I did not feel that I could schedule a meeting with her until she had made it clear that I was not going to be blamed, and she never did that, so I didn't meet with her
This page has my June 25, 2017, 2:31 p.m. email to the Dean of Students and the Director of Student Services. It also has the Dean's response. The title of the email that I had sent her was "This email was supposed to be a brief email and some Word documents."
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RE: This email was supposed to be a brief email and some Word documents.
To:
Cc:
Sunday, June 25, 2017 4:59 PM
Lena,
I appreciate your thoughtful responses and I am writing to let you know that I have received 12 emails from you on Saturday, (6/24) and 1 on Sunday (6/25) If I have missed one, please let me know.
I understand that you would like to complete your coursework in French 101 without returning to class. I also understand that you wish to create a plan so you can successfully complete your IP's and gain more information about the letters from the Financial Aid office.
In order for us to review the resolution you have put forth, it is important that we meet. I am able to meet with you tomorrow, Monday, 6-26, at 9am at my office with Kevin Stevens so we can reach an agreement regarding your French 101 class, your IPs, and review your financial aid concerns.
Due to scheduling challenges, tomorrow, (Monday), is the only day that I would be available to meet with you this week and we are at a critical time in this semester. After 2pm tomorrow, I will not be available to meet again until next Monday, July 3.
I look forward to working with you to resolve these challenges and hope that we can meet tomorrow at 9am.
Sincerely,
Julie Elkins,Ed.D.
Dean of Students
Bunker Hill Community College
jelkins@bhcc.mass.edu
617-228-2408
Dean of Students
Bunker Hill Community College
jelkins@bhcc.mass.edu
617-228-2408
From: Lena Kochman
Sent: Sunday, June 25, 2017 2:31 PM
To: Julie Elkins
Subject: This email was supposed to be a brief email and some Word documents.
Sent: Sunday, June 25, 2017 2:31 PM
To: Julie Elkins
Subject: This email was supposed to be a brief email and some Word documents.
Dean Elkins,
I'd rather not schedule a meeting at your office until I know why I'll be there. If I'll be there to be accused of being the problem in my French class, then I'd rather not schedule the meeting at all.
In a couple of days, you should get the certified mail that I sent with my written work for the class so far. The number grades and the "Excellent"s and "Tres bien"s written by Professor Palix-Robasson on my tests and typed assignments prove that I am not, and never was, the problem in that classroom. If I were the problem in that classroom, the school's administration would have heard about it sooner than the middle of Summer Session I, and not as a spurious defense against my saying that I've been mistreated.
I'd like to do the rest of the work for the class without having to return to the classroom. The class has stopped being worth the several hours/week that it takes for me to be at school for it, and it's definitely not worth the energy and lost sleep that it takes for me to be constantly on the defensive when I'm not doing anything wrong. The normal, social interaction that everyone, including me, had in the class before the bullying of me began, will be a loss for me. I have never had a French teacher who was from France before, so that will also be a loss for me. Hopefully, I have a future in which I don't have to live from one week to the next, spending all of my time thinking about how to reduce my losses.
I'd also like to be able to finish the work and the exams without having to take an In Progress for the class. The Financial Aid office has already been sending me emails and letters threatening to revoke my financial aid for the Fall Semester 2017 because of the In Progresses that I had to take for the Spring Semester 2017.
I tried to organize the rest of my discussion into separate Word documents that I was going to attach to this email. Unfortunately, the school's email system is refusing to accept attachments, so I'll have to add all the Word documents inline.
I hope that you will read all of them before you or anyone else at the school contacts me again. Although I appreciate the school finally taking steps to stop the student who began to harass me in my Chinese class in the Spring Semester 2016, and I appreciate the school immediately taking steps to respond to my subsequent report that I was being harassed in my math class in the Spring Semester 2017, and I appreciate that you, the Dean, took immediate steps to address my report of being bullied in my Summer Session I 2017 French class, even though I don't think that Jean needed to be removed from the class and that it was enough for him to stop bullying me after you spoke to him, I hope that you understand my frustration that the school doesn't seem to have taken any steps to PREVENT these situations from happening in the first place. I also could have lived without being treated like I did something wrong again.
