Death of the Rat, Page 3

CHAPTER THREE

  Janet ran through the early morning drizzle across the campus from the Biology Building to Morton Hall. She had no time these days for her regular, compulsive exercise jogs, although she reflected ruefully that she seemed to be running continually to or from lectures and meetings. At least this time she was unlikely to be on a collision course with her Professor. She had finished her morning class and managed to divest herself of Leonard and other questioners. Nonetheless, if she didn't step along she would be late for the meeting of the Committee on Ethics, and rather damp to boot. She picked up the pace and arrived somewhat breathless at the Board Room in Morton Hall just in time to vote on passage of the minutes for the previous meeting.

  As she had surmised from the precirculated agenda, the meeting was concerned with the procedures to be established in scrutinizing ethical aspects of grants or contracts for investigations proposed by members of the faculty. The Dean, who was chairing the committee, was meticulous in dealing with form and process Janet realized. His draft proposals for the terms and operations of the committee had been so thoroughly developed that further discussion was almost superfluous. After a few minor amendments and rearrangements the document was adopted quickly.

  "Now I suspect that we may adjourn until next month when we shall have some grant proposals to examine," the Dean concluded with a satisfied smile. The rest of the committee was quick to concur, as signified by repossession of pens, pencils, notes, and the characteristic snapping of several loose-leaf binders. Janet would also be thankful for an early reprieve from the committee's deliberations. Mention of pending grant applications sent a sharp shiver of apprehension down her back in contemplation of the task ahead of her in the next month to organize her own grant renewal, with all the supporting manuscripts and data for the progress report still to be collated. However, discussions from the previous evening plus her resolve arising from the ensuing unquiet night in her bed, prompted Janet compellingly to speak.

  "I have an item of new business, Mr, Chairman, with your permission."

  The others checked their departure, eyeing the Dean expectantly, and then settled back in their chairs again as he nodded encouragement to Jan to continue.

  "There are some aspects of faculty conduct falling under the category of ethics that are not included by our somewhat restrictive terms of reference."

  "Well,- um," responded the Dean uncertainly, "we must circumscribe our activities, within the framework that was our mandate from the Council. Of course we are mainly an advisory body to Council, and if the committee feels that our terms should be enlarged --". He looked quizzically at the other members.

  "Perhaps Dr. Gordon would expand on the areas of faculty conduct which she feels we should be considering," suggested Archibald McManus.

  "Naturally. I refer specifically to poison pen letters.”

  "I'm not sure we should deal with the particulars of such matters," the Dean put in hurriedly. He seemed anxious to prevent some scandalous accusations from surfacing. The remainder of the committee members leaned forward in eager anticipation.

  "In the general sense," continued the Dean gingerly, "are you referring to letters to members of faculty?"

  "To all members of faculty, from one member of the faculty. I refer Mr. Dean to the anonymous attacks in the Faculty Review by a spokesman of the faculty who hides behind the nom-de-plume of Archaeopteryx."

  Several members of the committee shrugged, grimaced, or regarded Janet with a tolerant but pitying smile denoting that they felt she had taken leave of her reason. The keenly awaited scandal had clearly dissolved into a non-issue.

  "Dr. Gordon, we are certainly indebted to you for your expertise in the field of biology," replied the Chairman, "and this beast, an animal of mythology I presume is the province of biology to some extent , but I find it somewhat irregular to encompass his activities within the responsibility of our committee."

  "Perhaps you would, allow me to develop the point," persisted Janet with an eye upon her sceptical fellow committee members. "I recognize that editorial comments are frequently published in the press without identifying by-line. However, this column in our faculty publication is not associated with the editor of the Review. This I have on the authority of the editor who I called last night for clarification. The column is delivered to him anonymously presumably from some unidentified member of faculty. I am, as you said, supposed to bring expertise in the area of biology, and I don't pretend to be expert in the field of journalism, but sniping at other members of the University from behind a cloak of anonymity strikes me as a breach of the responsible exercise of free speech. It is, in fact, rather like a poison pen letter, but in a very public forum," she concluded.

  Janet's indignation had risen gradually during the course of this tirade. She was rather surprised at her own vehemence and became conscious of the blood rising to her face along with her combative mood. The other members of the committee were in various degrees of discomfiture. The Dean was still somewhat at a loss. After a short period of silence a senior professor from the Psychology Department opined that Dr. Gordon indeed had a valid point, and that it represented an ethical matter suitable for debate by the committee. It was clear that editorial comment had to be taken as the responsibility of the editor, who must establish the bona fides of his respondent, or else refuse to accept such anonymous letters for publication. He, for one, would be pleased to second a motion to censure the editor on these grounds if Dr. Gordon wished to place such a motion before the committee.

  "It was not so much the fact that the motion lost," said Jan to Bob later in the lab. "It was the way it lost: with three votes in favour and two opposed !"

  Bob scratched his head in puzzlement. "If that was the vote, what prevented it from passing for heaven's sake?"

  "The Dean. As chairman he exercised his prerogative, and voted against to produce a tie-vote!"

