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Bigfoot researcher an 'outcast' at Idaho State University

Questioninggeller

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Bigfoot research makes professor a campus outcast

POCATELLO, Idaho (AP) -- Jeffrey Meldrum holds a Ph.D. in anatomical sciences and is a tenured professor of anatomy at Idaho State University.

He is also one of the world's foremost authorities on Bigfoot, the mythical ape-man of the Northwest woods. And Meldrum firmly believes the lumbering, shaggy brute exists.

That makes him an outcast -- a solitary, Sasquatch-like figure himself -- on the 12,700-student campus, where many scientists are embarrassed by what they call Meldrum's "pseudo-academic" pursuits and have called on the university to review his work with an eye toward revoking his tenure. One physics professor, D.P. Wells, wonders whether Meldrum plans to research Santa Claus, too.

Meldrum, 48, spends most of his days in his laboratory in the Life Sciences Building, analyzing more than 200 jumbo plaster casts of what he contends are Bigfoot footprints.

For the past 10 years, he has added his scholarly sounding research to a field full of sham videos and supermarket tabloid exposes. And he is convinced he has produced a body of evidence that proves there is a Bigfoot.
...
Over the summer, more than 30 professors signed a petition criticizing the university for hosting a Bigfoot symposium where Meldrum was the keynote speaker.

He pays for his research with a $30,000 donation from a Bigfoot believer.

Still, Meldrum has a distinguished supporter in Jane Goodall, the world-famous authority on African chimpanzees. Her blurb on the jacket of Meldrum's new book, "Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science," lauds him for bringing "a much-needed level of scientific analysis" to the Bigfoot debate.
...
Meldrum said it was a decade ago in Walla Walla, Washington, that he first discovered flat 15-inch footprints in the woods. He said he thought initially that they were a hoax, but noticed locked joints and a narrow arch -- traits he came to believe could only belong to Bigfoot.

"That's what set the hook," Meldrum said. "I resolved at this point, this was a question I'd get to the bottom of."
...
Meldrum wonders aloud how much longer he will be on the faculty. But he said he also dreams of one day bringing back a bone or a tooth or some skin, and silencing the "stuffy academics."
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CNN, November 3, 2006

How did he get tenure to begin with?
 
"How did he get tenure to begin with?"
Well, if you look at his bio on the isu.edu website, he got his Ph.D.at SUNY Stonybrook in 1989. Was at Northwestern and went to ISU in 1993. It doesn't say when he got tenure, but it had to be on or before 1999. They probably based the tenure decision on his previous work.
That's the way it usually works.
 
Jeff Corey said:
"How did he get tenure to begin with?"
Well, if you look at his bio on the isu.edu website, he got his Ph.D.at SUNY Stonybrook in 1989. Was at Northwestern and went to ISU in 1993. It doesn't say when he got tenure, but it had to be on or before 1999. They probably based the tenure decision on his previous work.
That's the way it usually works.
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Looking at his bio he got a BA and MA from BYU too. I wondering how mormon religion plays into this?
 
He is also one of the world's foremost authorities on Bigfoot, the mythical ape-man of the Northwest woods. And Meldrum firmly believes the lumbering, shaggy brute exists.
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How can you be an authority on something which you don't even know exists?
 
I've seen this discussed on a few boards. Any ISU people here? Woo or not, unless he's pressing his opinions all the time there's really no need for other staff to treat him like an outcast. From what I understand it's not part of his University duties anyway so what's the big deal? In my opinion, this guy really isn't hurting anybody like psychics for pay or anything like that. A harmless woo, if you will.

He did reply to someone on Cryptozoology.com and told him that his tenure was in no danger, it was just the reporter being dramatic or something like that.

I hope someday someone does bring in a suit sample or rental receipt proving what bigfoot really is.
 
Starthinker said:
Woo or not, unless he's pressing his opinions all the time there's really no need for other staff to treat him like an outcast. From what I understand it's not part of his University duties anyway so what's the big deal? In my opinion, this guy really isn't hurting anybody like psychics for pay or anything like that. A harmless woo, if you will.
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If you were a professor at ISU, you might have a different opinion, I guess. Yes, he's not directly hurting anyone. But there are other criteria for wishing somebody to leave.

