Urban planning students seek options to avoid prof who harassed students
Kai Bjarke scans a guest editorial they wrote about Paul Stangl, Nov. 27, 2018. They plan on attaching the editorial to their transfer application to the University of Washington after deciding to leave the urban planning major to avoid Stangl. Erasmus Baxter//AS Review
By Hailey Murphy
A lack of alternatives to taking urban planning courses with professor Paul Stangl has led at least one student to leave the urban planning program and another to leave Western altogether.
“I was supposed to declare my major after last summer quarter but since I dropped [introduction] to planning I haven’t been able to make any meaningful progress at a time where I should be getting ready to start a career,” Kai Bjarke, the student leaving Western, said. “At the very least, I’ll have to be in college for two more years because I’m essentially starting from scratch at [the University of Washington.]”
After a 2017 Equal Opportunity Office investigation found Stangl sexually harassed two students, he was blocked from teaching field courses until 2020 and from teaching summer courses last year. He also volunteered to take some Human Resources courses, according to a memo from Provost Brent Carbajal.
Stangl continues to teach a number of required courses in the urban planning major, such as introduction to planning, transportations systems and history of planning, according to ClassFinder.
Students have since felt unsafe taking class with Stangl, including urban planning major Samara Almonte.
Students Against Sexual Harassment and Assault (SASHA), a new club on campus this year, lobbied for alternatives to Stangl’s classes last quarter by asking students in Red Square to email Huxley faculty and administration.
According to SASHA co-lead Nicole Wood, they received no email replies and administration hasn’t worked with the club to find accommodations.
“Since [Stangl’s] tenure track, it’s very unlikely that he’ll be fired,” Wood said. “But the least we can do is ask that the students who feel uncomfortable in his class can have alternative classes.”
Huxley Dean Steve Hollenhorst, as well as Paul Cocke, director of communications and marketing, both declined to comment on the grounds that Stangl’s case is a personnel issue.
At a December forum, Hollenhorst said any students who are unsatisfied with the urban planning program can speak to him about alternatives. He’s open to any ideas for how accommodations can work, and has worked that out with several students, he said.
According to Urban Planning Student Samara Almonte, Hollenhorst made a similar offer in fall 2017 meeting held shortly after The Western Front publicized the EOO findings against Stangl.
Yet not all students don’t think Hollenhorst’s offer is an adequate means of giving accommodations.
Almonte, who has to take classes with Stangl three quarters in a row to complete major requirements, spoke at the forum about how it’s not clear how students can get accommodations. Additionally, she said students are asked to put in the work if they want an alternative.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily my job to have been the first one to email them to be like, ‘hey, I want an accommodation,’” Almonte said. “I really think this is something they should’ve taken into their hands and maybe emailed everyone who was registered for [Stangl]’s class [winter 2018] or just emailed everyone in Huxley or everyone in the planning major.”
Wood said Hollenhorst’s offer carries undertones of victim blaming because it asks that students put in the work to seek accommodation. Instead of taking a reactionary approach, she said administration should reach out to students themselves, or they should communicate with students who register for Stangl’s classes.
Head of the SASHA Task Force Kai Bjarke said Hollenhorst’s solution isn’t an adequate means of offering accommodation, and instead administration need to work with students to find solutions.
“[Hollenhorst’s] not a peer of mine. That’s not somebody that I’ve ever had an interaction with,” Bjarke said. “I don’t know if I can trust that person. That could be somebody just like Paul Stangl. I have no way of knowing. So that’s nothing to me. That means nothing. It’s an empty statement.”
Almonte said she didn’t seek accommodations before taking three courses with Stangl, starting winter 2018, because she was worried it would delay her graduation and because she felt too busy to go through the steps of getting an alternative.
“I also felt some sort of discomfort about opening up to [Hollenhorst] about why I wanted accommodation,” Almonte said. “So I feel like they should’ve worked immediately on either hiring or paying more to one of the faculty members whether it be a woman-identified faculty member, a queer-identified faculty member, or anyone that students generally feel the most approachable with.”
However, a student, who wished to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation, said Hollenhorst didn’t give her any accommodations for a fall 2018 class with Stangl.
The student wanted an accommodation because she felt uncomfortable when taking class with Stangl in winter 2018. She sought the help of the environmental studies chair at the time, Gigi Berardi, who then got in contact with Hollenhorst and Urban Planning Director Nicholas Zaferatos.
After two weeks, Hollenhorst informed the student, in an email forwarded to the AS Review, that Huxley had created a “safe, quality learning environment for students” and wouldn’t give any accommodations.
In a separate email to the student, Zaferatos said the course in question was an essential part of the major sequence, that there were no equivalent courses with similar material and that Stangl would be the only professor available for an independent study option.
Limited accommodations were given to a few students in winter 2018, but they were unable to provide accommodations after that, Zaferatos said. He didn’t specify why.
