They were all university faculty. It is believed Bishop, 42, shot her colleagues over the issue of tenure. She was reportedly denied it.
No doubt in these horrible economic times, things that would not ordinarily cause people to do drastic and horrible acts cause a few people to completely "lose it." Still, being denied tenure at the university level is NOT a career killer, unlike public education.
Snip:
The shooting occurred about 4 p.m. ET in Shelby Hall, which houses the chemistry department, said university spokesman Ray Garner. The building is named after U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama.
Garner identified the dead as Gopi Podila, chairman of the biological sciences department; Maria Davis, associate professor of biology; and Adriel Johnson, associate professor of biology.
The injured were Joseph Leahy, associate professor of biology, in critical condition; Luis Cruz-Vera, assistant professor of biology, in stable condition; and Stephanie Monticello, staff assistant, also in stable condition.
Currently there is no change in status of the wounded.
The Huntsville Times has an editorial on the UAH tragedy:
Sadly, tragically, unfathomably, people often strike with deadly vengeance - never thinking about the long-term consequences. The shooting is sure to stir concerns among prospective students as they brace for a new university policy this fall that will require all freshmen and sophomores to live on campus.
University officials need to review their response to this tragedy and ensure that all safety procedures worked properly. Early reports indicate that many students didn't even learn of the shooting until an hour or so later.
The university has an emergency communications system to alert students to immediate danger via text alerts, cell calls or e-mail messages. Almost every college has one in the wake of the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech, where a gunman killed 32 students and faculty members.
Mayor Tommy Battle told The Times late Friday that the community is still healing from the Discovery shooting, which occurred the same day a jury convicted Kenneth Shipp in the killing of Huntsville police officer Eric Freeman.
People ask why, but I do believe despair over economic prospects plays a big role, if not the biggest role, in workplace shootings.
Amy Bishop was apparently denied tenure a second time. Note that in higher education, tenure is decided by a committee of colleagues; in public education, ONLY the principal decides. In higher education, denying tenure to an instructor is not a career kiss of death, but in public education, it is.
Christian Science Monitor:
Research budgets are also being cut, meaning grants are harder to come by – all of which can ramp up work pressures and professional jealousies on campus, experts say. The Huntsville area prides itself on having some of the heaviest concentrations of PhDs in the country, largely because of its work with NASA. But the city is also part of the ultra-competitive arena of high- and bio-tech start-ups, where associations with universities can be a determinant for research funding.
Prof. Bishop had been working on an invention called “The Neuristor,” a kind of living computer made up of neurons. She had reportedly filed a lawsuit about her tenure case, the Decatur Daily newspaper reports.
“A person of her obvious talent and intelligence does not go around murdering someone,” writes commenter “Alabama Rooster” on the AL.com website, which represents major state papers in Alabama. “This is most bizarre and demands a lot of answers, not just about the shooting, but the climate at UAH which might lead to such a confrontation. There is something rotten here and it may be professional jealousy, which is rampant in the research and development community....egos awash with the possibility of $$$$$$.”
This is going to be quite interesting as more details emerge. Yes, professional jealousies are rampant in higher education and it IS political. It's just that it is a different animal altogether than public education.
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