I didn’t foresee THOSE consequences…”
Doesn’t Amazi-girl prefer a hands on approach to her vigilante justice? Usually with a fist to the face? She is supposed to be a healthy outlet for Amber’s anger, right? Hacking a list and exposing it isn’t very hands on.
Also, doing it secretly doesn’t really hammer home the Justice part. While she hasn’t been much on basking in the limelight, Amazi-girl has been much on letting the offenders know not to repeat what they’ve done as she might catch them again (and give them more fists to their faces). Here, Joe is starting to learn a lesson and mend his ways on his own, but there was no guiding hand from Amazi-girl, meaning he could have easily took the wrong lesson from this and just doubled down on his behavior (and security). Joe wasn’t addressed at all. Which is why it seems to me that leak was more about getting him in trouble than about helping anyone, him or the women on the list.
No matter the universe, Penny is always, in the end, cruel, manipulative and just generally villainous. As for Jason, in the end, he should have said ‘no’ to Sal, as difficult as it is with a woman so beautiful.
Considering Penny actually does have a truthful reason Jason should and deserves to be sacked like her just for not reporting her knowing full well about Joe, her lying to accomplish the same thing instead feels quite a bit less evil than the other antagonists along the lines of Blaine and Mary.
You’re saying Penny should have reported everyone who knew or suspected Penny was boffing students. And that those all should also be fired, or expelled in the case of students. You’re saying they should lose their jobs because of the accusations of someone who’s just been found to be violating her contract, taking advantage of her position of relative authority, and been fired.
That alone is crazy.
And furthermore, Penny lied. She made her accusation against Jason under the impression that he was NOT boffing students. She did so “for funsies” knowing well that it could lead to Jason’t career and reputation being ruined.
If you want to draw comparisons, she is at least every bit as bad as Mary, and far worse in some ways.
There’s no way either of those things would get you fired from a state university. Sex between consenting adults is legal, AND, there’s not even been a complaint against either of them.
Think about it as like sex between a manager and a secretary, and then the superior finds out.
Companies can and have dictated how close relationships staff can have with each other (because it affects their performance while on company time) and it is further muddled by the power imbalance between the two people. Such a relationship can very easily be near-rape by holding someone’s job hostage.
WE the readers know Jason was not holding Sal’s grades hostage, but the university government doesn’t and they would rather get rid of potential trouble
Sorry but you can get fired from a state university for almost anything and T.A.s are lower than anyone on the totem pole. University politics are horribly cutthroat and there’s an endless number of replacements for any job.
Your naïveté is endearing but it’s probably not a good move to boldly declare that things that have happened and currently happen are 100% not able to happen.
TAs aren’t really people so much as the slave labor / unpaid* interns of academia. This goes double for interns that are not citizens protected by the laws of your country they are working in!
What? I am pretty sure you can’t fire someone on the sole basis that one student say a teacher totally WOULD. “Would” being the operative word. Otherwise most student could fire a whole department on the sole basis that they said that they might.
What the fuck is going on? Those things usually take investigation.
“Would” not being the operative word, because the word Joe used was “will“. The Do List came out nearly a week ago, so it’s entirely possible there has been an investigation, and it very quickly found out she has been. Because, y’know, she has been.
Firing Jason just on Penny’s say-so is another matter, of course.
OTOH, if there’d been an investigation, you’d have thunk they’d have talked to Joe (which we’ve had no sign of) or Jason, who shares an office with her, which they obviously haven’t.
It might be that this Uni is very touchy about this subject at the moment. Just recently Roz released her sex tape which caused some problems, then there was the thing with Becky’s Dad, the thing with the Rapist McStabby. The school got several blows to it’s reputation and they might be worried about the opinion they’ll get if people find out that one of their teachers was having sex with the students.
Don’t forget the stabbing of an attempted rapist and the national media descending on the home of a teacher who was sleeping with a congresswoman. This university has a sex scandal about as often as Donald Trump tweets something stupid.
Pssst – Jason… Penny is just having you on a bit. If you play it cool you can bluff your way right out of this. No one is going to believe you bedded Sal.
Ooh, kickass, the TAs from no-ethics land are both fired!
…Though, wait, was Joe actually Penny’s student for a class she taught, or just an unrelated student she happened to know? Because if the latter then…that kind of sucks and I’m conflicted, but also hope Walky maybe at least kicks Jason’s ass for good measure right here in the hallway as Penny’s sacking-day consolation gift.
In all seriousness, though. Penny may have been acting out of spite when she ‘lied’ (or, I far more suspect, simply made an educated guess and hurled it out there as soon as it became clear she was already done for) about Jason having sex with a student also. But first off, as much as having sex with a student should on ethical grounds get you fired, not reporting someone else having sex with a student is absolutely no better and in truth Penny would actually be taking a scrupulous course of action (if not like, personally) to report Jason for turning a blind eye now as a matter of course no matter how much of a dick move that would be.
I can 100% see someone like Penny refusing to be the only one hung out to dry for her sins upon being outed by a stupid teenager spreading gossip without her permission. Particularly since Jason’s only absolving grace was being male, and so not on Joe’s radar to be outed for his own fireable offenses, both proven and suspected.
(And Penny had seen Jason with Sal. Had been asked to not disclose at least one sketchy meeting that took place in the guise of office hours between Jason and Sal, and knew Jason enough to surmise that he in the company of someone as attractive as Sal probably would not be keeping his mannerisms purely professional.
Even if ultimately Penny could only assume wrongly that Jason was probably too much of a stick in the mud to go for the damn lay as stupid as she’d think it not to.)
But this is Penny, and so Penny didn’t settle for just telling the truth, which was probably stupid enough in her book to justify in itself going above and beyond evening the score with only the truth. Instead she opted to outright made up a story more depraved, yes, for funsies.
That may have been selfish for sure but I get the sense it was not so much an act of cruelty, spite, or sabotage than the simple fact that it feels more vindicating to her on this particularly unpleasant day to achieve the same result of getting what she wants with a spicy lie rather than a boring truth that achieves the same result, and again, with a consequence they both have already earned.
Because for Penny I’d imagine reporting Jason for simple lack of disclosure is so boring that even him being fired justly over it wouldn’t be worth the effort.
It’s Penny, ha. Forget that. If she’s going down for this she’s not going down for this without making sure the consequence reaches all parties that would rightfully be joining in her miserable company–but thus resolved to go ahead and make this a career murder-suicide for fairness’ sake (because Jason did deserve a firing just as much as her, and she is not sanctimonious) then she is absolutely taking it another step further and ensuring that Jason’s legacy in this isn’t going to cement his record as a man so boring he couldn’t even get fired in a sex scandal for reasons that are criminally boring. She may even think of it as a silver lining, because a TA who thinks it’s stupid not to sleep with willing students probably considers it a favor to “improve” the legacy of a colleague with a Jason-size stick up his ass that means he’ll never get any respect.
Penny was asked not to disclose the meeting between Sal and Jason? I don’t recall that. Would have been weird, since when they started the intent was actual tutoring and they spent some hours at that before anything else happened.
She was asked not to disclose him tutoring in the office during her scheduled office time, but she admitted that she believed he was actually tutoring since anything else would make him interesting, which she felt he wasn’t based off her personal experiences with him.
Actually, Penny fully believed Jason was really tutoring as 1. He was just that boring, and 2. They had been together previously and she apparently couldn’t get him to mess around with her unless he was completely free from other responsibilities, meaning no at work hankypanky.
If he couldn’t be tempted to be spontaneous by the woman he shared an office with and worked with on a regular basis and sexed him in their off time, it’s incredibly believable from her point of view that he was really tutoring Sal. Especially, since he was.
Anyway. Ecstatic that these two aren’t (apparently) going to continue on as TAs, considering their proven commitment to not respecting the boundaries the profession requires…
BUT. I am hoping very much this doesn’t mean they’ll be disappearing from the strip?? Career deficiencies aside honestly I love them both just as regular characters, and it’d be a shame if there wasn’t a loophole in the story that’d let them stay in the comic without resorting to them moving back to England after termination. I’d read the shit out of disgraced former graduate students Jason and Penny making cameos in the IU sphere as like, suddenly scrambling young adults trying to adjust to their life’s upheaval as peons newly working for Galasso with Becky or something.
I want them to stay in the comic, but I’m not sure how that will work. I don’t know if he and Penny are in the same program, but I know Jason said if he were caught, he wouldn’t just be fired, he’d be kicked out of his program. He’s most likely on a student visa, so I’m not sure how he’d avoid being sent back to England.
Amber stabbed a dude in front of the dorms Friday night and was back in school Tuesday morning and the university hasn’t expressed any interest in that at all, possibly because they were busy ignoring Dina getting shot by a crazed gunman on campus the week before.
There’s an element of “repeat to yourself it’s just a show I should really just relax” necessary when reading a comic that has ten years of dramatic storylines taking place over like six weeks.
They’re both graduate students in a STEM field. Even if they can’t continue their grad program at this university, they both still have their undergrad degrees and thus can find better jobs than slinging pizza.
Neither one are teachers by inclination or training. The fact that they may not be permitted to teach could well be inconsequential.
