At approximately 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday night in the Alliance Room, the popular chemistry tutor known as ‘Jason,’ came close to being arrested during his learning session. David Hanson, a faculty member of the Department of Chemistry, arrived at the alliance room shortly before three to four armed officers.
Upon police arrival, Jason was instructed to stop teaching, and leave the Alliance Room immediately. After law enforcement refused to look at his documented authorization allowing him to teach in the room, Jason of course protested. Being an experienced public speaker, his comments were met with cheers and applause from his students.
The police warned Jason that further comments would be considered incitement and that he would be arrested. No more comments were made and soon after, he was forced to leave the premises.
Assistant Chief of Police Douglas Little commented on the situation, ‘[Jason] was not sanctioned to give these review sessions,’ he said. ‘When police arrived on the scene, he was asked to cease, and he complied.’
Approximately 90 students were present at the session that night. One of these students commented, ‘We are used to being moved around a lot to get tutored by Jason, but nothing like this. This was scary and unnecessary.’
Another student, who wishes to remain anonymous, also took a candid video of the event with their cell phone. The video is of poor quality but shows the police presence and the students cheering for Jason. The student who took the video said it will be posting it on YouTube under the name of this article.
When asked about any further actions to be taken, Little said, ‘There has been discussion about giving permission to hold review sessions.’ Little said the necessity for certain procedures to be followed to be given permission to teach on campus.
It is unclear what instigated the review session to be broken up. For more than 10 years, Jason has been holding his review sessions wherever he was allowed. Lecture halls, classrooms, conference rooms, dining halls, hotel conference rooms and even the church on Oxhead Road have all seen late-night Jason review sessions. Students interviewed stated that they are willing to spend their own time, money, and energy to travel to these inconvenient, and sometimes hard to reach places for chemistry help.
Many freshmen chemistry students rely on outside tutoring like ‘Jason’s or Solomon’s review’ to prepare for the homework, exams and notorious ‘Kappa quizzes.’ A significant number of students feel that the teaching at Stony Brook is inadequate and look to outside books and tutoring to keep up with the material. They hold him in high regard and said that they rely on his passionate and energetic teaching for motivation and accurate answer’s to chemistry problems.
It is, as of yet, unknown why Professor David Hanson decided to attend the review session shortly before it was disbanded. Several students felt that it was none of his business what tutors his students use or where they study.
Jason released a short letter the following morning of the disrupted study session, ‘All seriousness aside, you really have to find humor in the situation because there is simply no logic behind this,’ he said. ‘Rather than fighting the real crimes happening on campus, they choose to target a tutor helping students study for an exam. This is, after all, the whole reason why [students] pay tuition to attend this university.’
Suraj Rambhia contributed reporting.
