The Oakland Post

Dialing up the dialogue

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Members of the campus community are abuzz with conversations about the professor accused of stalking a former student, but many fail to see that incidents leading up to the arrest of Srinarayan Sharma took place over the course of 16 months.

Why did the alleged victim wait so long before she reported the inappropriate attention? Reactions to the story have ranged from tasteless to totally racist, but that is one question we haven’t heard yet.

While we have yet to find out whether Sharma is guilty of the crime he has been charged with, we do believe one certainty: If the student felt uncomfortable, she could have and should have reported it sooner.

According to police reports obtained by The Oakland Post, the student said Sharma’s behavior became inappropriate after a course taken in the Fall 2009 semester. However, she didn’t alert any authority figure until December 2010.

Measures are in place to facilitate the resolution of seemingly unmanageable situations like the one faced by the former Oakland University student, but is it enough? In this instance, the student felt that because the professor had control over her grade, she could not report him.

Systems like “Report and Support” are designed to have a larger scope and aim to put students on a level playing field with members of the staff and faculty when it comes to reporting erratic behaviors, but it may not seem like that to a student faced with other possible consequences.

While she used the proper channel — contacting the Dean of Students’ office — to file a report and seemed to be aware of the availability of the process, she did not do so until after her class with Sharma ended.

It took two e-mails allegedly detailing personal information about Sharma’s wife and children to call for his arraignment.

While the series of events brought about the misdemeanor charge of stalking, something must be done so that other students who are in the plaintiff’s position do not have to face the same situation again.

According to Dean of Students Glenn McIntosh, a grade dispute is generally resolved between the course instructor and student. It then gets pushed to the department’s chair if no resolution is reached. We can easily see why the student did not want to go through the system and instead ignored the problem.

Though the process can be unavoidably long, the key seems to be early reporting of a problem. McIntosh said no complaints had ever been lodged against Sharma before, but that he mostly learns of incidents like these through direct communication.

Perhaps the student felt Sharma was untouchable because of his tenure? Action should have been taken at the campus level before it spiraled into a legal situation.
Judge Julie Nicholson of 52-3 District Court approved Oakland County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Paul Walton’s request Monday to deny Sharma contact with his family in order to protect their safety. One has to think of how to intervene in this situation earlier if the allegations are indeed true.

Maybe there is nothing that can be done to avoid incidents like these, but we can at least try to come up with solutions to avoid what the student in this case went through. If you see odd behavior, report it.

Don’t let the bystander effect take place.