Hope this is part of Joe’s arc of redemption. His list wasn’t just a bad idea, it had real world consequences. Turns out that consequence free boffing is harder to accomplish than he thought.
The transition from the last strip to this strip feels kinda strange to me: In the last panel, Walky was talking to himself with no sign of Jason being in his office. In the first panel here, we find Penny in the process of leaving the office and talking to Jason. Is there a strip missing or something?
Administration shouldn’t be using this list to fire her. I really hope it sparked an investigation which lead to real evidence. Because a list online saying ‘she’ll totally do students’ is akin to someone saying ‘she’s easy, i’m in’ and people taking it as fact.
Same. Based on the “I told them you were ALSO boffin’ students” comment I will assume/hope that she confessed when confronted with the evidence and wasn’t just immediately fired.
I find it kind of interesting that the commentariat here are the kind of demographic that every MRA type would accuse of wanting the kind of witch hunt that they believe goes on and that’s kind of implied here, but we’re all like “Whoa. The school shouldn’t be doing that without more evidence.”
Despite us knowing full well that both of them are guilty and if the truth came out should be fired.
At the universities I’ve worked at, Jason is… almost ok? He gave Sal’s assessment to the other tutor to mark. In my experience, if he had also informed the unit coordinator he would be maybe only reprimanded for continuing one on one tutoring sessions but that’s about it. Maybe asked to sign a conflict of interest declaration. I don’t know about Penny’s situation. Also I assume the USA is way different?
As a grad student at a private university in the US (possibly different at public schools, but I doubt it would be LESS strict), the lengthiest sections of my grad student orientation were about how having any sort of romantic or sexual relationship (even, like, hand holding) with a student who was or COULD BE in a class I TA would get me in major trouble/kicked out (there might have been like a warning then fired, but I don’t think so). They made it goofy with skits and stuff, but the message and associated threat were very very clear.
Actually, I /don’t/ see “everyone” saying the school shouldn’t be doing that without more evidence – most seem to be cheering the firings on.
And I’m not sure what they are guilty of. We know that Jason neither offered nor actually traded grades for sex, and that aside from his first comment to her (which was admittedly over the edge, something he himself said in the next strip), Sal was the “aggressor”. She was in his unit, so the appearance isn’t good, and that /could/ lead to some repercussions, but unless the TA regulations forbid it, I don’t see it as a “firing” offense (after all, the TAs aren’t faculty, they are students, and aren’t governed by the faculty rules. We don’t even know that Penny is Joe’s TA at all, in which case there shouldn’t be any issues. Of course, there /could/ be other, more serious cases, but we have no knowledge that there are, so these hypotheticals shouldn’t be used as evidence against them.
Penny and Jason as TAs are regarded as staff to the other students even if they are students to the other staff. Because they give out grades and that creates a power imbalance, especially because they’re going to be hanging out with other TAs and staff as peers, not with students like Walky and Dina and Joyce as peers.
Dude, I just read through all the comments above. Plenty of people are talking about how the 2 are terrible TAs who absolutely deserve to be fired. BUT, everyone is saying there should have been further investigation before they were canned. People can hold the 2 positions simultaneously.
For reference, my stance is that Jason is incompetent and Penny is awful. Both of them should have been fired or retrained for those long ago. Both of them also banged students, which is a severe abuse of power deserving of firing and probably a criminal investigation(though I doubt there was anything truly illegal going on, it does deserve at least a close look by the cops). And the University should not fire people based off hearsay. They should investigate, and fire if there’s hard evidence(which I suspect happened off-screen).
If Jason’s actually fired, I can’t believe they did much investigation. Penny thought she was lying and claims he was getting fired anyway. As far as we know, no one’s talked to any of the people involved – Joe and Sal particularly. Or even mentioned it to Jason.
First, let’s just agree that both Jason and Penny deserve to be fired. Their behavior is not only unprofessional, but borders on predatory.
That said, it’s really strange for the administration to fire Jason without any kind of formal investigation, without even telling him, to the point that someone else, no longer even employed by the University, would relay the information to him before he’d even heard that it was a possibility. Either Penny is just lying to him, the administration is really as terrible as they’ve been portrayed up until now, or they’re so sick of the string of scandals (starting with the sister of a member of Congress’ sex tape, followed by a firearm/kidnapping incident on campus, followed by one of their RAs sleeping with one of her charges, followed by an accused rapist being publicly physically assaulted, followed by a “do list” being passed around revealing actual TAs involved in sex-shenanigans) that they’ve decided enough is enough. Everything else was bad, but now you’ve got something bordering up against professors themselves, and when you reach that point, accusations could then easily be made of preferential grading and other things that could much more potentially affect things like Title IX penalties and NCAA funding and fines. The administration, if it’s anything like most University administrations in the nation, probably is apathetic at best to most of this stuff, but when it starts to threaten their bottom-line, you can bet they’ll start to take notice.
I could see why the administration would, at this point, decide that enough was enough and start coming down hard on anyone giving off even the remote hint of impropriety. Still, it’s fucked up that they’d fire someone based only on the word of someone who was, themselves, in the midst of being fired for misconduct, and whose input would therefore be suspect.
But Jason still deserves to be sacked. Assuming Penny’s actually telling the truth, I’m not shedding any tears. And if she’s not, he’s damn lucky and better re-examine his behavior and get his shit together.
I wonder if Jason’s dad is still a terrible person in this universe? Most make Jason getting fired very interesting is he really doesn’t want to go back to an abusive home.
Also I’ve been having tons of weird dreams lately (courtesy of taking b12 supplements, I suspect, as b vitamins help with dream recollection) and last night the dream was a follow-up comic involving Jason, Sal, and pity sex behind a dumpster behind the bar. No I don’t know how that happened, dreams make no sense, bit the funniest part in the dream was both having “we did this again???” expressions.
Dreams are so weird.
Can we get them deported? Somehow? I think it’d be a good idea for Robin to take a zero tolerance policy to TAs from Britain. Maybe Becky can hear about it and arrange it.
Am I the only one who sees a future with Walky wearing a wig posing as his twin sister? Although hopefully a better wig than the one he used outside the Martian complex in Walkyverse…
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Joe should tailor his sex slang to fit the subject’s nationality. In this case, “shag” would be most appropriate.
Dammit, I didn’t need to have Austin Powers in my head right now!
“Boff” isn’t British?
Nope, Google says it’s North American slang.
It’s North American slang that sounds plausibly British, so it’s close enough?
Never heard it before this.
…. I mostly know it from that one line Ivanova said about Marcus.
Right?
Though in British English, “boffin” is slang for scientist (in particular physicists and chemists), so a boffin student would be be into math.
(Hi, I’m new, long-time reader, first-time commenter.)
I need to track down “The Piglet Files” again.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard boffin get shortened down to boff for conversational purposes too. “Oh, I see you’re a right boff, aren’t you.” Or something like that.
Penny is quoting from a sex list, presumably written by an American.
Penny has also said “boffing” before
Penny is a shit for saying that when she didn’t know… but damn they both deserve to be fired.
So I am happy.
I mean. They did do that, so. Lie in it.
Phrasing?
I think that was a bit overtly mean for Penny to ruin the career of her supposed friend and bestie in the country. Then again, there’s been no sign Penny is meant to be a remotely redeemable person.
Are they besties? I didn’t get the impression that they like each other much.
Well, not really, but they are technically the same person.
Jason is nothing like the Master. He couldn’t scheme his way out of a sopping wet paper bag.
To be fair, I doubt anyone can scheme their way out of a sopping wet paper bag. I mean, sure they could remove the bag or rip it apart, but scheming is only thinking about doing things not actually doing them so scheming along would accomplish very little.
The Master is exactly the sort of person who would try to scheme his way out of a wet paper bag, and then be really grouchy when it doesn’t work.
Well, I suppose you would know.
You… sit there and think about what you did.
Jason went to her for advice on whether he was a good teacher or not. That’s not a question you ask an enemy.
And she replied with telling him that he’s a stuffy asshole, which for many would not be an answer you give a friend.
Actually, she said:
1. It doesn’t matter whether people learn in college or not (a VERY common attitude among my fellow academics)
2. Nobody in the department liked Jason. Which is entirely understandable.
She BASICALLY said those things. She ACTUALLY said he’s a “stuffy arsehole” (missed the Britishness in my pervious comment).
She also put a “punch me” sign on this back.
Can’t be sure that was her, although I wouldn’t doubt it.
True, but look at her in panel 4 of the previous strip: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/twelvethirty/
No, actually, that’s exactly what I’d tell a friend. But then, I prefer irreverence and bluntness, and that’s the kind of rapport I have with my friends.
I know some people have relationships like that with friends, which is why I very explicitly said “for many.”
Depends on your friends
Be honest with your friends and all
It can be when you don’t have any friends to ask.
Penny’s just trying to stay true to her Walkyverse-Prime persona!
Watch out, Dumbiverse Dargon!
Psssht she’s going down, but not alone. 😛
Didn’t she ALREADY go down? That’s why she got fired, after all!
She wanted company on the boat ride back to England.
they’re going to be standing on opposite sides of the boat and scowling at each other the whole time. 😛
Timber!
