Professor Peter Glick was fired last week because of his provocative wardrobe, one of the first psychologists ever to fall victim to his own pseudoscience.
While Glick’s research and credentials seem impeccable on paper, students continually marked their discomfort with his after-work wardrobe on course evaluations. The outfit at issue included exercise pants and a pink tank top that Glick would wear from the Buchanan Kiewit Recreation Center to his home beyond City Park.
“While we understand that Mr. Glick has a right to wear whatever he wants when he is not on the clock, at a residential campus a professor is always making an impression on his or her students,” said David Burrows, dean of the faculty.
Students continually approached Glick’s faculty colleagues with concerns, although no one quite understood what made Glick so bothersome.
“While he’s professional and accomplished, there’s just something about him that . I don’t know . seems rather crass, if that’s not too mean to say,” said fellow psychology professor Terry Rew-Gottfried. “His colloquial grammar doesn’t do him any favors either.”
Colleagues and students of Glick could not put their collective fingers on his main fault until Glick’s coauthored study hit the airwaves and presses earlier this school year. In the high-profile study, Glick found that professionals who dress too provocatively often threaten their coworkers and undermine their own credibility.
For Matthew Ansfield, another of Glick’s colleagues in the psychology department, the
research hit close to home. According to Ansfield, years of growing out his flowing mane of curly hair couldn’t compete with the buff profile that Glick would cut when his shoulders were laid bare.
“You work and you work and you work and you find that someone shows a little skin, and all of the sudden their study’s on ABC News. Coincidence?” Ansfield mused.
Beth Haines finds such vanity to be a compensation for inadequate after-school programs in Glick’s hometown. But according to Bruce Hetzler, perhaps Glick’s inflated impression of himself is due to an over-prescription of Adderall, which he seemed to be on during a recent faculty meeting filibuster.
Glick’s hopes are not totally lost, though. The university may reinstate Glick if he undergoes counseling from Professor Gerald Metalsky, who has offered to treat Glick free of charge for histrionic personality disorder.
“He has all the classic symptoms,” Metalsky diagnosed, “a strong need to be the center of attention, inappropriately sexual or seductive behavior, rapidly shifting expression of emotions, use of physical appearance to draw attention to himself, excessively impressionistic speech, passionate yet superficially held opinions, exaggerated or theatrical emotions, extreme suggestibility, and a habit of misreading relationships toward intimate ends.”
Glick, for all his newfound public silence, has vowed to retire and hit the talk show circuit as an exercise and prejudice consultant to Dr. Phil.
In support of her husband, Professor Karen Carr has vowed to wear halter-tops and miniskirts every day until a more generous severance package is offered for Glick.
Glick’s only comments to this newspaper, incidentally, were an ill-advised pun on “severance package.
Hot Glick in hot water
