Questions Surround The Death Of Princeton Lecturer Antonio Calvo

Princeton University is remaining mum in regards to the death of Antonio Calvo, a popular lecturer who died under mysterious circumstances last week.

According to the Daily Princetonian, Calvo, a senior lecturer and the director of the university's Spanish language program, had been on a leave of absence for "personal reasons."

However, as the Princetonian reports, Calvo's friends said that the school had recently opted to not renew his contract and that he committed suicide at his home in New York City.

On Friday, the university released a statement saying that Calvo had died and a memorial service would be scheduled. When contacted for comment, a school spokesperson told the Princetonian that the university "[doesn't] feel that it's our place to speak on private family matters."

Princeton student Philip Rothaus, who describes himself as a good friend of Calvo's, is alleging that the school is covering up the full story of the lecturer's leave of absence. In an open letter to the university obtained by IvyGate, Rothaus wrote that Calvo's contract may have been canceled "against the wishes of [his] department":

On Friday, April 8, a representative of the administration, essentially a security guard, entered Antonio's office (without informing either him or anyone else in the department more than a few minutes beforehand), demanded his keys and told him to leave. He was not "on leave," and certainly not for "personal" reasons," as per Nassau Hall's press release. This is a euphemism for their having cancelled his contract against the wishes of the department.

[...]

The whole affair seems nonsensical. Why would the University physically escort a member of our community who had faithfully and enthusiastically served Princeton for a decade out of his office without notice? What purpose could this sort of humiliation serve? Why would they fire him against the wishes of the department and in the apparent absence of any reason whatsoever?

Herein lies the greatest mystery: they must have had some reason – otherwise nothing makes sense – but they continue to suppress it. They haven’t even told the senior faculty of the Spanish and Portuguese Department. There were two weeks left of classes that he was teaching, and of school for students he was advising – was he dangerous? If so, where is the evidence?

Rothaus is also alleging that the university is prohibiting faculty and staff from talking about Calvo's case. "Antonio's dear friends, his colleagues in the Spanish and Portuguese Department, have been forbidden from speaking about this to anyone," he wrote. "I am, thankfully, not under subject to the same constraints, and, at this point, am angry enough not to care."

Another friend of Calvo's told the Princetonian that the lecturer had been in the midst of a routine contract review process and that the university purposely solicited letters about him from those with whom he was known to have "some sort of conflict."

Calvo had been on Princeton's faculty since 2000.

Comments

[mburgh]

08:05 PM on 04/25/2011

From my 26 years of teaching in the Universities, I think a firing like this has to do with sexual misconduct of some sort, usually with a student, but I don't want to make too many conclusions with the evidence in this case. Too bad there is no Union representation for non-tenured faculty or this would not have happened.

[Timothy Hale]

08:39 PM on 04/25/2011

Where do you teach? I wouldn't want to accidentally send my children, or anyone I care for, there.

[deridaa]

05:17 AM on 04/22/2011

It appears to be a place where MALES are not welcome The administration mostly women acting badly. Humiliation is used to set an example like a perp walk OMG and all that secrecy - twisted and political. Nothing he could do matches the behavior of students swept under the rug. Poor man must have crossed one of the Queen Bees!

[flamflurm]

06:23 AM on 04/23/2011

I'll bet you're right. Or he crossed Cornel West's entourage.

[ksun1]

02:48 PM on 04/23/2011

Why the slam against West? What does he have to do with a language department's internal politics?
According to comments the deceased's friend posted on the campus paper's website; he ran afoul of a lecturer and others under his supervision; and that lecturer's husband is a professor with a joint appointment to the Mechanical 'Engineering department and the Woodrow Wilson School. So why try to bring West into this mess; when there are other faculty far more connected to the situation than West could possibly be under any circumstances? To my knowledge, West's specialty is Religion, the subject of his PhD. Unless you know something that Calvo's closest associates do not; then your attempt to implicate West in Calvo's firing seems gratuitous at best...

[madrediterra]

10:26 PM on 04/21/2011

There is quite a difference between not renewing a contract and throwing a professor out 2 weeks before the end of classes.