Wait, is Jason actually fired because she lied about him screwing students? I know he did so he deserves to be fired as much as she does, but it’s super messed up if she just didn’t know about it but just lied that he did for no reason other than she’s a bitter ex
Not because she’s a bitter ex but because she’s not going down alone. I mean, granted, it’s shitty of her to lie (as far as she knew) but since he actually did do it….I’m hard pressed to be sympathetic to Jason.
He did it before he slept with Walky too. It’s so unfair! That’s the only way he’s going to pass!
Yeah I don’t want to defend Jason too much here, but Penny seems even more unlikable than I thought she was
And she didn’t come off well before, either. Like yeah, hard to feel too bad for Jason given he was guilty, but she could’ve wrecked some other TA’s career while she was at it. (I’m hoping the claims are being investigated and Penny was just fired when she did because the rest of the department knew, but drama. Willis. Y’know.)
Nobody expects you to be sympathetic to Jason – but when someone frames somebody else for something and it turns out it was actually true AFTER the fact, they don’t deserve any brownie points either.
If you’re a spiteful arsehole, it doesn’t matter if you were accidentally right.
I’m not giving Penny brownie points – I’ve already said she was a shit for saying it without knowing it was true.
Unsubstantiated allegations, leading to overreaction on the part of the administration, resulting in the rapacious destruction of careers, reputations, and possibly even lives. Welcome back to Salem, Massachusetts circa 1692.
Actually, I have a nasty thing to say the most unbelievable thing is a university responding with a zero tolerance policy to sexual misconduct.
Right, so the only acceptable response is treat it as a criminal matter, keep the administration out of it completely and leave rapists and abusers in place until and unless there’s a criminal conviction.
Seriously, this idea that there’s some kind of witch hunt going on is nonsense. There are occasional cases of overreaction. There are far more of allegations ignored, of abusers protected by the system and rapists going unpunished, or lightly punished.
That said, no way Jason should be fired, based solely on an allegation from another TA’s who’s being disciplined herself, with no corroboration or details that could be verified. Of course, now that there are two witnesses to him admitting it. 🙂
Honestly, Penny shouldn’t be fired based only on the Do list, at least not without tracking down Joe.
Walky’s the only witness’s here: Polly made the original accusation, so she can’t testify on this evidence without compromising her credibility. Walky is a witness, but unless he or Polly volunteers his identity, how would administration reach out to him?
Considering that there’s at least one case where the investigating body of the university found that one student who was passed out at the time “raped” another student who was performing fellatio on him… Yeah, my opinion of the way US colleges nd universities handle allegations of sexual misconduct is about as low as it can be.
schools tend to care more about reputation then truth nowadays. If you run the risk of making them look bad they’ll cut you off without even bothering to look into it.
But along the same lines, if they think they can get away with it, they’ll cover it up as long as they can. Regardless of the damage to students.
I’m not 100% convinced she’s being truthful about Jason being fired.
Me neither. Because, you know, Penny.
Though, if she wasn’t I’d expect that last bit to be “I was just told you that for funsies.”
Also he can probably contest it? He wasn’t accused directly by the school or even informed so he could probably be like hey no she’s full of shit I’m not actually fired am I?
Wow, Penny, you are a jerk.
Them Poms are such randy little sods.
What math class is Joe in? I mean, presumably one Penny TAs, but is it like another section of the class Joyce, Walky, and them are in? Or is it a different course?
*one Penny used to TA, rather
Yeah, it’s the other section. Dina’s in her section too.
I don’t think Joe’s in the math class that Joyce and co. are in – we’ve never seen him in it, whereas we’ve seen Dina there once.
No, but he knows Penny as his TA I’m pretty sure and she’s the TA for the Tues-Thurs section of that class.
Well, Jason deserves to be fired because he’s an awful teacher, he slept with a student, and he treated both her as well as Walky with such contempt that I’m pretty sure there was a racial element involved. Certainly, he considered Sal overtly sexualized and stupid. Which means there’s only one place left for him to go: BECOME ROBIN DESANTO’S CHIEF OF STAFF!
That… is an alarmingly accurate assessment
From Jason’s perspective, Walky is a giant asshole. I mean imagine if someone ignores you for weeks when you initially offer to help them, they eventually come back and rather then actually trying to listen to anything you say, make insults based upon your country of origin. I would also treat Walky with contempt.
Note, this doesn’t mean I think Walky is a bad person, but that’s only because I know why Walky acts the way he does. I also don’t think Jason is a bad person, or that Penny is a bad person. I can’t know if someone is a bad person until I can know what led them to make certain decisions.
Saying somone is a bad person is a difficult thing, because it tries to boil down a person to one thing, and people are a mess of things they do, decisions they make and things they feel. Saying they act like an asshole is much easier, because it doesn’t try to say that’s all they are.
And it’s easy to see that all three of them sometimes act like assholes but we saw Penny do so more often than the others.
Understanding why someone acts a certain way might be interesting to see, to find a way to influence them or just find some compassion. But in the end, if they are doing acts that need to be stopped, stop first and ask why later.
TAs shouldn’t sleep with their students. They shouldn’t offer better grades in return for sex (which I understand is what Penny did).
It still is weird that Penny loses her job for having sex with Joe, who we know liked it and didn’t do it for grades.
Like, she is one of umpteen people he had sex with, and I don’t believe a skinny minute they will start to investigate into the behavior of all other TAs and there will be somone out there who actually puts the pressure on his students to have sex with him.
Walky might be justified, but there’s no excuse for the way he treated Sal.
He is being an asshole, but if your reaction to someone being immature, having no sense of priorities, and making irritating jokes is contempt, you may have a valid point of view but also REALLY should not be teaching undergraduates, much less freshmen.
By college freshman, you should have your shit together enough that you can approach your TA and not be antagonistic when you need help from them.
Put bluntly, Walky at present doesn’t deserve help from anybody.
no, people like that still deserve help. just a different kind of help.
He’s not hip enough to be on Robin’s staff.
…. no, really. Dweebs need not apply.
Why should there be a racial element involved? Did I miss something?
It’s notable to me that Jason takes one look at Sal and pretty much judges her as stupid, criminal, and yet still makes a pass at her with his first statement. Given a large part of Sal’s arc is her casually dealing with racism, it’s notable Jason doesn’t know Walky but treats him with every bit of contempt and blistering scorn as he does Sal.
I think it’s more he judged her on her appearance/the way she presents herself. The motorcycle, the cigarettes, the outfits, the general rebellious attitude. Maybe there was a subconscious racial element, but remember another part of sals arc is people judging her based on the things listed above.
Not buying it. Sal is dressed as a biker hoodlum and gives that attitude.
And Jason is English, so subconscious racism works differently.
I looked it up, and at first he thought Sal was attractive, then apologized when she noticed him staring and told her that he would help her with her studies on tuesday. He continued to piss her off by referring to his accent as the “Queen’s English”. So much for first impressions.
If he’s judging her by something, it’s much more likely to be her Southern dialect or her tattoo, because both was mentioned before. And also that she’s not good in math, he very much seems like an intelectual elitist.
His first impression of Walky was Walky not taking notes, but drawing a dinosaur, and Jason cringes because of it (maybe he knows where this kind of carelessness leads, dunno).
And the second time, when he approached him about his grades, Walky yelled at him he was grading his papers wrong.
Jason is not a very nice or tolerant guy, but I doubt his problems with the Walkerton twins are racially motivated.
Don’t you know, anytime anyone is even remotely unpleasant to a POC, there must be a racial element involved. This is 2018.
Wake me up when society has reached an acceptably ambiguious shade of brown-ish that being an equal-opportunity asshole is (borderline) acceptable again.
He’s also a TA. In my experience they hate all undergrads, especially ones who are doing poorly in their classes and are deliberately rude to him.
And because Jason is a fictional character: we know that his is priggish, judgmental and condescending to everyone, and if subconscious or lowkey racial hostility were meant to be part of his character it’s likely David would have discussed it before now.
wait wouldn’t staff misconduct be investigated instead of firing someone based one hearsay (it is CANON that Joe bragged about sexual conquests he had not made)
then again we saw how Puddinghead handled Ruth so maybe that’s just university government policy in general
I think it’s been established Indiana U is a shitty shitty college in Willisverse (I can’t speak for reality but working in academia–even good schools are often terrible places). How bad of a college is it? Jason takes the students NOTES after class–the thing which they NEED TO STUDY.
The professor takes the notes, we can’t blame Jason for that one. Also, taking notes is stupid and patronizing.
Yes, it’s a sign the entire university is shit. Puddinghead, Professor, and so on. The only decent teacher is the one who was replaced with his double from another universe.
Leslie is a good teacher! Also we don’t know if the art teacher is that bad.
Though Leslie does have a few teaching fuckups. But by in-universe standards, she’s pretty great, and out-of-universe, I’d still like to have her class.
I thought Leslie transitioned, in which case you just mis-gendered her.
Do you mean Alex?
Willis replaced the original teacher of computer programming with a female version of the original. Both of which are based on his transgender friend (who, congrats on that) but which don’t have that element in the story. No, instead, they’re just very similar looking people. They also have completely different teaching styles.
