Profs return after affairs with students

Lethbridge College sees the return of dismissed Bird.

Chelse McKee, staff

Earlier this month, Greg Bird, a professor at Lethbridge College in Alberta, was reinstated to his position after being fired in 2006 when it was discovered he had affairs with three of his female students.

The decision was lifted on the grounds that there was no mention in the university’s policy stipulating that members of faculty were not allowed to have sexual relationships with students.

Some students at Lethbridge College are feeling apprehensive about Bird’s return, which is scheduled for later this year.

“I don’t know how safe I would feel around him,” said Erin Primrose, a first-year student at the college.

Although Primrose says that she feels that the female students were adults, she also feels that “as a professor, it’s [Bird’s] job and his duty to know where the line is.”

Primrose mentioned that she thinks she would only feel uncomfortable about the situation if the professor were teaching the student at the time. Even still, she believes that something should be included in the university’s policy.

Ricky Buis, the college’s vice-president of corporate and internal affairs, says that the university is doing just that and that the new policy should be ready within a few months.

John Danakas, director of public affairs for the University of Manitoba, says that although it’s not stipulated outright in the U of M’s policy, that that type of relationship is “not condoned or encouraged” by the university.

Danakas referred to the conflict of interest policy as an indication that there is specificity on the matter. The policy states that a “conflict of interest means a close personal relationships between an evaluator and a student or applicant.”

The policy then goes on to list the types of relationships included in the defined bias, which are relatives, in-laws, and spouses.

Danakas says the lack of definition is due to the legality of the subject matter.

“It is [an issue] if it falls into the sexual harassment area. . . . There would have to be something illegal about it in order for you to have a policy about it,” he said, continuing on to explain that, although the university is considered a self-governing body, it’s “not outside the laws of the province.”