Lena Kochman
French Homework:
26 juin 2017
Lena Kochman
P. 66 #4
1. Aujourd’hui, c’est lundi 26 juin 2017.
2. Le prochain cours de français est aujourd’hui.
3. Je rendre à la maison à trois heures chaque jour.
4. Oui, je prépare des examanes chaque semaine.
5. Il n’y a pas de genre de musique que je n’aime pas.
6. Je téléphone à mes amis quand j’ai de temps.
7. Je ne regarde pas beaucoup de télévision. Quelquefois, je regarde les nouvelles télévisées le matin.
8. Je ne dîne pas dans un restaurant ce mois-ci.
P. 91 #3
1. Voici ma nièce. C’est la petite fille de ma mère.
2. Voici la mère de ma tante. C’est ma grand-mère.
3. Voici la sœur de mon oncle. C’est ma tante.
4. Voici la fille de mon père, mais pas de ma mère. C’est ma demi-sœur.
5. Voici le mari de ma mère, mais ce n’est pas mon père. C’est mon beau-père.
P. 99 Essayez
1. grand: grand, grande, grands, grandes
2. nerveux: nerveux, nerveuse, nerveux, nerveuses
3. roux: roux, rousse, roux, rousses
4. bleu: bleu, bleue, bleux, bleues
5. naïf: naïf, naïve, naïfs, naïves
6. gros: gros, grosse, gros, grosses
7. long: long, longe, longs, longes
8. fier: fier, fiere, fiers, fieres
The email that I sent to the French class on June 20, 2017
One of the first things that Professor Palix-Robasson did at the beginning of the first class of Summer Session 1 was have everyone in the room say what his or her name was and where he or she was from. While I ordinarily would have written down that information so that I could get to know people in the class, sadly, the experiences of my past 2 semester at Bunker Hill Community College also prompted me to take careful notes about what people’s names were and where they were from, to the best of my ability, so that, if I started to be harassed (which I hoped that I wouldn’t), I would know who people were. One of the things that Professor Palix-Robasson said to me in an accusing way on the morning of June 21, 2017, was that I had identified where everyone was from. It is clear to me that this entire situation has been turned against me again, and so if one of the things that’s being listed in a catalogue of my alleged offenses this time is that I included everyone’s name and where he or she is from, perhaps someone could remind Professor Palix-Robasson that she asked everyone in the class for that information as a form of introduction at the beginning of the course. If you want, you can also tell her that it was 6 months from the time that I first reported being harassed by a male student in my Chinese class in the Spring Semester of 2016 to the time that the school confronted him in September 2016 when he finally began to stalk and harass me online using his first and last name in his messages, and that the school had refused to confront him for all of that time because, the school said, he couldn’t be identified by what I had already told the school about him.
Soon after the Spring 2017 semester began, I had one or two meetings with Sartreina Dottin, and then she stopped answering my emails. I even sent an email to Dean Catallozzi, saying that Ms. Dottin wasn’t returning my emails. I had no response about that issue, either from Ms. Dottin or from Dean Catallozzi. Because Ms. Dottin didn’t return my emails, I stopped contacting her. I didn’t hear from her again until a few months later, after I had reported to Dean Catallozzi that I was being harassed by some students in my math class. Ms. Dottin was supportive at that time, but now I’m wondering if the only reason that she called me then was that the school told her to.
Since I didn’t know that Ms. Dottin wasn’t working on Monday, June 19, 2017, which is the day that I sent her an email right after French class telling her what had happened in class that morning, and since I hadn’t heard from her by the time that I checked my email first thing on Tuesday morning, June 20, 2017, and because I knew (as I said at the beginning of the email that I sent to the class), that Monday to Wednesday was short notice for the school to address any issues from one classtime to the next (the class is on Monday and Wednesday mornings), and since in every previous situation the harassment and gaslighting escalated very quickly almost as soon as they began, I wrote an email to everyone in the class.
