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Seventeen and half years have passed since her weekly protests at the UD entrance at Brown and Stewart streets began, but Thompson said her conviction that she was hazed and harassed as a UD electrical engineering graduate student in the late 1990s has not.
"What they do is very wrong. They are bullies," said Thompson, now a professor of electrical engineering at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. "They think that can outlast me... It absolutely blows my mind. I promise you I will not go away."
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The University of Dayton has long rebuffed Thompson’s long list of grievances.
"She is a graduate and has been part of our campus community; we regret that she has not found closure on this issue," the university said in a statement.
Thompson’s commitment to her protest is hard to dispute.
She says she’s weathered counter-protest, wind chills of 20 degrees below and temperatures in excess of 90 degrees while touting signs that read things like “Stop the Academic Fraud,” “Hazing Is Not Leadership With Virtue” and “Stop the Hypocrisy.”
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Credit: Jim Noelker
Credit: Jim Noelker
WHY IS SHE PROTESTING?
The pivotal claim is that she was given a “B” in an engineering master’s course when she earned an “A.”
She said she was told the lower grade was given to teach her “respect.” The B was so devastating that it made her cry for weeks.
She says the university has “repeatedly attempted to discredit, intimidate, silence and otherwise beat me into submission.”
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Before the incident, Thompson had all As and had a 4.0 grade average. While appealing the grade, she went on to earn her doctorate from UD. She subsequently became a professor at the Indiana university.
Thompson said UD made her an outcast when she complained and has not made an attempt to resolve the situation since January 2000.
University officials have said that Thompson’s claims have been determined to be unfounded despite conferences, hearings and a mediation session at the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. In 2007, one official said her transcripts couldn’t be changed as she desires.
Thompson says said she doesn’t not want money from UD, but what she considers justice.
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WHAT SHE WANTS
From a letter explaining the protest:
- To settle the issue, I am requesting the following four things.
- Restoration of my 4.0.
- Correction of all transcripts that have been sent on my behalf to reflect this change.
- Provide me with the total of six letters of recommendation that were written for me by UD professors and to which I am legally entitled.
- Rescinding of the criminal trespass warning.
THE IMPACT ON HER CAREER
Thompson said the way she feels UD treated her has not impacted her career in a negative way.
She earned an undergraduate degree at Ohio State in 1981 and worked 10 years as a welding engineer for General Dynamics Land Systems, where she would troubleshoot production of the M1A1 Army tank.
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Thompson earned an electronic engineering master’s degree and doctorate from UD in 1995 and 1999.
Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne promoted her to professor from associate professor in 2015.
She has published several articles in and worked extensively in functional magnetic resonance, as well as brain mapping through functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), teleoperated robotics and magnetoenceophalography (MEG), a technology that measures the magnetic field emitted by the brain.
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The Society of Women Engineers named her Outstanding Faculty Advisor in 2013 for "creative leadership; for immeasurable service to her engineering students and SWE section as as mentor, advisor, coach, and advocate; and for outstanding university teaching and research." In partnership with Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Thompson received funding from the National Institute of Health to develop functional brain activation maps using space-time adaptive processing, her Society of Women Engineers profile says.
Her employer featured her in promotional videos and articles on more than one occasion.
Reimagining ImagingDiscover Professor of Electrical Engineering Elizabeth Thompson's research into magnetic imaging of the brain----and how her work could change the way we treat epilepsy forever. Watch the full video and read the story here: http://ipfw.io/ElizabethThompson
Posted by Purdue University Fort Wayne on Thursday, October 15, 2015
Thompson, a grandmother, was married to her late husband Robert for nearly 36 years before his death on June 22, 2016.
The protest is only part of her life.
“I have a very demanding job and I spend a lot of time with my family,” Thompson said.
Here are some memorable experiences from Thompson’s letter explaining her protest:
- I have been at UD in weather extremes—from a wind chill of 20◦ below to temperatures in excess of 90◦.
- Comments from the public have been mixed. While several have been very vocal in voicing their dissent of my position, many others have been supportive and encouraging.
- While protesting at the spring commencement, there were profuse insults from many of the students entering the UD arena parking lot at the location in which I was stationed. However, when the security guard came over to direct traffic, the negative comments ceased.
- During one visit to UD, there was an apparently drunk man sleeping on the southwest corner of the intersection across the street from the corner on which I was standing. Several people stopped to attempt to rouse him. I spoke to him myself—he did not have any teeth and smelled heavily of alcohol. In response to my queries, he briefly muttered something unintelligible and then went back to sleep. However, when a group of rowdy college age young men in the bed of an open pick-up truck drove by, they yelled insults at him while mentioning something about the cemetery down the road.
- During my visit of February 23, 2001, some UD male college students decided to take matters into their own hands and launch a counter protest. They stationed themselves at each of the corners of the intersection with different signs. There were three men on the northwest corner with a sign that read, “Stop the stupid protests.” There were also three or four men on the northeast corner but I could not read their sign. Three more men stood near me on the southeast corner. One sign said something to the effect, “I really earned a D.” Another said, “I love UD” on the front and “I’m with stupid” on the back. It had an arrow pointing in my direction. He kept turning it around to show occupants of passing vehicles. Another male student went from group to group with a video camera taping the incident. He asked various students for their reactions to the situation. He then came over to the corner on which I was standing and tried to videotape me, but I did not talk to him. He asked me questions such as “Have you ever been in a mental institution?” During this time, several groups of cars filled with rowdy UD male and female students drove by and added their hooting and jeers to the pandemonium.
- Similar incidents have been repeated at least three times since then.
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