Professor Shouldn't Have Poked His Students for Science
College is a time for experimentation—a time to fornicate with people of other faiths, try new brands, and learn about adult-world technologies.
But experimentation can go too far: for example, when you mix certain drugs with alcohol, or—insert dramatic pause here—submit to a professor who uses you as his guinea pig.
At Oklahoma University, several graduate students claim that health and exercise science professor Chad Kerksick used them as his personal research animals—performing various pokey, probe-y medical procedures on their bodies that ultimately caused pain and bruising. This was totally not what they signed up for when they paid tuition! One of the students told News 9 in Oklahoma City that Kerksick performed the experiments on behalf of companies who then paid him for his research. OU knew about the experiments, the student says, but Kerksick allegedly wanted to keep much of the research secret because it wasn't taking place under the most appropriate conditions. He's currently on a leave of absence without pay, and OU has ended his research. An investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is reportedly underway.
News 9 shows a video of some of the research, in which a man who's ostensibly Kerksick vigorously pokes a needle into a student's limb. His commentary—"give us some fat, yeah"—certainly doesn't sound scientific, but maybe he's just casual. The news segment includes scary photos of bruises and injuries, but perhaps the most shocking element of all is the shot of the reporter using a phone hanging from the wall to call up the professor. Don't News 9 reporters get their own desk phones? Poor media.
The segment doesn't really explain why the students submitted to the invasive experiments and then approached school administrators, but we assume that the nature of the student-teacher relationship—and the fear that reporting Kerksick would result in a lowered grade—are at least partly to blame. Watching it makes us think that majoring in the Humanities (no needles, no problems) wasn't such a terrible idea after all.
