This, my third open letter to the university community, relates how Dr. John A. McLean, Graduate Student Advisor in the Faculty of Forestry, failed me; how Dr. Kenneth Craig, Assistant Dean of Graduate Studies, investigated my complaints for over three months, ruled in my favour, then failed to enforce his own report – failing me once again. The unwillingness of Dr. McLean to comply fairly with Dr. Craig’s ruling and the unwillingness of Dr. Craig to enforce his own ruling left me without a faculty.

Dr. McLean knew full well that on two different occasions committee members in the Faculty of Forestry put personal/institutional interests over their academic responsibilities to support me and my academic work. He knew that unethical behaviour led to the mismanagement of two PhD theses in 3 years. Yet he did not support me. The last time I complained to him (November 1996), he requested my withdrawal from the PhD program, fully knowing that he was violating graduate education rules.

I brought a formal complaint against the Faculty of Forestry to Dr. Craig together with a detailed chronology and supporting documentation in November 1996. About three months later, he wrote a report stating that he found the Faculty had ignored graduate education rules; that there was no evidence of failure on my part; and that he was going to formally asked the Faculty to correct the situation while extending the period to confirm my candidacy to April 30, 1997. The report in my favour represented a formal rejection of the request for my withdrawal presented by Dr. McLean to Dr. Craig. But Dr. Craig left out of his report all evidence of potential scholarly misconduct, conflict of duties/interest, bad academic support, and the systematic failure of UBC Faculties and policies. From then on nobody ever wanted to investigate these complaints or bring them to the attention of the UBC Vice-president and the UBC Senate.

From February to November 1997, despite of ruling on my favour, Dr. Craig did nothing to make the Faculty of Forestry comply with his request to transfer me to another faculty where I could formalize my completed work. He had the duty and the power to implement an interdisciplinary thesis committee and formalize my PhD thesis outside the Faculty of Forestry but he did not. Since I was going nowhere under the care of Dr. Craig, I was advised to request my own withdrawal from the PhD program. That would allow me to bring my situation to the consideration of the UBC Senate. I formally requested my withdrawal to Dean Granot from FoGS on November 10, 1997.

After my request for withdrawal had been granted, I prepared a very detailed and very well documented appeal to the UBC Senate. The Faculty of Graduate Studies and the Faculty of Forestry forgot their disagreements about my ordeal. They presented a united response to my complaints geared to show that they had followed appropriate procedures when dealing with the management of my academic program at UBC, 1993-98. To do this, they listed documents that did not exist and never existed; they listed actions or implied actions that have never taken place; they described documents in a manner inconsistent with the true nature of the documents; they played, in other words, with my personal information.

Despite knowing and accepting that the Faculties of Graduate Studies and Forestry had systematically failed me, the UBC Senate dismissed my appeal. They concluded that FoGS and Forestry had failed me and that it would be unreasonable for me to reenter the system to formalize my completed thesis given the negative environment already created. This situation left them, according to the rules governing academic appeals, with the only option of granting me a PhD. Despite lacking any academic evidence against such a remedy, they did not. They did not want to step on any toes in the Faculties mentioned above. They joined the agencies colluding against me. The UBC Senate Committee expected that by dismissing my appeal they were going to force me to go back to El Salvador, to disappear.

In other words, they did not grant me the PhD degree they concluded they owed me because knowing that I was an immigrant from El Salvador who they expected to go back or disappear soon after a little more neglect and dismissal or disappear made them believe that they could walk away of this situation hiding everything the faculty of forestry, the faculty of graduate studies and themselves had done to me while avoiding accountability for their unethical and unlawfull actions. Think about it, this is the UBC I got, and it can happen to you too, specially to those international and immigrant students UBC has attracted or is trying hard to attract right now.

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Questions and comments to: Lucio Munoz