I also didn’t know what else to do; this is the third time in 3 semesters that this situation has happened in a classroom. I hoped that explaining everything to the other students and the teacher would prevent the bullying from escalating, and it did on that day, although I’m clearly in trouble with the administration again, and I shouldn’t be. When I say that the bullying stopped escalating, I mean that the coughing harassment stopped and open discussion of the issue happened instead. Nobody liked that, but it doesn’t seem to me that people who are being bullies or witnessing bullying without saying anything about it tend to like having it proven to them that their target is neither going to freak out so they can laugh nor sit there and take it while they’re meaner every week.
My meeting with Sartreina Dottin after French class on Wednesday, June 21, 2017
When I was walking to Sartreina Dottin’s office after class ended (class ends at around 12:00 p.m.), I was feeling very optimistic that the remaining three weeks of class would be no problem for me or for anyone else in the class. Although most of the classtime had been tense, by the end, Professor Palix-Robasson and I had had a cordial conversation and we were both in agreement that the issues were resolving and that nobody should have to leave the class, including Jean.
Within a few minutes after I walked into Ms. Dottin’s office, I felt nervous. Having thought about it since then, I think this is why my meeting with Ms. Dottin wasn’t a good meeting:
-I don’t think that Ms. Dottin smiled at me even once the entire time that I was in her office. That’s not what it was like the last time that I talked to her, several weeks ago, when she was providing support about what had happened in my Spring Semester 2017 math class. I understand that people have bad days, but she’s usually friendly and it was only after the meeting that it seemed to me that her demeanor was not like it had ever been before.
-I don’t think that she listened to anything that I was saying. I think she was ignoring everything that I was saying about what had happened in class that day, including everything positive that had happened, so that she could get pursue the item on her agenda, which was to pressure me to tell her if I have a psychiatrist (I do) and if the psychiatrist is prescribing medication for me (it’s none of her business). She really didn’t seem interested in anything that I had to say about the class; she turned the conversation to my being homeless, and then asked me if I had “support” for being homeless. Chattering away the way I do when I trust people, I told her that I have a psychiatrist. Then Ms. Dottin immediately asked me “Is the psychiatrist prescribing you medication,” at which point I started to feel like I was there to be interrogated and not to supported. I said “I don’t think that’s the issue,” because it isn’t. The coherence and clarity of my work in the class reflects that medication is not the issue, and anyone who’s going to be truthful about my behavior in the classroom is not actually going to have anything to say that indicates that my behavior was inappropriate. Contrary to what the school has seemed to want to believe about me, I am not so obsessed with success that I’m screaming at other people to be quiet so that I can learn; I am sorry to have to tell you again that everything that was told to you about how I behaved in my Chinese class was a horrifying lie that was fabricated by the male instigator of the harassment in that situation. I am happy to tell you that I have not met another person like him since I’ve been at your school; I think I told you at the time that I thought he was particularly vicious. I don’t think that Jean or anyone else in my French class is as bad as that student from my Chinese class last year was.
In class, I am relaxed. I am friendly. I don’t dominate conversations. I listen to other people. I listen to the teacher. I ask relevant questions. That is the truth. If I sometimes irritate people because, despite not showing outward signs of stress about my academics, I usually know the answers to questions and I have very good grades, THAT’S TOO BAD FOR THEM, AND THEY DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT TO HARASS ME AND THEN LIE TO THE SCHOOL THAT I’M CRAZY. I’m also not a snob; that probably also makes them crazy. They can’t find anything about me to pick on other than the Internet saying that I freak out when people cough at me, so they do that, and then they do it more when I politely tell them to stop.
When I told Ms. Dottin that medication is “not the issue,” she showed no awareness of or concern for my trying to set a boundary about how she was talking to me. Her next question was an almost rude “What do you mean that’s not the issue?” I responded to that by saying something that I have never said to her before about anything, which is “I mean that it’s none of your business.”