  "I thought a chairman can only vote to break a tie," replied Bob.

  "So did I. But under Robert's Rules apparently a chairman can also vote to make a tie, in which case the motion fails to pass. That's why I’m still seething."

  She failed to add that another unpleasant defection had contributed to the loss. Her erstwhile friend, Dr. McManus, had refrained from entering the debate, and when the time had come to vote had abstained on the issue. Recollection of this turn of events raised her ire further, with the customary accompanying reddening of her ears and neck.

  "I don't believe all this political wrangling is good for you," put in Bob half-jokingly. He had known Jan long and well enough to recognize the symptoms of her choler.

  "On the contrary. It has roused me more than somewhat out of my complacency about how things are run around here. And also how lily-livered some individuals are about speaking up just because their ideas might clash with those of people in authority."

  "So we can expect more brave stands on lost causes from our freshman member at the committee," exulted Bob mockingly.

  "Not necessarily," she replied seriously, "but I think I shall have to become more informed and involved with what is going on at the Council, which is supposed to have a say in policy-making. Professor A is correct in claiming that a small clique, a family compact, probably exerts all the real power. It's time the rest of us made it known that it isn't good enough!"

  "Oh my! Now you're beginning to sound just like your nemesis, Archaeopteryx."

  "That's the irony of it. I can agree with his point of view, but oppose his means of putting it. Like the assassination of some demagogic politician.

  "You could applaud the death of the rat, but not his murder.”

  "If he died naturally it wouldn’t strike at the system. I guess I must put a higher value on the civility of conduct than on the outcome."

  "I think you've been associating too much with philosophers and other arts types," retorted Bob contemptuously. "And if we don't shelve all this moralizing and get down to realities there isn't going to be any outcome whatsoever
from this experiment, civil or otherwise!"

  Jan nodded with a grin and bent to the task at hand. It was true that their recent attempts to scale up fractionation of the growth factors she had discovered,the cytomitin substances, had produced meagre returns thus far.

  "Right," she said. "Now let's go through and check each of the steps in turn. See where our recovery is failing."

  Even in failure, she reflected, she was more at home, more in control in her laboratory environment, where cells and sera were not influenced by issues of morality and ethics.

  The Essex Invitational Tennis Tournament had been instigated by Dorothy Miller nearly twenty years ago. It had now become an annual event at the outset of the Fall tennis season, a good opportunity to test the mettle of the newly-formed women's tennis teams prior to the serious interuniversity matches. The neighbouring institutions of higher learning known locally as the little four-- Essex U, Richmond U, Forest City College and Wellington College-- were of similar size. There was a traditional sense of competition among them, with Essex U generally considered pre-eminent in scholarship, but the parvenue Wellington dominating on the athletic side. Wellington College had been erected as an institute of technology and vocational training at a time when educational capital funding had been plentiful. The bounty had extended to an exceptional recreational complex, with indoor and outdoor, all-season courts that were the envy of the other institutions which, like Essex U, had to make do with somewhat irregular, hard-surfaced pads without lights, roofs, or even adequate wind-screens. Wellingtonians had been quick to take the lead on the local tennis scene, and it seemed that this year's Essex U Invitational would be no exception.

  "I thought our girls did rather well to stay in the match," remarked Dorothy Miller with reference to the ‘A’ team of Chang and LeBlanc who had just bowed out to a pair of amazons from Wellington College. The latter had already demolished the hapless team from Richmond U, while the Essex 'A' team had handily disposed of Forest City in preceding matches.

  "Looks as if we are to be eternally cast in the role of runners-up. Jan was just rising from her seat next to her old mentor at court-side to congratulate the team players. "However," she continued as she resumed her seat for the ’B’ finals, "we do have an interesting match-up for the next one." She proceeded to fill in her former coach about the backgrounds of Suzi Tanagawa and Judy Nicholas, and the unfortunate illness of Liz Metcalfe that had forced replacement of the latter by her standby.

  “All in all,” concluded Jan," there's quite a bit of depth on our team, with Penny Adams back in playing state in a week or two, and Metcalfe and also Bennett in reserve."

  Dorothy showed heightened interest at the last name. "Is this the younger sister of Stacy?" she asked.

  "Junior in experience, not in years." Janet wanted to add, junior in emotional maturity as well no doubt. She was still feeling deep disappoint over Diane’s petulant reactions, which seemed to have carried forward to today; there was no sign of her, either dressed to play as a standby, nor in the small audience in the make-shift bleacher stand.

  "Nonetheless, it's a tough role for her," the older woman went on. "I had a tennis family some years back you may have recalled, the Lundys. The mother, Rose, had been an amateur champion, and a really aggressive coach for her daughters. This was all very well for Evelyn who went on to be a winner in her own right. Good doubles player, loved the game, still plays at the senior level. But Mary, the other sister, was virtually a neurotic wreck over the sport. Mother had her out every morning volleying, hitting smashes, footwork drills. The girl had talent but no drive at all. By the time I tried to get her out for the team she almost hated the game, and her mother as well. It took two years to undo all the bad feelings, but she finally came up to her potential. Probably the best job of uncoaching I ever had to do, except for your case of course,” she laughed.

