Professor charged with DUI on campus

On Wednesday, Jan. 14,  Cynthia Nordstrom, a psychology professor, was placed on paid administrative leave after being charged with driving under the influence, after driving into a parked car on campus.

According to the police report, Nordstrom’s words were jumbled when talking to the university police after the accident.

“During this interaction, I began to notice Nordstrom’s speech was heavily slurred. I asked Nordstrom why her speech was slurring. Nordstrom stated she had fallen a few weeks ago and had a concussion for which she was taking painkillers,” officer Mark Ferrell said in the police report. “I asked Nordstrom if she was allowed to drive while on the medication. Nordstrom advised Dr. Akin from Madison County had released her to drive a few weeks ago. I further inquired as to where Dr. Akin’s office was located. Nordstrom appeared to be confused and eventually said Edwardsville. I asked Nordstrom if she had consumed any alcohol today and she stated she had not. Nordstrom again stated she was a professor of psychology and needed to get to her class. I asked where she would be teaching. Nordstrom stated she would be in [Alumni Hall] Room 0119. I allowed her to go into Alumni Hall to teach her class.”

After allowing Nordstrom to go, Ferrell spoke to the victim and owner of the car Nordstrom hit, who believed Nordstrom had been drinking.

“[The victim] stated she was a nurse and strongly believed Nordstrom had been drinking. … I walked to the driver’s side of Nordstrom’s vehicle and located several ice cubes and a liquid splash pattern indicating it came from the driver’s side of the vehicle. I picked up an ice cube and immediately detected the odor of an alcoholic beverage,” Ferrell said.

Upon this discovery, the police report said Ferrell found Nordstrom in Alumni Hall with Sgt. [Dan] Murphy, Officer [Thomas] Poenitske and [Paul] Rose, the psychology department chairman.

“I advised Nordstrom we needed to speak somewhere in private. Nordstrom escorted us to her office. While walking, I noticed Nordstrom swaying. Once inside Nordstrom’s office, I advised her she was not being truthful about her alcohol consumption. I advised Nordstrom I had located an alcoholic beverage next to her vehicle. Nordstrom stated she had consumed some vodka and two glasses of wine this morning. Nordstrom then stated she had only vodka and orange juice this morning, because the wine was last night,” Ferrell said. “I advised Nordstrom I needed to conduct [Standardized Field Sobriety Testing] because she had several indicators of alcohol impairment. Nordstrom said she would consent to SFST.”

After conducting the test, Ferrell reported the Intoximeter EC/IR showed a 0.241 blood alcohol content — nearly three times the legal limit of 0.08.

Managing the incident at the administrative level

Although the incident occurred Jan. 14, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Marketing and Communications Doug McIlhagga said the media did not inquire about the situation until weeks later.

“Well it came up a couple weeks after the incident actually occurred, which is a little unusual, but you know, you field a number of calls and inquiries about it and you try to give as much clarity to the situation as you can, considering the confidential nature of human resource processes,” McIlhagga said. “When you get calls, you try to give as much information as you are legally capable of doing. And anytime you’re dealing with a human resources and personnel situation, it’s always a matter of confidentiality and how much you are able to share. You just have to try to help people get their story, and shine the best light on the institution as possible.”

As a result of the occurrence, Nordstrom was placed on paid administrative leave.

Although faculty members are doing their best to field questions regarding this incident, Rose said a permanent decision about Nordstrom’s consequences has not yet been made.

“We have to wait for many different decisions to occur at the university before we know what’s going to happen in future terms,” Rose said. “There are procedures within the university policy that determine leaves and actions that are taken in an incident like this, and I can’t comment on the details. The university has policies that it carefully follows in an incident like this, and no two cases are exactly the same. So everybody who is involved in the decision is able to look at their different options and make a decision about what makes the most sense for that situation. And they’re not necessarily permanent decisions. Sometimes, in a variety of university cases, you have to do something temporarily, and then there could be a different decision later on, as more evidence comes in and more deliberation has occurred.”