[SPREADTHEWRD]

05:16 PM on 04/20/2011

SPREAD THE WORD:

Saturday 8pm, Blackbox Theater, Wilcox Hall: "Justice for Calvo: Forming A Student Response"

A meeting for concerned students, faculty, and anyone else affected by this tragedy to deliberate and decide:

1. what questions should be asked
2. who they should be addressed to
3. how both institutional policies and personal practices can change for the better

[Ergon]

04:11 PM on 04/20/2011

"who wanted to share their knowledge"

[Ergon]

04:10 PM on 04/20/2011

I am so glad to have finished school in the 60's. My time in University was the happiest of my life, where we were all valued members of a great community who wanted thered knowledge on to us. Now, it seems like students are like battery hens, force fed and restricted in cages, and professors whose sole puropose is to turn out product.
Oh, and benefit the University's bottom line.

[deridaa]

05:19 AM on 04/22/2011

And political agenda of the tenured CHOSEN!

[Ergon]

10:16 AM on 04/22/2011

Sadly, there's too much of that too.

[deridaa]

05:52 PM on 04/23/2011

No professors sole purpose is like politicians hold onto a fat pension and live the good life by not crossing the wrong army

[Ergon]

11:11 AM on 04/24/2011

Yes, it's sad to see the standards in academia so affected by corruption. An even bigger scandal is mismanagement of the financial endowments by crooks like Summers

[madrediterra]

04:09 PM on 04/20/2011

ABC says he stabbed himself several times.

http://abcn.ws/dQOvmW

[Peabodies]

03:34 PM on 04/20/2011

"...he could face deportation after more than a decade in the United States, as the University would no longer sponsor his visa".

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1378831/Mystery-death-Princeton-lecturer-went-leave-personal-reasons.html#ixzz1K5r2Q2D5

Where was Professor Calvo from? Cuba? Chile? the story doesn't say. We could use real journalists doing their job.

That said, I offer condolences to Professor Calvo's family. His demise is very troubling.

[cosmiCataclysm]

05:33 PM on 04/20/2011

If you click on his name up there (it's an active link), you will arrive at Princeton's memorial page for Mr. Calvo. It says that he received his Bachelor's in Spain. I would assume that he's from Spain.

[ricchh]

03:30 PM on 04/20/2011

Another Princeton cover up.

[deridaa]

06:01 AM on 04/22/2011

Fair administrative review aka castration by Princetonian Star Chamber- poor poor man!

[Aries Warrior]

03:11 PM on 04/20/2011

Hope he went to an Attorney before he d/ied....and left a nice paper trail...

[bswell]

02:46 PM on 04/20/2011

Can't understand why this man was on a "contract" and didn't have tenure. If he was some kind of "lecturer," didn't he have any sort of academic appointment? This seems very odd.

[CHMB]

03:54 PM on 04/20/2011

A lot of universities are doing this now. It's cheaper for them to keep prof's as lecturers or sessional instructors. They save costs on benefits and such. In Canada, more and more University's are being run more like a corporation than an institue of learning. It's all about how much money they can make and bring in.

[ksun1]

04:14 PM on 04/20/2011

I can remember Princeton having a 35 yr old grad student, who had been toiling away for 7 yrs with no Phd in sight; and he went nuts. He placed poison teabags (no joke!) in the local A&P supermarket in an attempt to randomly kill members of the public. Thankfully, he was caught and dispatched to prison. Even though I shopped at that supermarket--now long gone; this happened in the 1980's-- I still felt sorry for the guy for some reason.

[bswell]

04:59 PM on 04/20/2011

This is usually done with "adjuncts." This person seems to have had a far more substantial tie to Princeton than that.

[garydpdx]

12:26 PM on 04/21/2011

Lecturers are not 'tenure track' like professors, and tenure for professors has become less common nowadays.