I believe Willis made it clear that new Alex is trans but intentionally left it undefined whether new Alex is actually the same person as old Alex.
Well if that’s the case then I hope it is and think it’s a good decision.
Glad i’m not the only one still annoyed by that business of taking the notes. Makes zero sense. Aside from the fact the students need them to study, what will student notes tell a teacher? How well they take dictation?
It’s to take attendance.
Which, like, find another way to do it or fuck off, but anyway
Right? In my classes that were that big, none of my professors bothered.
Don’t student IDs have bar codes in them or something? Just scan them at the door as they enter, a cheap scanner costs ten bucks.
Hell, you can just take pictures of everyone’s notes with your camera phone if you want to assess their progress without depriving them of study material.
OR, they could each take a turn punching Jason in the face, and the bruise they leave could be their proof of attendance.
…. well that would be one way to get the grad students unionized….
Or like, I had a lecture hall class that was like, “There will be five random short quizzes throughout the semester. Said quizzes will count toward the attendance part of your grade.”
(Said quizzes were really easy, so basically they were just random attendance checks.)
O, but if you do that, someone could scan the ids of all his friends.
I don’t see why attendance should matter. If you pass the tests (and there, yes, ID evryone) you passed, it shouldn’t matter if you learned the stuff by listening to the lectures, knew it all along, or learned it from a text book the prof didn’t write.
We just had attendance sheets we signed every once in a while at my uni (but then, we weren’t ever marked for attendance anyway, just exams and coursework)
I’m pretty sure the whole ‘taking the notes’ thing was just a plot device whereby one of the main characters (Joyce i think?) could become aware that Walky was having trouble with his grades.
The thought that faculty would take the students’ notes is SO foreign to how postsecondary education actually works that it reaches “God is not dead” levels of misprepresentation. Your note are your property, the university has no claim on them. Also, student performance is private information. Nobody knows what marks you get on anything unless you show them personally. In the situations where it’s possible for someone else to see your score, the professor or TA will call out your name and hand it to you when you come up to the front. Publicly posted marks will have concealing information like your student number, and given that nobody except you knows what that it (it’s on your student ID), any privacy breaches there are your fault (or someone’s stolen something that belongs to you).
So, plot device. The author didn’t or couldn’t think of a way to have one character learn that another character was having learning issues and came up with this absurdly unlikely scenario. This is my best explanation for the whole notes/marks thing. I ignore it because … well … just roll with it. Right?
jmsr
Also, no one cares if you attend class or not. Being there is your responsibility, you’re an adult now. If you fail out you only have yourself to blame.
The stated reason is to take attendance and so the TA can ascertain how well you understand the lecture.
Also, Joyce learned about his test score when she passed his test to him, not from the homework.
Finally, I think how private those scores are largely depends on the teacher. I’ve had college teachers who just leave your stuff on the table at the front and people came up to get them. The grades were right there, and several teachers require your student number on papers. Really not that private. Hell, I’ve graded my classmate’s papers before (when I was in elementary school, not college, but still – grades are not necessarily private).
Well, sure i get that the stated reason for taking the notes is to see how well you understand the lecture, it’s just that -that is what tests are for- and is a flimsy rationalization. Plus a huge work burden on the TA’s. Plus speaking personally, i can barely read my own handwriting. This excuse falls apart under examination, that’s why i speculated that it must be happening for some other reason.
Marks are supposed to be private, i’m sorry for your experience. TA’s and professors can get in shit for that sort of thing nowadays. And yes, i have occasionally had other students pass me my graded work but those were the rare exceptions and minor things like a quick quiz that took like 10 minutes to write.
Incidentally, i find the university’s treatment of the two TA’s here plausible if not realistic. Penny certainly could have been fired after a simple meeting like that but Jason almost certainly would be called in first too and not be fired this way. So it’s more likely Penny is just tweaking Jason here.
It’s not like ‘huge work burden on TAs’ is exactly a deal breaker for university professors. Plus, again, they’re using them to take attendance since apparently Rees cares about that.
I think it depends on where you are, because pretty much every class I’ve been in has done something like that. Also, the only tests we’ve seen have been of the ‘weekly’ variety, so I’m assuming these are not worth a whole lot at the end of the day. So probably closer to ‘quick quiz that took like 10 minutes to write’ than anything actually important.
As for Jason, I’m sure the admins were planning on notifying him, but Penny got there first. Or she just told them a few minutes ago when she was fired and they haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet.
or maybe penny just lied/assumed.
Nonetheless, they should never discuss firing decisions with with a co-worker like that, especially one they’re firing as well. The most she should have gotten is a “Thank you for the information. We’ll look into it.”
I suspect that’s most likely – she told them and assumed that’ll get him fired as well.
That’s probably the case. She said it and is pretty sure he’ll be fired for it.
Yeah my college pretty blatantly hands out everyone’s grades, and I have had notes taken as participation credit, so maybe that’s just the way it is at some schools. It’s a pretty arrogant assessment to assume anything that was different than your experience is a plot device
Generally most Universities departments would launch an investigation and not take on a leaked sex list as the only evidence its flimsy.Also While Penny and Jason are terrible TAs they should be talking to their union reps TAs cant be fired this easily. although the university may have already conducted an investigation and Penny was found to be in violation of her contract. Also IU is tate school they have a union. also apolgies for poor spelling i wrote this on a phone
Yeah, unions for graduate assistants are…not as sure a thing as you think they are. I don’t know if IU grad assistants currently have a union in real life, but as of a couple years ago, they were just in the stages of advocating for one.
looking it up it appears IU does not have a union however the effectivness of said union varries from university to universiry. My contract stipulates that my union is to be consulted if i am under threat of being sacked. I dont tjink they would be an effective deterent if I was going to be sacked but its one line of defense. If you are an adjunct however you are at the mercy of the university.
I have a “union,” but it’s toothless, and it doesn’t even attempt to advocate for us anyway. And I’d guess that’s the case most places. T.A.s are, after all, eminently replaceable.
Yes, my university is very much of the view we’re mooks in their Legion of Doom. Shoot a few to keep the others in line or just on a whim. They have more.
I have trouble vilifying the university for taking claims of sexual misconduct by its employees *too seriously*, given how most institutions prefer to ignore it altogether.
Both are possible, though you’re certainly right about the common practice.
Firing people merely on rumor (the list) and accusation (Penny’s funsies) isn’t just either – even if other institutions go to the other extreme.
Fired him just on the basis of the accusation without even confronting him … That it turns out to be true is good for a humorous twist in the story, but fans of due process can’t be too thrilled — if there are any in this land of ends-justify-the-means.
I mean, Penny was fired because of something someone said online. I would say her firing is just as much bullshit as Jason’s is.
She knows the reason and told them true lies about Jason, so presumably they also talked to her about whether it was true or not.
Penny got her confrontation with school officials, though. If she’s to be believed, Jason did not.
It’s also based on a student’s hearsay so both Penny and Jason are being fired for rumor mongering.
I find that kind of unintentionally hilarious – Penny is nasty and a piece of work, but out of the two of them, she’s the one that got fucked over while Jason got punished for something he did do
Er, Penny did did do something. She fucked Joe.
And it was implied she’d been doing more than that.
Does this seem like a good way to go about it? No, but he’s being fired, not put in jail. Way different levels of rights and requirements.
I’ve had to record hearings for a university where someone’s job was as stake, they really aren’t treated as differently as one would think.
I’m not sure what the specifics of those instances were, but see LeslieBean4Shizzle’s comment below for some alternate experiences.
While on one hand they likely wouldn’t have caught him otherwise as Sal and Jason were unlikely to admit it, on the other DUE PROCESS *pterodactyl screech*.
But also, if people complained about Jason before for other reasons, this could have just been the last straw that allowed them to just toss him overboard at last so… we’ll see if he actually asks and gets an answer with time or if it really was ‘POSSIBLY FRATERNIZING WITH STUDENTS? GET OUT.’
Not a fan of due process, then?
It varies. On some things? It works great. On possible sexual relations between TAs and students? One half of me is like ‘I would want to fire them right away’ and another half is like ‘but due process is to protect innocent people’. However, since we know Jason is guilty… my lenience for him is non-existent.
“But we KNOW he’s guilty …”
I had a lengthy, fairly closely reasoned response which I’ve deleted and replaced with: “Ugh.”
Wait, all it takes to fire someone is to have some random person say something online? With no investigation whatsoever?
In academia? Pretty much. At least if you’re a TA and don’t have any means of defending yourself or the money to do so.
This. And it doesn’t just apply to TAs – adjuncts have to deal with this shit too. I have been soft fired (ie, no longer offered classes without warning) for the following reasons:
1) I was hired by the previous administrator and the new administrator let everyone go who was hired by the previous person.
2) For doing what I was told to do by my superior.
3) Because one student didn’t like a video I showed in class and bongoed to the Dean about it.
And I am considered a “successful” adjunt professor” who is popular with students and gets consistent testing score improvements.
Seriously, the current climate for people working on the lower rungs in Academia is utter tripe. There is little/no opportunity for advancement, no benefits, and you can be fired at any time for any reason with no recourse.
