The University Stonewalls on Return of Property

Despite my appeal to over 200 professors to forward my request to "whomever it might concern", I heard nothing back from the Board of Regents. So on October 10th I sent the following email to Colin Russell:

I wish to be informed of any rights I may have to appeal this decision.

 

Russell replied the same day with the following information:

 

Hi Marty,

There is no appeal process beyond the Departmental Review Committee regarding the content of the appeal, as nobody outside the Department has the expertise to evaluate work in that discipline. However, further appeal is possible to the Senate Appeals Committee on procedural grounds, if the appellant believes that there was error in process on the part of the Departmental Review Committee.

Best,

Colin

 

So it seems it was the Senate, and not the Board of Regents, tho whom  I ought to have been directing my requests.  Mr. Russell apparently did not feel any urge to tell me how I might contact the Senate Committee, as he provided me with no contact information. Furthermore, surely there were members of the Senate among the 200 professors to whom I broadcast my appeal. But none of them chose to respond to it. So I was back where I started.

 

In the meantime there was one other small matter to take care of: the return of personal property and marked assignments still held by the University since my expulsion. I had been asking for their return repeatedly over the course of 2012 to no effect.  And I wanted this taken care of. So I decided to put the appeal on hold temporarily while I took care of this. On October 11th I wrote the University as follows:

 

It is hard for me to understand why the return of my personal property
continues to be a problem. While Mr. Corlett indicated willingness last year
to have it returned to me (see below), subsequent inquiries on my part were
ignored. I would think someone ought to take care of this.

--------------------------------------------------
From: "John Corlett" <j.corlett@uwinnipeg.ca>
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2012 1:27 PM
To: "Marty Green" <btestware@shaw.ca>; "Colin Russell"
<c.russell@uwinnipeg.ca>; "John Anchan" <j.anchan@uwinnipeg.ca>; "James
Currie" <j.currie@uwinnipeg.ca>; "Ken McCluskey" <k.mccluskey@uwinnipeg.ca>;
"Lloyd Axworthy" <l.axworthy@uwinnipeg.ca>
Cc: "Debra Woloshyn" <d.woloshyn@uwinnipeg.ca>; "Jeremy Read"
<je.read@uwinnipeg.ca>
Subject: Re: Non-Academic Misconduct Report

> Hello, Mr Green. If you identify for me what personal property you have on
> campus and where it is, I will work with whomever is best positioned to
> assist in transferring it to you.  

 

It was over a week before they responded to this. It was again Colin Russell who responded, and he reported to me that there was some confusion as to what was owing me:

 

Hello Marty,

We have assignment #1 from Professor Soiferman and assignment #3 from Professor Metz to return to you. Professor Metz says that the written portion of Assignment #5 was not submitted; the evaluation of that assignment was not completed. He does not know where the bulletin board portion would be that you did submit, since it was not picked up while you were still on campus in Fall term classes. Professor Metz did not assign any projects, and he does not know what you are referring to by "a couple of projects in [his] classroom." Can you clarify that?

Best,
Colin

   

So Professor Metz was claiming the final assignment was never completed.  This was getting interesting.