  Jan looked at her old mentor with a new-found perspective. As the match progressed she found her thoughts drifting back to her own early days of competitive play: all those mornings when she had dragged herself out, sleepless and too nervous to eat before a match and, after losing, how she would be physically ill and swear she would give up the sport for good. How had it happened that at some point she had overcome the debilitating side of her mental stress and learned to use her nervous energy to her advantage? She had always thought, if she thought about it at all, that it had been part of maturing, like growing out of teenage infatuations and passing college love affairs. A hardening process perhaps, after several disappointments, that had allowed her to focus single-mindedly on winning in sport and science. Perhaps there had been something more than personal effort that had inspired that concentration of energy. A job of ‘uncoaching‘?

  Janet's reverie was broken by the excited buzz of applause attending the play by her 'B' team. Though broken on Judy's service game earlier, they had broken back after a series of hard-fought rallies. Tanagawa was covering the fore-court well with sharp block volleys, and Judy made up for some deficiencies at the net and on over heads with a gritty tenacity and strong shot-making from the back-court. However, the drama and anticipation from the resulting tie-breaker was terminated by stronger service from their Wellington rivals. The make-up combination of Tanagawa and Nicholas had obviously earned the respect of the spectators and their opponents.

  "Well," said Dorothy, as she painfully extricated herself from her seat, "I think you girls have a great future together. I rather envy you, Jan," she went on, "with such an easy job of coaching. Young talent, great effort." She shook her head, and slowly walked to centre-court to make the presentation and congratulations to the Wellington College team and coach. Janet mulled over her earlier advice. Dorothy Miller had been one of the great influences in Janet's life, a role model during a critical period of her development as a tennis player and as a person. Although hobbled by arthritic joints, Dorothy was still possessed of a nimble mind, and her psychological assessments as always were dead on target, What had she implied by her reference to uncoaching?

  After supper with Dorothy and members of her team, Janet returned to the laboratory to check the recent column fractionation with Bob Hayes, and to harvest some special culture medium from conditioned cells for a test series on production of enhanced yields of the cytomitin growth factors. When she finished she walked down to the Department office to collect her mail. There were a few reprints, letters and the Faculty Review. Across the campus a few lights were still on in Morton Hall. Probably only the cleaning staff would be on the job at this hour of a Saturday evening. For her part it had been a full week and she would be thankful for a quiet Sunday to get things in order for the next one.

  Janet started the day with a brisk early morning run, then settled down with some paper-work on the screened-in porch. The old house was quiet, its owner (and Janet's landlady) still away at her summer cottage in the northern lake region. Although she missed Kay, her good conversation and cooking, Janet was grateful for the clear day of peace. First she went through the results of the week's experimentation and set out a schedule of trials and innovations in the methods for growth factor isolation. Next, she finished a draft of the progress report for her grant renewal. At least, she reflected, as she grappled with the discussion of setbacks and unsolved problems, there would be no shortage of prospective work arising from her previous efforts. Perhaps the trial runs from this week would give her a concrete clue to the direction she should indicate in her proposal for new work.

  It was well past noon by the time that Janet felt the need of a break for lunch. After the morning’s efforts and accomplishments she decided to go through her mail as a change of pace while finishing her sandwich and tea. The soft September air induced a gentle drowsiness as she lazily thumbed through advertising circulars, notices of meetings, and the Faculty Review.

  Here her mood changed abruptly as she read the text boxed in beneath the familiar silhouette of the evolutionary avian ancestor. Archaeopteryx had learned on good a
uthority that it had narrowly escaped extinction, or an even worse fate, censure by a faculty committee on ethics. These guardians of campus morality had been exhorted by one of their number to excoriate the winged beast for carrying unpleasant attacks against the benighted administration of Essex U. By good fortune and good sense a majority of the upright committee had repudiated this attack upon freedom of speech. So long as the modes of governance in this institution continued to be conducted in autocratic fashion, Archaeopteryx would not shrink from condemning them. So long as a means for free and open discussion of such issues without fear of reprisals against the participants was denied Archaeopteryx would continue to make its point of view public under a pseudonym. The challenge was to academic freedom in the most fundamental way. It was hoped the majority of faculty would shortly shake off their lethargy and indifference to take note of this challenge and demand reform, not to attempt to stifle dissent as some misguided members of the ethics committee had done.

  By the time she had finished the article and then reread it twice to be sure that she had interpreted it correctly, Janet had shelved her plan to spend the afternoon in preparation of her lectures for the following week. Instead she grimily took pen in hand, drafted, amended, and finally typed out three rather lengthy letters. And as she read them over by the reddening light of the late afternoon sun she felt spent, much as she might have done had she just finished a tie-breaker after a tough set in tennis. Except that on this occasion she was not sure whether she had been the victor, or whether in fact there would be a victor. The only thing she was certain about was that she had confronted the situation head-on to the best of her ability. And the ball was now in the other court.