TAs depending on the university have a union, usually not effective but they have one its a minor one. But your description of being adjunct professor seems about par for the course I hope you find a tenure track postion or a job with some security.
if you havent already that is.
Generally, they exist to say TAs have a union.
Well, given how… discrete Penny was about boffing said student, it’s very possible that faculty already knew and this is not a case of them PROVING it, them no longer being able to keep up plausible deniability and HAVING to act on it.
Penny should have been fired a long time ago, but now they will get negative press if they don’t arse themselves to do it.
(pedant)
discreet. Penny was not banging Joe in small packets of equal size. She was banging him out of the view of polite society.
(/pedant)
(Weird Al mode)
One thing I ask of you
Time to learn your homophones is past due
(/Weird Al mode)
That’s quite possible and tends to be how things go. Everybody knows and no one talks about it and then something goes public and they can’t keep it quiet anymore.
Jason’s even more problematic – especially if he’s actually been fired and Penny told about it, based simply on Penny’s word and without even talking to him about it. She couldn’t even have told them anything more than “he’s been doing it too”, unless she was just making up details.
Any workplace I’ve been in, telling someone that someone else was going to be fired was a huge no-no. It might be that Penny’s just assuming he will be, because of what she said, but they’re still looking into it.
*plays “Take This Job And Shove It” on the hacked Muzak*
The original or a cover? Personally I like the Dead Kennedy’s version, but that’s just me
I’m a horrible person for rooting for hot Jason x Penny shagging and being mildly disappointed by this development, aren’t I?
I think they deserve one another.
The Slipshine is still a possibility. It doesn’t have to take place in the future.
I always liked Penny’s character design. She’s a bit of a shitheel, but she always looked interesting.
Oh she looks awesome, she just so happens to be an asshole in this universe and a murderer in another.
I mean, even Joyce is a murderer in that other universe.
Penny’s a special kind of fucked up, though.
Hey now, be fair.
She was an asshole in the other universe too.
Yeah, that’s always been my problem. Much like Leslie’s doomed attraction to Robin.
The University being run like a cartoon has been the case since the very first few strips, so I guess there’s no reason to be annoyed now.
I can’t tell if its a brilliant take on the insanity of higher education or just stupid.
In real life, universities exist to bilk the students of tuition or the government so they can bilk the students of tution as well as make money from sports. The cynicism of many educators is tremendous and it passes down to TAs.
I am trying to figure out a way to respond to this in a way that doesn’t violate item 3) of the “About/Read before posting” page, and I am mostly failing.
But on behalf of thousands of years of scholars, stretching back at least as far as Ashurbanipal’s librarians, I have to say this: the fact that you believe that ignorance is preferable to universities says more about you than it says about universities.
*insert image of you spooning words into C.T Phipps’ mouth*
C.T Phipps has accused every single person who works for a university of being a cynical grifter.
“Many educators” means me. It means every single person who is an educator.
Perhaps C.T Phipps has certain specific educators in mind when he says “many educators?” If so, perhaps he should be more specific?
um. “many” does not in fact mean “every single”. “all” means “every single”.
many white people are christian. many apples are green.
“Universities exist to bilk students out of tuition”
Implies that the institution is corrupt and, to my mind, implicates all employees of this cynical farce.
If someone says “many,” it does not automatically mean “all.” I don’t know how that could be clearer. Also, cynical, yes. Grifter? No, that seems much more your interpretation of what was said.
The university system has flaws. Surely you recognize that? And if someone sees those flaws as more integral to the whole thing than you do, maybe try to see where they’re coming from a bit before responding. Doesn’t mean you have to agree with them, just that they have a different perspective on something that is not perfect. And, of note, C.T Phipps has also mentioned being in academia.
“Many” doesn’t even mean “most”.
Somehow this is a theme in today’s comments.
I think it says a fair bit about how the US has apparently implemented universities. :/
For the sake of illumination, I am an educator or at least was until I moved onto full-time writing and my statement was reflecting on my sadness at how the system has failed so many students. Academia should be the bringer of higher education to students and often is but the sheer corruption and economic exploitation of the system going on in America’s universities. It’s the perspective of the Catholic priest who witnessed the Borgias act–a despair born of a love of the system not of a hate.
Jason should take a cue from Danny and reinvent himself. “Do you think firing me makes me less dangerous…or more dangerous?” *Shaft theme plays*
That’s giving me bad flashbacks of Wesley in Angel’s first season
I would LOVE for Willis to do that. ROGUE Demon Hunter Jason.
I think you mean Rogue Math Tutor.
In panel 4, Jason totally IS Tintin. No wonder Walky’s confused.
His posture just SCREAMS “Great snakes!”
According to Sal, he has a great snake.
“‘Boff?’ If this means what Faz thinks it means please provide more details. Specific instructions would even be better!”
Shithe that’s a lot to unpack right there.
Does Walky think of Jason as a human being enough to think Jason banged his sister?
Ah, Penny. Never change.
Except into a corpse. Please change into a corpse.
Penny really needs to meet Becky. Redheads with the same freckles makes me wonder if there’s a family relationship.
Wait, you think Becky could be…Half-British?
Becky with a cockney accent! (“That’s not how accents wor–“) BECKY WITH A COCKNEY ACCENT!
That’s just Tracer from Overwatch.
Or is Robin their Tracer…
“Cheers, luv! The lesbian’s here!”
I’d prefer Becky as Tracer. I’d rather not imagine Robin with guns.
Now I wish I could draw, so I could just make crossover fan art.
More like Penny could be half toe.
Don’t boff the students is like rule 1-5
Penny thought they meant “after midnight.”
Don’t boff a student stupid enough to make a public list about it.
But Penny uses Gremlins logic.
Honestly, it’s most of the list. You can be a god-awful teacher and keep your job if you just somehow manage to not boff your students.
But sometimes it’s hard!
A university having a zero tolerance policy to sexual misconduct is unbelievable. Do something more realistic like time travel.
Well, I think a number may have that policy…following through on it, however…
Maybe it varies by individual departments/people. Maybe whoever’s in charge of firing these two just really hates the British.
Zero tolerance for sexual misconduct that BECOMES PUBLIC, however….
…. I’m sure somewhere in the background there’s a group of concerned students who poured over the creepazoid’s sex list, discovered there was a TA involved, and made a stink about it.
For a TA it’s far more believable. TAs are easy to replace. There are often several graduate students without funding clamoring for those positions. And unlike students, the school isn’t generally being paid tuition for TAs, nor do they often risk losing the financial support of some rich donor by firing one.
Basically, schools are most spineless when it affects their bottom line. Firing a TA almost never does, so it’s the school’s chance to put on a face of competence and do something.
Unless the TA has rich parents, of course.
Oh, and it’s also a direct violation of the TA’s terms of employment, so it’s very legally straightforward.
Are we sure the university didn’t confirm the allegations? I mean, we have no indication one way or the other, but it’s entirely possible that they confronted Penny, she went “Jason’s doing it too!” and they fired her for the “too”. Then they pulled up security footage of Jason’s office and saw Sal leaving with her bra in her pocket and decided to fire him off that.
Actually, hell, maybe Jason isn’t fired. Penny went down like I said, but they haven’t decided what to do about him yet and she just assumes he’ll be fired, too.
That’s fair speculation, though I’d be disappointed if Jason didn’t end up getting fired. I mean, I’m kind of interested in him, but that only goes as far as being okay with him not being fired YET.
Without checking the old strips, I don’t recall Penny being subtle about her student screwing to begin with. Could be there were already rumors and that clinched it?
Yeah I just bothered to check, her first comic is her asking Jason if he needs to use their office to bang a student, then being disappointed when he claims otherwise because that would ‘make him interesting’. Then we get the honor code only you abide by line and the Joe bit in her only other interaction onscreen, and when Jason asks if she thinks ‘blatantly’ having sex with students is a good idea she basically says ‘it doesn’t matter, I’m popular, no one likes you so you couldn’t get away with it.’ No defense that he’s the only one who knows or anything. I think it was an open secret among the other TAs for a while and university apathy was the only thing saving her. Jason might be able to wrangle out of this yet (though I hope not since he is only slightly less terrible)
Well, I kinda called it. Sorta.
Real question, how did Jason not hear about being fired before Penny told him?
Because he’s not fired yet. She’s… overstating facts, because she’s an ass.
…. actually, I’m starting to doubt whether she actually told the administration anything of the sort. Maybe she’s just punking Jason to be cruel.
Gods I hope so. Even if what Jason is doing is a rule breaker and an abuse of what little power he has, Penny comes off as awful here.
Well Walky is kind of SOL isn’t he.
Yeah, Walky’s screwed unless he can find someone else to help him with math. Though I think he was already screwed since Jason is a terrible teacher anyway.
Jason’s problem is that he doesn’t know how to view math from the perspective of someone who knows less than he does.
Walky’s problem is that he doesn’t know how to study. Or slightly more accurately: he can retain ~some~ information without effort, enough to pass high school coursework but not enough to pass college coursework. The information in college classes is both greater by volume and trickier to understand. Studying is putting in the time needed to learn the concepts and memorize the large volume of information. Doing it well is a learned skill.
