The Red and Black

Issue date: 4/28/09 Section: News

Media Credit: JIM DIFFLY SWAT officials outside of Brooks Hall Saturday. [Click to enlarge]

University students traveling near North Campus Monday could not ignore law enforcement surrounding George Zinkhan's Brooks Hall office.

For Jackie Derron, a marketing and public relations major, the presence of the police officers made her feel safer during the first day back after the shootings this weekend.

"I believe the University is doing the best they can with this situation," Derron said. "I'm just completely shocked - I grew up here and cannot imagine anything like this happening in Athens."

As a student in Zinkhan's Consumer Buying Behavior class, Lindsay Cone described him as a "scattered" professor, but an "approachable" person.

On Monday, students in Zinkhan's MARK 4100 class received phone calls and e-mails from Robert T. Sumichrast, dean of the Terry College of Business, notifying them that he and another official - believed to be in law enforcement - will meet with them during their regular class schedule today to discuss how grades and safety procedures will be handled, Cone, a marketing and advertising major from Roswell, said in a phone interview Monday.

During his class Thursday, Zinkhan announced final exams were cancelled, and students were given an official print-out of their grades, which they had not seen all semester. The grades seemed to be curved since they were "much higher than what was expected," Cone said.

Zinkhan often printed out "tons of packets" and materials for students unrelated to their class discussions, but the professor's sometimes erratic behavior was not alarming, Cone said.

"He seemed to be in his own world, but I've had teachers like that before," she said. "In class, he was friendly and never hostile."

At one point during the semester, Zinkhan instructed his students to e-mail him what they believed their participation grade should be. Cone said Zinkhan agreed with the grade she chose for herself and told her "good work."

"He seemed like a knowledgeable guy, but he was all over the place," she said. "One minute, he'd be at the white board and another, he'll talk about something else - it was difficult to follow his train of thought."

In a Monday phone interview, Richard Fox, associate professor of marketing and former department head of the Terry College of Business, said the only way to describe how he felt was "shocked."

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