There are those who argue that diversity on campus should be achieved not by recruiting students and faculty from a variety of non-white racial and ethnic backgrounds, but by fostering an intellectually and culturally diverse atmosphere in which a variety of viewpoints, perspectives, and life experiences are represented. Some schools are doing just that -- though not as willingly or as wittingly as they might wish.

For example, Penn State administrators just discovered that Paul Krueger, a professor of education with a reputation for being a "model faculty member", is also a triple murderer. In 1965, when Krueger was a teenager, he unloaded over 40 bullets into three fishermen he and a friend encountered during a road trip. Krueger has never revealed his reasons for killing the men. He was sentenced to life in prison, but was released on parole in 1979.

It's uncertain whether Krueger will be returning to Penn State now that his past has come back to publicly haunt him. He hasn't resigned, and is scheduled to teach four courses in the fall. PSU, which does not do criminal background checks on prospective faculty, has no plans to fire him, though it seems he has accepted a teaching position at National University in California. Krueger may have hoped to distance himself from the publicity, but his story has followed him to his new home.

At Bates College, tenured music professor Linda Williams lent her own special slant to the field by moonlighting as a drug dealer. When she wasn't teaching ethnomusicology, she was cooking crack on her stove. She recently pled guilty to charges of conspiracy with intent to distribute cocaine. Bates has placed Williams on paid leave.

A University of Southern Indiana business professor has been indicted for trying to set fire to his wife. A biology professor at Loyola Marymount University has been indicted for possessing and copying child pornography, as has the (now former) Vice Provost and Director of Libraries at the University of Pennsylvania. Penn has been especially strong on the faculty diversity front of late: it has not only been home to a bibliophilic pedophile, but to a neurosurgeon who is awaiting trial for allegedly raping a patient in his office after getting high with her.

Diversity is alive and well on our campuses. It's just not the kind of diversity that inspires confidence.

UPDATE: Reader Dan M. sends this link with much more information about Williams' trafficking career, while reader Joe K. observes that a diverse faculty deserves a similarly diverse administration.

UPDATE 7/31/03: National University has rescinded its offer to Paul Krueger, stating that "While the university recognizes Dr. Krueger's efforts to rehabilitate himself in the years since his conviction, his employment as a faculty member would be inconsistent with National University's institutional values and the best interests of its students, alumni, faculty, and staff."