Walky had better learn how to learn FAST or he’ll probably flunk out.
I think Walky not knowing how to study is an overstatement of his problem. Even if we question Dorothy’s study methods, she has been spending time with him trying to help him with math, but he hasn’t seemed to make any progress that we know of.
We also know that Sal also had trouble understanding the class. Considering that they were most likely exposed to similar educational environments (until she was sent away), I’m thinking a different way of looking at it would help him like it did her.
Of course, he doesn’t have a lot of options for help that would make him happy.
Jason, the bad teacher.
Joyce, who can’t stand him half the time.
Sal, which would most likely be awkward.
Danny, who’s Danny (and also Dorothy’s ex). Walky didn’t even like borrowing shoes from him.
Mike, who’d probably do it if he could punch Walky in the face.
Billie, who is transitioning into treating him like a friend and has her own issues right now.
Really, the best math tutor, for his mental and emotional wellbeing, would probably be Dina.
My worst (weeder) class was difficult not because of studying, nor volume, nor anything except I could understand only 2/5 of the professor’s words.
The monosyllabic words.
Given the current state of the education system in the U.S., this particular strip fills me with a delicious sensation of schadenfreude. In real life I would have preferred a suspension while an in-depth investigation was launched, but as it’s fictional I’ll take this just fine.
Even though Jason and Penny are both terrible at teaching, somehow I didn’t see this coming.
IKR? What kind of comic is this where authority figures actually show some semblance of responsibility?
Penny is… not a nice person, is she?
she’s a nice looker, but… no.
I was trying to hit “Previous” and hit “First” instead and was so marred by the different art that i thought I’d missed a guest comic…
Been binging Frasier on Netflix so I immediately read Penny as Daphne Moon
Soooooo….. yeah. This won’t carry any consequences.
These… are the consequences.
Aren’t you glad other people’s dumb drama is worse than your dumb drama, Walky?
How is that whole “department like me” thing working out for you, Penny?
Don’t rate women, Joe.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/dangerous/
I find whenever someone talks about how many people like them, most people do not in fact like them. Penny seems to be the kind of person people act like they like when she’s around, but talk piss about her when she isn’t.
Yeah, especially since the few interactions we have of her kind of imply she’s the sort of person who assumes everyone’s like her. (Not only does she not bother to hide her student boffing, her first reaction to Jason needing the office is to either joke or assume he needs it for the same. Even if it’s a joke, that’s inappropriate at least and possibly a hostile work environment complaint.) I wouldn’t be surprised if other TAs knew and maybe even complained about her before privately.
“Does their dumb drama get me an A in math?”
“No.”
“Does it make me LESS likely to pass math?”
“Well… I dunno how much good Jason’s tutoring was doing you… but I guess it’s less likely?”
“Then no, I’m not glad.”
You have a very suitable gravatar.
Is there about to be a very awkward conversation between Jason and Walky?
Well, nobody mentioned it being Sal yet.
Yeah but that’s just one logical question away… not that walky is the most logical
Predictions for the next strips.
Okay so first off, I’m going to assume Jason isn’t fired…yet. I find it highly unlikely that a single accusation, without any details would be enough to get someone fired. Especially if it came from someone you literally just fired.
However Jason will be investigated, and their is only one person who isn’t Jason and knows for sure…Sal.
Walky now needs Sal to lie, so that Jason doesn’t get fired and can teach him math. Sal probably doesn’t care if Jason is fired or not, and as such it all comes down to what Jason and Walky can offer her.
The chessboard is set, let the clock begin.
Sal ain’t a narc.
I feel like the occasional buying of beer, plus Walky admitting their parents treated him better would convince her.
Walky also knows, now.
Yeah, but Walky has reasons to want Jason to stay, so he is unlikely to confirm any allegations against him. The biggest risk is that Walky blurts out something stupid, he would never go to the administration on his own, but he would make an incriminating joke without thinking about it under pressure.
What’s his reason to want Jason to stay, exactly? Walky wants help; he’s more likely to get that from someone other than Jason.
Yeah, but Walky doesn’t realize that. He thinks Jason’s actually helping.
…. well, okay, he realizes Jason isn’t helping, but Walky thinks that’s his own fault.
It IS Walky’s own fault. He hasn’t paid a shred of attention to Jason in favor of calling him names and staring into the middle distance. Like, no – Jason is a poor teacher thanks to total lack of both training and inclination to the role, but saying that Walky’s failure to be successfully tutored is all on Jason is utterly ridiculous to me.
Jason could have been the best tutor in the universe, but Walky’s zero effort would still have resulted in Walky not being helped at all.
I agree that it’s a failure on both their parts. Jason’s not a good tutor and Walky’s not a good student. My point is that Walky is increasingly blaming himself and not Jason. … well, he says he blames Jason, but I don’t believe him.
Does Walky even know about Sal’s affair with Jason?
Nope, they don’t talk about stuff. Which means we get this conversation in the future:
Walky: “Hey, Sis. Turns out I’m going to fail math because our TA stopped tutoring me because he got fired for banging some student.”
Sal: “…”
Walky: “I mean who would go for a ganky beanpole in suspenders and ties unless she was just some skank trying to inflate her grade by-”
Sal: “SO WAIT YOU’RE FAILING MATH let’s talk about that… hey, Wonderbread! Get over here, I’ve got someone for you to talk geeky to!”
He is literally standing right next to them, unless he is a total idiot…and deaf, I think he can figure it out.
I’m sure Sal is not the only student Jason tutored. For that matter, there’s no need for anyone to assume the “rumored” student is a woman.
So if Walky guesses Sal is who Jason is referring to, it would be more “conclusion jumping” than “figuring it out”
Sal knows, but no one else knows it’s Sal. Penny didn’t know and so probably didn’t name names – if she did it would only be by chance she picked Sal’s name.
Most likely Sal wouldn’t have to lie since administration would never know to ask her.
OTOH, Jason essentially just admitted it to Penny and in front of Walky, so that’s not good for him.
She might have picked Sal just because of her dragging Jason into his office off hours and also because she’s most likely ‘the other TA’ who he asked to grade her work.
That’s a fair point, but Sal hasn’t been asked as of yet, and would never narc. Also, I’d be surprised if Penny remembered Sal’s name to point them in her direction.
No she hasn’t, but if the administration knows it’s Sal specifically, I’d bet that Penny marking her paper is how that came into her mind.
No, she’s not, though that route also depends on Jason being good at sustaining a lie to his superiors.
So this might be doomed before it starts.
What the heck? That was meant to be under Viktoria’s comment above.
It would be a simple enough lie. “I’ve got no idea what she’s talking about. Maybe just trying to make herself look better by smearing me.”
Sure, but that requires him to be good enough at passing a lie. Some people struggle with that, especially when it’s to an authority figure.
Now if only Walky can be fired for the hat trick this comic can get back to the good characters like Malaya.
Jeez, what a seaward.
Oh dear that avatar.
They meant a bloody seaward.
Joe just had to imply a TA will “boff students”, even if it is an abuse of some power. Will the list fallout continue for other co-eds? And the leaker is still unknown.
My money is on Raidah as the leaker.
I’m suspicious of Rachel myself.
I was too, until she pointed out that it would be a map to every girl in school and they’d already had a sexual predator on campus.
Nah, hear me out.
1. Raidah didn’t even know about the list originally, and the last time we hear about it prior to it being leaked is Joe giving her access to it.
2. Raidah wants to manage Jacob, who he’s friends with and how they might influence him. She views his relationship with her on how much he can benefit from being with her, not just about him liking her, so it’s not a leap to say she views other relationships in regards to benefits. Joe has very little benefit to Jacob from her perspective.
3. Following that train of thought, exposing the list does one thing she’d like and allies the possibility for one of two positive outcomes for her. First, it gets ?Joe in trouble, making him a liability (in her eyes) to Jacob. So, because of said trouble, in her shoes, she would write Joe off, so would hope Jacob would do the same. Or Joe might be in so much hot water that he can’t really hang out with Jacob anymore. Either way, friendship is over. That’s the first positive outcome for her. Second, they remain friends, but Joe is forced to be on his best behavior, making him a more suitable friend for Jacob to be around (which seems to be the case at the moment). Provided she’s not found out, it’s a win-win.
I’m still betting it was leaked by some rando that Joe gave the password to.
Oh my glob, I just figured it out. The leaker is Amazigirl. Amber was in position to know about the list, she has the technical skills, AG tends to ignore long-term consequences like the girls who were hurt by the list coming out, and it’s exactly the sort of vigilante punishment for Joe that AG prefers. Plus it fits Amber’s arc for AG to leak the list without her knowing and for Danny to figure that out later.
it was Danny, though, look at his face and remark http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/04-the-do-list/treasuremap/
I’m going to say no to Danny.
Assuming the leak was done on purpose. The only reason Danny would do that would be to make Joe a better person.
But in the strip immediately before the one you linked to, Rachel asks Danny if he’s doing anything to facilitate Joe learning from this, and Danny admits that he hasn’t even tried because Joe isn’t up for such discussions. So if Danny leaked the list, he’s specifically not doing what his personality would have had him do it for in the first place.