[Hydroponicyeah]

02:01 PM on 04/20/2011

Academia has nasty internal politics. My father is the chair of the history department at a prestigious university. As soon as he was voted chair he became embroiled in nasty politics, where faculty literally tried to destroy each others careers because of melodramatic reactions to ideological differences or simple misconceptions, etc. For example, the majority of the history department wanted to unhire a professor for consistently receiving negative student evaluations. She happened to be an African American female, so some of the feminist faculty got up in arms and brought down a hell storm on the department, and now it and much of the senior faculty are embroiled in lawsuits, the spreading of harmful rumors, and what certainly is a distraction to professors who should otherwise be focusing on their students and research.

[sbrannon]

02:13 PM on 04/20/2011

Augh, I wish that all these folks would grow up and treat others with respect. Why is there always back biting. Did we not learn anything in school or from our parents? The goal would be to be a chair, to research and contribute to higher education, not this high school stuff.

[Waldimore]

02:06 PM on 04/21/2011

I was going to post something similar. What good is higher education, scholarly pursuit if such 'learned' people are going to behave like the so-called uneducated, ignorant masses? It doesn't inspire people to become educated. No wonder this country educational systems are becoming more and more broken. You can get this kind of treatment working for the post office.

[deridaa]

05:28 AM on 04/22/2011

It's known as academic bullying and the pampered protected few are like a mob executing in secrecy with a legal department behind them who need to keep their jobs and go along with the whims of the ruling women. Not high school stuff sounds more like the worst of Wellesley types!

[trek15]

02:28 PM on 04/20/2011

Of all the cases of "nasty" campus politics to cite, you choose an african american female who you claim receives "consistently negative student evaluations". Hmmm...

[bswell]

02:50 PM on 04/20/2011

This person chose an example he or she was familiar with. Please, drop the paranoia. Academic politics can be disgusting and often are the product of what can only be described as fads or fashion. That doesn't mean no one can be criticized. No one is looking to get rid of Cornell West or Louis Gates.

[bswell]

03:04 PM on 04/20/2011

And that is the case he/she is familiar with. Please drop the paranoia, which will annoy ya.

[Dukedraven]

01:55 PM on 04/20/2011

A tragic story. I can only guess the university had some information that he posed some kind of threat to people or property. God rest his soul.

[Jackie2000]

03:25 PM on 04/20/2011

More like a threat to their ongoing lies and deceit. God Bless the family and his friends and colleagues, who, hopefully, will keep pushing until the truth is revealed to all

[deridaa]

09:40 PM on 04/22/2011

The school is prob counting on kids going away for summer and the press not caring about this much longer . That would be most tragic!,,,

[YT87]

01:54 PM on 04/20/2011

ok.. so the Princetonian (student newspaper) has now deleted the main article "questions raised about Calvo's death" and it is only accessible through the "most commented" list. why is there such an effort being made to cover this up? Rothaus '11 has suddenly flip-flopped too, talking about "time to move on and remember him" and things like that. it couldn't at all be that an administrator passed on the friendly note that: "hey, do you want to graduate in one month or do you want to have spent 4 years and 200K for nothing??"

[liamys]

06:02 AM on 04/22/2011

This is typical of heavy handed management not only in these places of learning but in the business world in general. There seems to no sense of decency in the workplace. Employees stab each other in the back and management encourages and participates in it. I see it all the time. I feel very bad for this gentleman and his family. Surely there are other ways of handling these situations.

[Sydney Light]

01:45 PM on 04/20/2011

WHATEVER they think he did, he did not deserve to be treated as Princeton treated him... maybe this kind of thing is why Princeton is slipping to the bottom of the Ivy League.

[JasonJM]

01:54 PM on 04/20/2011

I'm sure your on the front line speaking up for all the fast food workers and delivery drivers who lost their jobs too.

Yeah right.

[Sydney Light]

04:16 PM on 04/20/2011

It was not an article about fast food workers. If one of them had been mistreated I would have responded the same way. Is there anything that people will not find a way to misinterpret?

[deridaa]

05:41 AM on 04/22/2011

It is at the bottom but has the financial resources to keep the illusion alive quite a community they have engineered over the last 10 years!