At no time was I rude. At no time was I loud. Up until that moment, I thought that Ms. Dottin had invited me to her office to talk about my French class, and I had tried to spend most of the meeting with her telling her that it seemed to me that the issues in the class were resolving and that Jean shouldn’t have to leave the class.
After I told Ms. Dottin that my working relationship with my psychiatrist was none of her business, it seemed to me that I should end the meeting. I stood up, said “I hope the kid doesn’t get kicked out. Thank you,” and I left.
It would not surprise me if Amber has been telling everyone who’s asked her anything about the situation that she thinks it’s “invasive” that she feels she has to provide medical documentation that she has allergies. I never asked Amber or anyone else to provide medical documentation for anything, nor would I have asked for that. Before what seemed to me to be the beginnings of the coalescence of a group bullying situation in the class on Monday, June 19, 2017, I had already sat through at least 2 previous classes in which Amber coughed a lot, and I hadn’t objected to it because I thought, without her saying anything about it, that she might really be sick or have allergies. What I noticed on Monday, June 19, 2017, was that Amber wasn’t coughing before the break (the break for the class happened after Jean and I had our conversation and I told him to stop coughing with me) and she was coughing a lot after the break, and the couple of guys in the back gave a few coughs, also, which I hadn’t heard from them before.
If Amber has allergies, or bronchitis, or hates me for no reason, all of that is none of my business unless she uses one of those things as an excuse to make me miserable. Also; is she being treated with sympathy for her feelings that her medical privacy is being invaded, while I’m being grilled by Ms. Dottin about whether or not my psychiatrist prescribes me medication? You don’t have to answer that; I think your emails already have.
I was never told by anyone that I couldn’t tell anyone about past situations in which I’ve been bullied in a class at BHCC, nor do I think that I should have to sign a gag order about it to be able to be a student there. I’ve been bullied in a class at BHCC EVERY SEMESTER that I’ve been a student there so far, which means that the school hasn’t done anything to PREVENT it from happening.
Please also consider the timing of my reports of harassment, and of other people suddenly saying that I’m crazy. It doesn’t happen at the beginning of classes; it happens after someone or a few people in the class have “heard about” me or read about me online. They want to know what will happen if they cough at me.
The French class
The BHCC catalogue says that the French class is for people who have never studied French or who haven’t studied French it in the past 3 years. I took French from 7th grade until I graduated from high school in 1991. I haven’t taken a French class since then.
I wanted to take the class because I knew that there was some basic grammar that I had forgotten. I didn’t take the class for an easy A or so that I could show off. I didn’t take the class for any other reason than that I wanted to brush up on my French and I thought it would be fun.
My housing plan
The director of the women’s side of the Pine Street Inn and I spent all of the Spring Semester 2017 trying to prevent an abusive housing situation from making me homeless again. We weren’t successful. Abusive living situations are more the rule than the exception for poor people, which has more to do than most of the public thinks with why poor people are frequently homeless.
When I went to the Pine Street Inn at the end of May 2017, the director and I had a meeting. We formulated a plan to try to move me to a Pine Street SRO as soon as possible. I have a mobile Section 8 housing voucher that I could take anywhere in the United States. It has to be applied to a nonshelter living situation by the end of July 2017; if it isn’t, either I’ll lose the voucher or I’ll have to ask for an extension. I’ll live at the SRO until I’m able to obtain an apartment. That’s the plan that (name redacted), the director, and (name redacted), my advocate at the Pine Street Inn, and I have about my housing. It is also part of the plan that I’ll stay enrolled in school. I know that both (names redacted) would feel terrible if my being homeless again led BHCC to blame mental illness for my homelessness and also for my reports of being harassed in class for the third time in three semesters; that would be so very unfair.
The school’s responsibility
Please prevent a situation like this from happening again. Please don’t attempt to do that by firing Professor Palix-Robasson or by formally punishing anyone who is in the French class, but by educating the teachers, staff and students at Bunker Hill about bullying.
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Copyright, with noted exceptions, L. Kochman, July 12, 2017 @ 5:41 p.m.