How would you feel if a colleague of yours were, say, an active Scientologist? Who would stand behind you pointing his finger at hour head when you had a head-ache? Who would advise female colleagues not to make a sound during giving birth as that would damage their baby, and not breastfeed their children either? Embarrassed, no?
 
Kaarjuus said:
If you were a professor at ISU, you might have a different opinion, I guess. Yes, he's not directly hurting anyone. But there are other criteria for wishing somebody to leave.

How would you feel if a colleague of yours were, say, an active Scientologist? Who would stand behind you pointing his finger at hour head when you had a head-ache? Who would advise female colleagues not to make a sound during giving birth as that would damage their baby, and not breastfeed their children either? Embarrassed, no?
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You must have mistook my point. If I worked with a scientologist and he did all those things, yes, it would bug me, but it would not embarrass me or give me cause to fire him as long as he's doing a good job otherwise. After all, he's only embarrassing himself, not me. If he were a decent guy I may still have lunch with him from time to time. If he did those things on his own time, not at work, it wouldn't bother me at all. Which was my point, from what I hear Meldrum was not doing the bigfoot equivilent of these things, just pursuing it on his own time.

Is Meldrum walking around with a sign that says "bigfoot lives!" on campus, or is he merely studying footprints on his own time? Huge difference.
 
Starthinker said:
Is Meldrum walking around with a sign that says "bigfoot lives!" on campus, or is he merely studying footprints on his own time? Huge difference.
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An institution's reputation is important in academia. While he may not walk around with a "bigfoot lives!" sign, I'm guessing he bills himself as being "a professor at ISU" and puts it on the jacket of his books. That can be just as bad.

Imagine if you worked in this guy's department or if it was your job to recruit graduate students to your program and all you hear is, "aren't you the school with the bigfoot guy?"
 
Kaarjuus said:
If you were a professor at ISU, you might have a different opinion, I guess. Yes, he's not directly hurting anyone. But there are other criteria for wishing somebody to leave.

How would you feel if a colleague of yours were, say, an active Scientologist? Who would stand behind you pointing his finger at hour head when you had a head-ache? Who would advise female colleagues not to make a sound during giving birth as that would damage their baby, and not breastfeed their children either? Embarrassed, no?
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Some mine are Freudians. That is an embarassement, but I am not demanding their tenure be revoked.
 
The question should, IMHO seen from the following POV:

- The person who believes in [add woo belief here] is doing what he/she is supposed to be doing (teatching, writing papers,etc.)?
- His/hers woo activity is interfering with his proffessional activities?
- His/hers woo activity somehows embarass the institution?

If the answers are "no", then let him/her carry on. And such matters should to be solved internally. I remember to have met a number of academics with what could be called woo beliefs. Its not surprising at all.

Note that sooner or later, apologists will start the standard Galileo line...
 
Meldrum is not the first "professor" that I've heard of with a sponsor. Though I think it is more prevelent in the artistic fields. One patron that buys all of your product, and sponsors a chair for you at a university, and all of a sudden you have credence. That system certainly allows for abuses. Like, does Meldrum truly believe, or is he just milking a cash cow? Just keep one patron happy, screw the chancellor?

Hmm, do the sponsors 'donations' cover the pofessor's retirements too ? Or is the school on the hook for 100%? Retiremnts can easily add up to more than total lifetime earnings.
 
My take is that there are several ways that an individual professor can hold wrong ideas and they require a different responce.

This does dirrectly relate to his work, many professors are expected to do scientific work as part of their job and not just teach, and his work will bring nothing but ridicule to the institution. So in this case it is about what he does in a profeshional capacity.

A different case would be one of the minds behind the holocaust denial movement. He is an engeneering professor, so it does not dirrectly relate to his job in either what he teaches or researches for the university. That places him in a different catagory.
 
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