Also, he’s always known about the list and has no reason to suddenly leak it since he hadn’t done it in all this time.
seems like an experimental “let’s see what happens when Joe has to face consequences” (admittedly a bit of work for Danny to practice lying with a straight face, but we’ve seen the Whiteboard Ding-Dong Bandit saga), immediately followed by, “I didn’t foresee THOSE consequences…”
Doesn’t Amazi-girl prefer a hands on approach to her vigilante justice? Usually with a fist to the face? She is supposed to be a healthy outlet for Amber’s anger, right? Hacking a list and exposing it isn’t very hands on.
Also, doing it secretly doesn’t really hammer home the Justice part. While she hasn’t been much on basking in the limelight, Amazi-girl has been much on letting the offenders know not to repeat what they’ve done as she might catch them again (and give them more fists to their faces). Here, Joe is starting to learn a lesson and mend his ways on his own, but there was no guiding hand from Amazi-girl, meaning he could have easily took the wrong lesson from this and just doubled down on his behavior (and security). Joe wasn’t addressed at all. Which is why it seems to me that leak was more about getting him in trouble than about helping anyone, him or the women on the list.
No matter the universe, Penny is always, in the end, cruel, manipulative and just generally villainous. As for Jason, in the end, he should have said ‘no’ to Sal, as difficult as it is with a woman so beautiful.
Tale as old as time, that one. Man brings about his own downfall because he couldn’t refuse a gorgeous woman.
So I guess, in this tiny little case, that list actually did a somewhat good thing?
Kinda?
Not really.
But yeah, teachers “boffing” their students is a fairly serious thing. The power balance in such a relationship is pretty far from equal.
damn, penny, thats mean as shit. what the fork?!?
Aw, I hope this doesn’t mean Penny’s being written out of the strip. She’s the character I’ve most been hoping to see show up more.
Does anyone imagine Penny as Scottish? I imagine her as Scottish. Maybe it’s just because she’s a redhead.
Just in case anyone was worrying, IMO, Penny is one of the few truly evil characters in this comic.
Considering Penny actually does have a truthful reason Jason should and deserves to be sacked like her just for not reporting her knowing full well about Joe, her lying to accomplish the same thing instead feels quite a bit less evil than the other antagonists along the lines of Blaine and Mary.
Your logic is shit.
You’re saying Penny should have reported everyone who knew or suspected Penny was boffing students. And that those all should also be fired, or expelled in the case of students. You’re saying they should lose their jobs because of the accusations of someone who’s just been found to be violating her contract, taking advantage of her position of relative authority, and been fired.
That alone is crazy.
And furthermore, Penny lied. She made her accusation against Jason under the impression that he was NOT boffing students. She did so “for funsies” knowing well that it could lead to Jason’t career and reputation being ruined.
If you want to draw comparisons, she is at least every bit as bad as Mary, and far worse in some ways.
I’m confused. Is Penny talking about Doodlin’?
Slap-jackin’?
Knobbing?
Bonky-tonkin’?
You’re both just making up words now right? 😛
🙂
And here we thought that Jason was a piece of shit…
There’s no way either of those things would get you fired from a state university. Sex between consenting adults is legal, AND, there’s not even been a complaint against either of them.
Legal? Yes. Penny’s probably not going to face charges.
But it is almost certainly a violation of the employee handbook and, thus, her employment contract. And also professional ethics.
You can be fired for things other than crimes.
*even if no student complains
“Really? It’s not just frowned upon?”
Think about it as like sex between a manager and a secretary, and then the superior finds out.
Companies can and have dictated how close relationships staff can have with each other (because it affects their performance while on company time) and it is further muddled by the power imbalance between the two people. Such a relationship can very easily be near-rape by holding someone’s job hostage.
WE the readers know Jason was not holding Sal’s grades hostage, but the university government doesn’t and they would rather get rid of potential trouble
Sal thought she would get special treatment the first time.
Sorry but you can get fired from a state university for almost anything and T.A.s are lower than anyone on the totem pole. University politics are horribly cutthroat and there’s an endless number of replacements for any job.
Your naïveté is endearing but it’s probably not a good move to boldly declare that things that have happened and currently happen are 100% not able to happen.
TAs aren’t really people so much as the slave labor / unpaid* interns of academia. This goes double for interns that are not citizens protected by the laws of your country they are working in!
What? I am pretty sure you can’t fire someone on the sole basis that one student say a teacher totally WOULD. “Would” being the operative word. Otherwise most student could fire a whole department on the sole basis that they said that they might.
What the fuck is going on? Those things usually take investigation.
“Would” not being the operative word, because the word Joe used was “will“. The Do List came out nearly a week ago, so it’s entirely possible there has been an investigation, and it very quickly found out she has been. Because, y’know, she has been.
Firing Jason just on Penny’s say-so is another matter, of course.
OTOH, if there’d been an investigation, you’d have thunk they’d have talked to Joe (which we’ve had no sign of) or Jason, who shares an office with her, which they obviously haven’t.
It might be that this Uni is very touchy about this subject at the moment. Just recently Roz released her sex tape which caused some problems, then there was the thing with Becky’s Dad, the thing with the Rapist McStabby. The school got several blows to it’s reputation and they might be worried about the opinion they’ll get if people find out that one of their teachers was having sex with the students.
Don’t forget the stabbing of an attempted rapist and the national media descending on the home of a teacher who was sleeping with a congresswoman. This university has a sex scandal about as often as Donald Trump tweets something stupid.
Pssst – Jason… Penny is just having you on a bit. If you play it cool you can bluff your way right out of this. No one is going to believe you bedded Sal.
Ooh, kickass, the TAs from no-ethics land are both fired!
…Though, wait, was Joe actually Penny’s student for a class she taught, or just an unrelated student she happened to know? Because if the latter then…that kind of sucks and I’m conflicted, but also hope Walky maybe at least kicks Jason’s ass for good measure right here in the hallway as Penny’s sacking-day consolation gift.
In all seriousness, though. Penny may have been acting out of spite when she ‘lied’ (or, I far more suspect, simply made an educated guess and hurled it out there as soon as it became clear she was already done for) about Jason having sex with a student also. But first off, as much as having sex with a student should on ethical grounds get you fired, not reporting someone else having sex with a student is absolutely no better and in truth Penny would actually be taking a scrupulous course of action (if not like, personally) to report Jason for turning a blind eye now as a matter of course no matter how much of a dick move that would be.
I can 100% see someone like Penny refusing to be the only one hung out to dry for her sins upon being outed by a stupid teenager spreading gossip without her permission. Particularly since Jason’s only absolving grace was being male, and so not on Joe’s radar to be outed for his own fireable offenses, both proven and suspected.
(And Penny had seen Jason with Sal. Had been asked to not disclose at least one sketchy meeting that took place in the guise of office hours between Jason and Sal, and knew Jason enough to surmise that he in the company of someone as attractive as Sal probably would not be keeping his mannerisms purely professional.
Even if ultimately Penny could only assume wrongly that Jason was probably too much of a stick in the mud to go for the damn lay as stupid as she’d think it not to.)
(continued from above)
But this is Penny, and so Penny didn’t settle for just telling the truth, which was probably stupid enough in her book to justify in itself going above and beyond evening the score with only the truth. Instead she opted to outright made up a story more depraved, yes, for funsies.
That may have been selfish for sure but I get the sense it was not so much an act of cruelty, spite, or sabotage than the simple fact that it feels more vindicating to her on this particularly unpleasant day to achieve the same result of getting what she wants with a spicy lie rather than a boring truth that achieves the same result, and again, with a consequence they both have already earned.
Because for Penny I’d imagine reporting Jason for simple lack of disclosure is so boring that even him being fired justly over it wouldn’t be worth the effort.
It’s Penny, ha. Forget that. If she’s going down for this she’s not going down for this without making sure the consequence reaches all parties that would rightfully be joining in her miserable company–but thus resolved to go ahead and make this a career murder-suicide for fairness’ sake (because Jason did deserve a firing just as much as her, and she is not sanctimonious) then she is absolutely taking it another step further and ensuring that Jason’s legacy in this isn’t going to cement his record as a man so boring he couldn’t even get fired in a sex scandal for reasons that are criminally boring. She may even think of it as a silver lining, because a TA who thinks it’s stupid not to sleep with willing students probably considers it a favor to “improve” the legacy of a colleague with a Jason-size stick up his ass that means he’ll never get any respect.
Penny was asked not to disclose the meeting between Sal and Jason? I don’t recall that. Would have been weird, since when they started the intent was actual tutoring and they spent some hours at that before anything else happened.
Yeah, Jason asked her not to tell the professor about the ‘scheduling irregularity’ because he wasn’t supposed to have office hours that day.
From Penny’s perspective, she was asked not to tell about an off hours meeting. That seems a little sketchy.
She was asked not to disclose him tutoring in the office during her scheduled office time, but she admitted that she believed he was actually tutoring since anything else would make him interesting, which she felt he wasn’t based off her personal experiences with him.
Actually, Penny fully believed Jason was really tutoring as 1. He was just that boring, and 2. They had been together previously and she apparently couldn’t get him to mess around with her unless he was completely free from other responsibilities, meaning no at work hankypanky.
