Spurned wife goes public in cause of fair play

The abandoned wifeof a lecturer is planning to set up a support group for people whose husbands have left them for students, writes Phil Baty.

Her husband, a lecturer at Southampton Institute who has already been given a final disciplinarywarning for a sexual relationship with a student, has been linked with a second student at the college.

Jean Norris, the estranged wife of social sciences lecturer Paul Norris, said: "Such relationships undermine the whole academic process. A lecturer can use his - it is always men - power to coerce a student into an unwanted affair, and a student can exploit her sexuality to advance heracademic position. Either way it cannot fail to have at least some effect on academic credibility.

"It is unfair for the whole student andacademic community. Guidelines are often inadequate. Institutions must be clear about what is and is not acceptable, then there wouldn't be an ongoing problem. In some Americaninstitutions any staff-student relationship would lead to instant dismissal. I want to establish a support group because these relationships can have a devastating effect on a marriage and universities do not seem sufficiently concerned."

Full story, page 5