The sacking of Paul Buchanan

I was pretty shocked to hear that Auckland University had sacked Paul Buchanan just because of a harsh e-mail he had written to a student rejecting an extension. It seemed like a massive over reaction where an appropriate sanction would be counselling or a formal warning.

But as I read in the Herald that he referred to the excuse as “culturally driven and preying on some sort of Western liberal guilt”. With one in eight FTE students coming from overseas and being full fee paying, the university bureaucrats would have been having nightmares of millions of dollars being lost if they appeared to be weak.
Buchanan’s full e-mail is here. It is obviously inappropriate. You never call someone a liar without proof (an investigative journalist however might like to find out if her father is dead or not!) and the dig at his colleague Steve Hoadley is inappropriate to make to a student (even though there may be a real story there about quality of standards being lowered for full fee paying students to the detriment of others).

But nevertheless an outright dismissal seems over the top. Buchanan is contrite and has apologised I am sure. It would be a shame to lose him as he is generally regarded as a popular and competent lecturer, and also wider public commentator. He’s even popped up here on occasion to add some expert analysis to threads on the Middle East.

Hopefully the University can find a way to resolve the issue short of dismissal. It doesn’t even sound like the student e-mailed wanted him dismissed.

UPDATE: Scoop has a long list of comments made, almost all supportive, of Buchanan by his former students. And the Herald has 23 pages of comments. The university is facing a tidal wave of criticism.