According to McIlhagga, several people decided the terms of Nordstrom’s absence.

“Well, for a paid administrative leave, there’s a variety of factors that are taken into account, and then those personnel decisions are confidential, but the decision is made by several people that review the facts and circumstances of the situation. And in this particular case, it’s the department chair, the dean of the school, human resources and the provost’s office. It’s like any committee; there’s a discussion of facts and you come to an agreement,” McIlhagga said. “I’m not speaking for [those who decided her paid administrative leave] but I’m sure they figured that you’re looking out for the best interest of a faculty member who is one of your employees that you care about, and want to see their life and their professional career continue on a positive basis. So, what is the best course to get that person back on track.”

Since the disciplinary process is still going on, McIlhagga said no final decisions regarding the terms of Nordstrom’s absence have been ruled out.

“You’d have to say all options are open at this point,” McIlhagga said.

Rose said the university is following the disciplinary process as efficiently as it can.

“I can’t give details about any length of time for the disciplinary process, I can only tell you that SIUE acts fairly and takes the amount of time that’s necessary to make the needed decisions in that situation. So nobody is going to drag their feet in a situation like this where we really need to make sure they are getting the courses that they need,” Rose said.

Nordstrom’s colleagues step in during her absence

According to Rose, the solution was to have other professors take over Nordstrom’s classes, and was made promptly because Joel Nadler and Mike Dudley volunteered.

“We have very cooperative faculty in the psychology department, and as soon as we realized that we had an emergency — that we had to get this filled — we quickly had these two professors step forward. One of them, Dr. Joel Nadler, has taken two classes: a graduate class, and also an undergraduate class. And he’s being paid overload pay for those two classes. And then, the third class was taken by Dr. Mike Dudley — again, both of them volunteered quickly because they knew it was an emergency situation — and he’s paid overload pay for that class that he took,” Rose said.

Although the professors’ salaries and Nordstrom’s paid leave of absence come from the school of education, health, and human behavior’s budget, the incident had a minimal effect upon the funds. Rose said this was because there is some flexibility in the budget this semester.

“And, you know, the money has to come from somewhere. But one of the things that makes it a little bit easier this year is that we have unfilled professor positions that we were planning to fill, and then with the budget crisis, we can’t complete those hires this year. So there’s sort of unused salary money at the moment that gives just a little flexibility for this year. So this emergency could have been worse because it cost something, but the Dean [of the School of Education, Health and Human Behavior] generously funded these courses that we absolutely had to cover,” Rose said.

The new professors in charge have not taught the classes they took over before, but Rose said the professors have specialties similar to Nordstrom’s.

“[Professor Nordstrom] is in an area of expertise, industrial organizational psychology, that Dr. Nadler is also in, and so he has similar expertise [to] what Dr. Nordstrom has. And then Dr. Mike Dudley is in a very similar field. He’s a social psychologist, and it is regular for social psychologists to also teach undergraduate industrial organizational psychology classes,” Rose said. “Because [Dudley and Nadler] took responsibility for the course, and needed to have control for how it would be for the rest of the semester, they did produce new syllabi. In a general sense, the topic is of course unchanged, but the specific details were determined by these instructors so they could teach the course in a way that made sense to them.”

Even though Nadler and Dudley are familiar with the subject matter, Rose said they had to come up with how they wanted to teach the courses relatively fast.

“I give full credit to how quick [Dudley and Nadler] were to volunteer and step up like this. We all have full-time jobs as it is, so just suddenly reorienting into new classes is a big challenge for these professors. I’m extremely grateful that they stepped up so quickly,” Rose said. “Normally, when a professor knows they have a brand new course to teach, they have about five or six months of notice in order to get ready for that. … We’ve shared materials throughout the department so that both of them could come in and teach effectively.”

While the courses Nordstrom taught will see some changes, Rose said students have not dropped the classes, and they will not have to worry about making further adjustments the rest of the semester.

