Honestly, Randy, he's been driving me crazy. Talks a blue streak all the time. Ask him the date and he'll discourse for hours on end before he gets to the point. Holding any kind of a conversation with him is as impossible as stopping a hurricane by shouting at it.

"I kept trying to get away. Once, I said I had to take a p.i.s.s and the son of a b.i.t.c.h came along with me, whizzing away in the next urinal, without missing a word. I tell you, the man should be muzzled."

"Well, it looks as if he isn't going to follow you into the hearing room, Ian. Calm down. They're waiting for you in there."

"Yeah, in a minute. Tell me first, Randy, how was it?

Anything I should watch out for?"

"Nada." Randy had regained his usual swagger. "Not a thing, old bean.

Between us, we'll give the b.i.t.c.h the old one two. . ."

"We're waiting for you, Ian." Henry said from the doorway of the hearing room.

"Oh, right. I'm coming right along. Just had to get things straight about who takes the review session today since I could be tied up here, " blubbered Ian, apologetically. As he reached the door, he turned and looked back up the stairs apprehensively.

Seeing no one, he breathed a sigh of relief and entered the hearing room.

Ian Heathson was of average height. His most striking features were his mop of blond hair and pale blue eyes which flitted about, examining the room, looking everywhere except at Diana.

When asked to substantiate the testimony of Lyle that he and Randy had found 'suspicious' SmurFFs, Ian told a slightly different story.

He hadn't found any himself. Randy had found them. "He showed them to me and I was flabbergasted. I had no reason to suspect that something like that would happen."

Having said that, he reversed course and said, "I always thought there was some kind of manipulative action going on with the students, because we used to get critiques that were totally inconsistent with what we were doing in the course. So we always felt there was something going on."

When Henry asked what he did next, he stated that Randy had brought the 'suspect' SmurFFs to Lyle and, "indicated our concern."

Given the packet of SmurFFs that had been sent to the doc.u.ment examiners and asked to identify them as the ones found, he said, "I can't remember, I didn't memorize them."

When asked how he got along with Diana, he admitted that, "they got along fine until the year Randy. . ." Stopping abruptly. . . "Well, I noticed problems all along."

Esther, who had apparently read the complete set of student evaluations for the years in question, entered as evidence by Diana, suggested that his evaluations had become more positive each year before Randy came into the course.

He professed to not knowing for sure, but thought, "The first year I taught was not good, the second year, considerably better and the third, a hair better, not much.

"The fourth year, well. . ."

Easy now, Ian, thought Henry, that was the year that Randy started teaching.

As if he had heard Henry's silent coaching, Ian testified as if his life depended upon it--his professional life did.

He told a long heart-wrenching tale of the terrible student evaluations he received in the radiology course. He had very nearly not been reappointed a couple of times but Lyle had fought for him.

Over and over again, at every opportunity, he came back to the years of deleterious critiques pa.s.sed in by the students.

Obviously, this had to be because Trenchant manipulated the students.

"Some of the things commonly written on the critiques were, 'Why isn't she lecturing?' 'Course is totally disorganized'

and this is wrong because I am not a disorganized individual; the course is very well organized."

"Did you ever have her lecture to see what the students'

reaction would be?" asked Jane.

"We'd talked about it," he replied.

Ian continued, "Along with the many comments to have her lecture, the students wrote how she was the only one who knew anything about radiology and that Randy and I should get out of the course and let her teach it. As I looked through the SmurFFs these comments just jumped out at me. When I was a student, I never wrote such things about my professors."

There was, however, a change in the critiques the year the accused was not teaching the course. "A complete flip-flop, Ian a.s.serted.

"The students liked the course and the people who taught it."

Henry ducked his head and smiled grimly thinking that these 'flip-flop' SmurFFs would d.a.m.n well not be seen by the panel, I'll see to that. Ian is really stretching the truth here since those SmurFFs he's talking about are more flop than flip. True, the students didn't lambaste Ian and Randy that year as they had in the past, however, in a way, they were just as bad.

Nearly every critique carried the name of the student and the date.

The few comments they contained were bland almost to the point of being insulting. Most of them contained no comments, as the student just checked off the 'average' number for each category under evaluation. Those that contained comments were all typed.

Well, if the panel or Diana asked to see them he would simply say that they had no bearing on the issue.

Henry returned from his reverie just as Ian was saying ". . .there were even some SmurFFs submitted by the students for Diana, which I couldn't figure out why since she wasn't even teaching the course this year."

Ian carefully did not mentioned how this year, as Lyle had directed, he had begged and implored the students to write favorable reviews on their evaluation forms since his job depended on it. . .

It was time to do course evaluations again. A great many of the radiology students were unhappy that they had been told to avoid contact with Diana who had helped them a great deal during the past few months. They were told she was accused of doing some terrible thing but that it would be forgotten and forgiven if they as a cla.s.s returned positive critiques for the course.

They also heard Ian's sad tale of imminent loss of job and how he had just bought a new home ad nauseam.

The cla.s.s officers discussed the situation and offered the following advice to their cla.s.smates at a hastily called meeting just prior to exams.

"Don't write your radiology critique out of anger, even if you feel angry. We don't want to cause her any more problems.

"Write anything positive you can think of and leave it at that.

Ian has tried hard and none of us want to hurt him. Also, use a typewriter and keep a copy. None of us wants to hear Randy fabricate results to his advantage.

"As most of you have heard, no medical student will be allowed to testify for her, or for that matter, even attend the hearing.

Since many of you have indicated you want to do something, just remember that we've been officially told to cool it.

The reality is that our future could depend on not rocking the boat too much.

"Peter is starting a collection to be given to her anonymously.

At this point, it's all we can do. I'm sure she has additional expenses because of all this. I wish we could tell you this is fair and courageous. We can't. She is going down the drain, but it won't help if we go down with her."

Susan Anders stood up. "I hear what you're saying and agree for the most part. However, as one individual, I just had to do something--this is such a vicious attack on her. I have written and mailed a letter to the Pope which I signed and am solely responsible for. In other words, none of you are involved if there is any reprisal because of it.

In it, I expressed my displeasure and labeled the prosecution of Diana an administrative gang bang."

The cla.s.s applauded.

Chapter 15

Now it was Diana's turn to ask questions of Ian.

"You told us that when you examined your SmurFF critiques that some just 'jumped out at you'. It would seem that had it been up to you, quite a few SmurFFs would have been sent away for a.n.a.lysis."