Zaferatos also told the student she could petition to faculty for accommodation, but he saw no other alternatives for her besides switching to the environmental studies major.
The student said what upset her most about these emails was that Hollenhorst and Zaferatos said they wouldn’t give accommodations because Huxley is a safe learning environment.
“If the students are asking for accommodations and asking for different things then, no, it’s not a safe learning environment,” the student said. “We’re the one’s saying it’s not safe, so don’t tell me that it’s safe.”
When asked about students not feeling safe in the program by the AS Review, Zaferatos reiterated in an email that it’s administrator’s position that they’ve created a safe learning environment. He’s unaware of any students seeking accommodations at this time. He did not specify how Huxley is ensuring a safe learning environment.
“Faculty have been working to create flexibility in the [urban planning] program in order to provide students more options with respect to required courses or instructors,“ Zaferatos said in the email. “. . . We continuously review our curriculum and teaching schedules in order to best meet the needs of all of our students.”
Zaferatos said students will be notified of any changes within the program when they happen, but would not specify what those changes would be. He also said student well-being is the priority of all urban planning faculty and any questions of student safety should be directed towards administration.
Peter Cung, an urban planning major and the media production coordinator for SASHA, was also told by Zaferatos in a private meeting last October that student safety is no longer a concern.
“If it is up to [administration] at this point, and if there are still students right now who are frustrated with the lack of discipline that came about from his misconduct, then I feel like they should at least reopen the case or add something else onto his discipline that would actually address what people are still concerned about,” Cung said.
According to EOO procedures, a formal complaint is required in order for an investigation to be launched. Administration members or the EOO may decide to an initiate a complaint if they believe discrimination occurred but a complaint wasn’t filed. There are no formal procedures listed on reopening cases.
Some students, including Wood and Bjarke, have expressed frustration with faculty who say there’s nothing they can do with Stangl’s case as it is under the administration’s jurisdiction.
“I think that a lot of those statements that they make that are like, ‘we can’t, our hands are tied,’ aren’t really true if you dig into it a little further. So that’s been something that’s really frustrating with this whole thing,” Wood said. “I think there should be enough communication between [faculty and admin] that this can work.”
Wood believes faculty have more power to advocate than they think, but because they’re afraid of crossing a line, they don’t stand up for students.
The administration’s handling of Stangl’s case has affected multiple students’ education in negative ways.
Bjarke, who attended Western for urban planning, is now leaving Western and applying to the University of Washington after learning about Stangl’s harassment. Considering Bjarke’s passion for urban planning, they didn’t want to sacrifice their education to try and avoid Stangl as they moved through the program, they said.
“What kind of accomodation could you possibly give me that wouldn’t make me feel like I’m not getting my money’s worth or what I deserve at this university?” Bjarke said. “I’m not gonna compromise . . . I shouldn’t have to say like, ‘Oh, well, watch out for this [professor].’ That’s not how a university should work. That shouldn’t be your priorities, but that’s Western’s priorities and that’s evidenced by that I’m having to do this.”
Bjarke also said they don’t see how a student could be given adequate accommodations considering how Stangl is an adviser for the program and teaching many of the courses.
Transferring to UW will add at least two years to their education, Bjarke said. They’d planned on declaring their major last summer quarter, graduating spring 2020 and doing post-grad work in Norway while interning at the architectural design firm Snøhetta.
But Bjarke said Stangl’s presence in the program has completely changed their life plans, and been a huge setback in their career and education.
“One thing that I’ve really been keeping in mind is that it’s not going to be better [at UW],” Bjarke said. “And this is where its just kind of depressing – it’s just going to be a bigger major so that I don’t have to interact with this one person . . . If I go to UW, and there’s a person like that, it’s more likely that I can avoid them. And that’s it. That’s the solution that I can come up with.”
The student who couldn’t get an accomodation for her class with Stangl ultimately switched to an environmental studies major. She said she felt sick about the lack of support and guidance, as well as the college’s disregard for safety.
She described taking class with Stangl as being “incredibly uncomfortable” and the driving force for her later seeking accommodation. She said the only reason she didn’t ask for accommodations then was because of the peer pressure of being in a male-dominated major, where it seemed like she’d get knocked down in the hierarchy for seeking an alternative.
“I felt like I had to show that I was strong and stick through it and stay in the class,” the student said. “And not try and do something else, because there were a lot of the men in the [urban planning] club, and in the classes specifically – my peers – who were saying this was ridiculous, there was no reason people should be upset about this.”
Cung said he feels like relationships within the major were and will continue to be stressed because many students have different opinions on how Stangl’s case should’ve been handled.
“Some people I think feel like enough has been done or that there is nothing else to be done,” Cung said. “And they’re okay just kinda putting their head down and working, just getting through courses or the program as it is. And then there are other people who, at least with [Stangl] or with the program in general, would like to see it improve.”