“I can tell you that these instructors that have taken these three courses are going to have them covered for the whole semester. We didn’t want any disruptions with the students having even more changes in the instructors, and so this is a permanent solution for the entire semester,” Rose said. “I’ve seen no evidence that there’s been dropping of the classes. And another fortunate thing about Dr. Nadler and Dr. Dudley being the people that took over these classes is that they are both very well respected by the students. And if you read what students say about their teaching, they’re both very highly regarded. So I have a lot of confidence that those classes are going well.”

Nordstrom’s students respond to the news

While this occurrence might have been surprising for several students at the university, an anonymous psychology student, who has had Nordstrom in the past, was especially taken aback.

“So in this class I had with her, [we] had a group project at the end of the year. And [we] got [our] groups the first day of school based on who [we] were sitting by. So I actually became really close with the kids in my group, and the way I found out was one of them texted me and sent me the link, and said ‘Oh my God, did you read this?’ And at first I thought maybe it was a joke or something, but then everyone was talking about it later that evening. So that’s how I found out, but I was really shocked,” the anonymous student said.

The anonymous student said the reason this incidence was so jarring was partly due to Nordstrom’s personality in the classroom.

“Honestly, she’s super nice. She’s a super generous teacher because she always worked with you no matter if you did something wrong or if you forgot something. She was always helpful and she was always available to help. She is a really personable teacher, like she knew everyone’s name and things like that,” the anonymous student said. “I know last semester she had some medical issues. Her knees were kind of bad. There were a few times where class have to be cancelled because her knee when out that day or something like that, but I never noticed she was drunk or anything like that.”

Nordstrom was not only regarded a good professor by the anonymous student, but they also felt they could identify with her.

“I think something must’ve happened or there must’ve been a personal reason. So I feel for her just because I’ve had her before and I see how sympathetic she is towards her students and how well she works with her students,” the anonymous student said.

Department of Psychology looks to the future

Whether the situation is justifiable or not, McIlhagga said he thinks this will affect the university’s enrollment.

“The thing you’re always most concerned about are the students in the classes, and the chair of the department has that covered. So we appear to have recovered quite quickly,” McIlhagga said. “You can’t predetermine or try to guess what is going through the minds of prospective students as they try to select a college. Generally, the factors range from quality of academics, cost, location for that particular individual, and the course of study in which they are interested. So can surrounding issues like this perhaps happen and influence someone? There’s always a possibility, but it’s probably not as likely to factor in.”

The anonymous student said they believe this situation will not put the psychology department in a bad light.

“The psychology department is really awesome and I have loved every single one of my professors, and as far as I can tell, they’re handling the situation very well. I just think it will take time to move on,” the anonymous student said. “I would say that this is just one situation, one incident, and this kind of stuff probably happens pretty often throughout the country and at all the colleges and universities.”

Rose said this incidence is a small occurrence in a successful department.

“I think that the huge amount of positive news and awards and everything that everyone hears about the psychology department is going to shape people’s impression. We don’t control all of the news that’s out there, but I think people will find out a lot of positive things about the psychology department,” Rose said.

As for the future, the anonymous student said they will not disagree with the university’s decision either way.

“I do believe that everyone makes mistakes, but at the same time, if [the university] does bring her back or if they don’t, I wouldn’t object either way,” the anonymous student said. “If they decided to bring her back, I’m sure there would be things she would have to do — like disciplinary things. So if they brought her back and she went through all that and everything seemed to be better, then I would consider taking her again, maybe in a year or two.”

According to McIlhagga, the university is trying to continue to keep up the good work, and focus on the positive side of the situation.

“This is one of those instances where the actions of one person can always put a blemish on the institution, but you always try to react as best you can in those situations,” McIlhagga said. You’ve got an administrative individual that needs some help, so as an institution, you try and step forward to help those folks. And in the mean time, we just try to keep doing the good work that we’re doing. Be very pleased that we have faculty members willing to step into a situation like that and take on that load.”

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