If he couldn’t be tempted to be spontaneous by the woman he shared an office with and worked with on a regular basis and sexed him in their off time, it’s incredibly believable from her point of view that he was really tutoring Sal. Especially, since he was.
o.0
Anyway. Ecstatic that these two aren’t (apparently) going to continue on as TAs, considering their proven commitment to not respecting the boundaries the profession requires…
BUT. I am hoping very much this doesn’t mean they’ll be disappearing from the strip?? Career deficiencies aside honestly I love them both just as regular characters, and it’d be a shame if there wasn’t a loophole in the story that’d let them stay in the comic without resorting to them moving back to England after termination. I’d read the shit out of disgraced former graduate students Jason and Penny making cameos in the IU sphere as like, suddenly scrambling young adults trying to adjust to their life’s upheaval as peons newly working for Galasso with Becky or something.
Becky being their manager, of course.
I want them to stay in the comic, but I’m not sure how that will work. I don’t know if he and Penny are in the same program, but I know Jason said if he were caught, he wouldn’t just be fired, he’d be kicked out of his program. He’s most likely on a student visa, so I’m not sure how he’d avoid being sent back to England.
I am sure they will. Observe the gymnastics that Willis went through to ensure that Ruth (a- stayed in the comic (b- as an RA.
At least that one involved a rich and influential bastard. I suppose if Jason’s dad is still around that could work out.
Amber stabbed a dude in front of the dorms Friday night and was back in school Tuesday morning and the university hasn’t expressed any interest in that at all, possibly because they were busy ignoring Dina getting shot by a crazed gunman on campus the week before.
There’s an element of “repeat to yourself it’s just a show I should really just relax” necessary when reading a comic that has ten years of dramatic storylines taking place over like six weeks.
Dina wasn’t shot. She wasn’t even shot AT. He had a gun, yes, but he didn’t fire it until he was at the fountain.
As for Amber, she was gone for three days probably establishing it was self-defence, which isn’t illegal.
They’re both graduate students in a STEM field. Even if they can’t continue their grad program at this university, they both still have their undergrad degrees and thus can find better jobs than slinging pizza.
Neither one are teachers by inclination or training. The fact that they may not be permitted to teach could well be inconsequential.
Hope this is part of Joe’s arc of redemption. His list wasn’t just a bad idea, it had real world consequences. Turns out that consequence free boffing is harder to accomplish than he thought.
But the consequences here are positive. Two terrible TAs are fired for very good reasons.
The transition from the last strip to this strip feels kinda strange to me: In the last panel, Walky was talking to himself with no sign of Jason being in his office. In the first panel here, we find Penny in the process of leaving the office and talking to Jason. Is there a strip missing or something?
It does feel that way, doesn’t it?
Bye, Felicia.
Bye, other Felicia.
Administration shouldn’t be using this list to fire her. I really hope it sparked an investigation which lead to real evidence. Because a list online saying ‘she’ll totally do students’ is akin to someone saying ‘she’s easy, i’m in’ and people taking it as fact.
Same. Based on the “I told them you were ALSO boffin’ students” comment I will assume/hope that she confessed when confronted with the evidence and wasn’t just immediately fired.
I find it kind of interesting that the commentariat here are the kind of demographic that every MRA type would accuse of wanting the kind of witch hunt that they believe goes on and that’s kind of implied here, but we’re all like “Whoa. The school shouldn’t be doing that without more evidence.”
Despite us knowing full well that both of them are guilty and if the truth came out should be fired.
At the universities I’ve worked at, Jason is… almost ok? He gave Sal’s assessment to the other tutor to mark. In my experience, if he had also informed the unit coordinator he would be maybe only reprimanded for continuing one on one tutoring sessions but that’s about it. Maybe asked to sign a conflict of interest declaration. I don’t know about Penny’s situation. Also I assume the USA is way different?
I mean it’s unethical af and skeezy but like… could be skeezier and more unethical is my point…. which i realise is a very weak point now.
As a grad student at a private university in the US (possibly different at public schools, but I doubt it would be LESS strict), the lengthiest sections of my grad student orientation were about how having any sort of romantic or sexual relationship (even, like, hand holding) with a student who was or COULD BE in a class I TA would get me in major trouble/kicked out (there might have been like a warning then fired, but I don’t think so). They made it goofy with skits and stuff, but the message and associated threat were very very clear.
Actually, I /don’t/ see “everyone” saying the school shouldn’t be doing that without more evidence – most seem to be cheering the firings on.
And I’m not sure what they are guilty of. We know that Jason neither offered nor actually traded grades for sex, and that aside from his first comment to her (which was admittedly over the edge, something he himself said in the next strip), Sal was the “aggressor”. She was in his unit, so the appearance isn’t good, and that /could/ lead to some repercussions, but unless the TA regulations forbid it, I don’t see it as a “firing” offense (after all, the TAs aren’t faculty, they are students, and aren’t governed by the faculty rules. We don’t even know that Penny is Joe’s TA at all, in which case there shouldn’t be any issues. Of course, there /could/ be other, more serious cases, but we have no knowledge that there are, so these hypotheticals shouldn’t be used as evidence against them.
TAs aren’t allowed to fuck their students. Jason even said earlier if he was caught, he’d be kicked out of his program.
Penny and Jason as TAs are regarded as staff to the other students even if they are students to the other staff. Because they give out grades and that creates a power imbalance, especially because they’re going to be hanging out with other TAs and staff as peers, not with students like Walky and Dina and Joyce as peers.
Dude, I just read through all the comments above. Plenty of people are talking about how the 2 are terrible TAs who absolutely deserve to be fired. BUT, everyone is saying there should have been further investigation before they were canned. People can hold the 2 positions simultaneously.
For reference, my stance is that Jason is incompetent and Penny is awful. Both of them should have been fired or retrained for those long ago. Both of them also banged students, which is a severe abuse of power deserving of firing and probably a criminal investigation(though I doubt there was anything truly illegal going on, it does deserve at least a close look by the cops). And the University should not fire people based off hearsay. They should investigate, and fire if there’s hard evidence(which I suspect happened off-screen).
If Jason’s actually fired, I can’t believe they did much investigation. Penny thought she was lying and claims he was getting fired anyway. As far as we know, no one’s talked to any of the people involved – Joe and Sal particularly. Or even mentioned it to Jason.
We need more of the British ginger math T.A.
New regular character.
Walky needs a new math tutor. Let her be the one.
First, let’s just agree that both Jason and Penny deserve to be fired. Their behavior is not only unprofessional, but borders on predatory.
That said, it’s really strange for the administration to fire Jason without any kind of formal investigation, without even telling him, to the point that someone else, no longer even employed by the University, would relay the information to him before he’d even heard that it was a possibility. Either Penny is just lying to him, the administration is really as terrible as they’ve been portrayed up until now, or they’re so sick of the string of scandals (starting with the sister of a member of Congress’ sex tape, followed by a firearm/kidnapping incident on campus, followed by one of their RAs sleeping with one of her charges, followed by an accused rapist being publicly physically assaulted, followed by a “do list” being passed around revealing actual TAs involved in sex-shenanigans) that they’ve decided enough is enough. Everything else was bad, but now you’ve got something bordering up against professors themselves, and when you reach that point, accusations could then easily be made of preferential grading and other things that could much more potentially affect things like Title IX penalties and NCAA funding and fines. The administration, if it’s anything like most University administrations in the nation, probably is apathetic at best to most of this stuff, but when it starts to threaten their bottom-line, you can bet they’ll start to take notice.
I could see why the administration would, at this point, decide that enough was enough and start coming down hard on anyone giving off even the remote hint of impropriety. Still, it’s fucked up that they’d fire someone based only on the word of someone who was, themselves, in the midst of being fired for misconduct, and whose input would therefore be suspect.
But Jason still deserves to be sacked. Assuming Penny’s actually telling the truth, I’m not shedding any tears. And if she’s not, he’s damn lucky and better re-examine his behavior and get his shit together.
Are all the T.A.s in the Indiana University System British?
Penny may not be a murderous sociopath in this universe, but it appears she’s only changed by one word.
I mean, Jason was a horrible, unethical TA, but she didn’t actually know that. She was just being petty and vindictive.
I wonder if Jason’s dad is still a terrible person in this universe? Most make Jason getting fired very interesting is he really doesn’t want to go back to an abusive home.
Also I’ve been having tons of weird dreams lately (courtesy of taking b12 supplements, I suspect, as b vitamins help with dream recollection) and last night the dream was a follow-up comic involving Jason, Sal, and pity sex behind a dumpster behind the bar. No I don’t know how that happened, dreams make no sense, bit the funniest part in the dream was both having “we did this again???” expressions.
Dreams are so weird.
Can we get them deported? Somehow? I think it’d be a good idea for Robin to take a zero tolerance policy to TAs from Britain. Maybe Becky can hear about it and arrange it.
They seemed nice.
Am I the only one who sees a future with Walky wearing a wig posing as his twin sister? Although hopefully a better wig than the one he used outside the Martian complex in Walkyverse…