"I did not know that at the time a student listening to my lecture was facing imminent arrest and prosecution for dealing powdered cocaine in very high volumes. Just before his arrest I was tipped off by a police officer who informed me that he was in deep enough to make multiple home purchases with cash. This was despite the fact that he was only twenty years old.
Naturally, he soon found himself out of school and in the plea bargaining process. Remarkably, he was able to negotiate a plea that resulted in only a few months of consecutive jail time. Thus, after only missing one full semester of school he returned to UNC-Wilmington in the spring of 2008 while still serving prison time on the weekends. He received his B.A. in Criminal Justice from UNCW on May 10th.
Second, there has been an obvious failure of leadership within the ranks of our university administration. It could be argued that a student should eventually be readmitted to UNCW even after a felony conviction for cocaine dealing. But the notion of a) only having the student sit out one semester and b) readmitting him before he even finished serving his sentence for cocaine trafficking is preposterous.
Finally, I cannot express how deeply disappointed I am in my own department. When I became aware of this situation I naturally passed the information along to some of my colleagues. When I told a Marxist feminist in the department she simply laughed and made a joke about “applied learning” among the criminal justice students.