Date set for fired ISU professor’s lawsuit against university
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By Jimmy Hancock
jhancock@journalnet.com
POCATELLO — More than two years since it was first filed, fired professor Habib Sadid’s suit against Idaho State University and several of its administrators has finally been set for trial.
But only the accusations against one of those university officials is going to be in front of jury during that trial, currently set to start Nov. 18.
Sadid, a former engineering professor who was terminated from ISU in the fall of 2009, filed the suit in federal court in Pocatello in March of 2011, alleging wrongful termination and that several ISU administrators violated his civil rights and committed various state law torts by terminating him and publishing information about that termination in the student newspaper and in the Journal.
Among the administrators named were ISU president Arthur Vailas, Richard Jacobsen, dean of ISU’s College of Engineering when Sadid was terminated, ISU Professor David Beard and Graham Garner, formerly the university’s director of marketing and communications.
Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill, in a March 2013 decision, granted a motion for summary judgment from those defendants on all of Sadid’s federal claims. What was left were the state law claims for tortious interference with Sadid’s contract, defamation against the former professor and intentional interference with emotional distress.
Both the plaintiff and defendants in the case agreed that Winmill should retain jurisdiction over those state claims for which both had already submitted motions for summary judgment. On May 2, Winmill returned a decision on those motions.
He ruled mostly for the defendants.
“The court will grant defendants’ motions for summary judgment of plaintiff’s claims for emotional distress and interference with contract,” Winmill wrote in the decision. The court will also summarily adjudicate Dr. Sadid’s defamation claim against Dr. Beard, but will deny defendant Garner’s motion for summary judgment on the defamation claim against him.”
In the decision, Winmill said that “the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim is not viable.”
Citing the criteria for the viability of intentional infliction of emotional distress under the situation of employment termination, Winmill said that Sadid’s allegations do not, “approach the sort of extreme conduct where plaintiffs have recovered for emotional distress in connection with a discharge.”
Even when it came to Garner’s comments published in the Journal, Winmill said they did not meet the required criteria for intentional infliction of emotional distress. The judge did say, however, that a jury needs to decide several points made in the motion for summary judgment when it comes to whether or not Garner defamed Sadid and under what role he was acting when he made the statements.
Garner, who left ISU in 2010, currently serves as associate vice president for marketing and communications at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. He declined to comment on Winmill’s decision. David Alexander, general counsel for ISU, and John Bailey, the attorney representing the university and the individual defendants in the suit, also declined to comment.
On Tuesday, Winmill issued an order scheduling that trial for Nov. 18 in Pocatello. He allotted five days for the trial. Within the deadlines for various key requirements for that trial, Winmill set a date of Oct. 7, by which both parties must advise the judge as to whether the case is settled or will go to trial.
Worthington leads Bengals on first day of NCAA West preliminary round
AUSTIN, Tex. — Junior Hayli Worthington finished 27th in the 400-meter hurdles today at the NCAA West Preliminary Round with a time of 59.79 seconds. Worthington set the school record in that event at the Big Sky Championship with her first-place time of 58.71.
Senior Bradi Hutchison finished 47th in the women’s 10,000-meter run. Hutchison set the school record in that event at the Stanford Invitational with a time of 33 minutes 22.99 seconds. She competes again on Saturday in the 5000-meter run.
Senior Chloe Palakovich finished 39th in the women’s 800-meter sprint with a time of 2 minutes 12.14 seconds.
The Bengals continue in the preliminary round tomorrow with Caitlin Maulin in the pole vault and Bryce Jenkins in the 3000-meter steeplechase.
Goodwin to join Bengals: Century star signs with ISU after winning 3rd state title and helping D-backs earn boys championship
kfranko@journalnet.com @goodfranks
Before leaving to play tennis for Idaho State, Josh Goodwin made time to deliver a birthday present to his coach.
Call it a going away gift, a final goodbye, one last hoorah or just refer to it as Century’s first boys state tennis championship.
Goodwin signed his National Letter of Intent Thursday afternoon at Century High School to play for the Bengals, less than a week after he won this third 4A singles title in Boise.
After winning state his freshman and sophomore seasons, Goodwin fell in the semifinals a season ago, eventually finishing third.
He returned with a vengeance last Friday and Saturday, beating every opponent he faced in straight sets while dropping eight games total.
And in mixed doubles, Sydney McRoberts and Nathan Kleist took second, falling to the team from Blackfoot.
McRoberts and Kleist did just enough, though, to push Century over the top to win the boys title with 28 points, edging Blackfoot by a razor-thin .5 points.
“As soon as they said Blackfoot was second I knew,” said Century head coach Sean Kane. “I think I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’”
The boys’ team title follows the girls who won the championship in 2012. As an encore, the D-back girls were second in 2013.
“You couldn’t ask for anything better,” Kane said. “You have one of the most dominant players in your sport in the state for four years. It’s great. Great team leader, really helped out everybody else. I always tell the other kids, ‘It’s your chance to play with Michael Jordan.’”
Now Michael Jordan is heading to Idaho State, a year after the Bengal men were 13-5 overall, 8-2 in the Big Sky and undefeated playing in Pocatello. Goodwin joins a roster that graduates two seniors but was otherwise filled with sophomores and freshmen. Early indications from ISU head coach Bobby Goeltz is that Goodwin will slide into the fifth or sixth spot right away. “They have a really good program,” Goodwin said. “They did well last year and I’m honored to play on a great team.” Goodwin’s father, Tom, played for Idaho State from 1981-82.
“It’s been a lot of work,” Tom said. “We’ve came from tennis tournaments where there’s been some tears and some joys, but it’s been a lot of work getting there.”
The work, of course, is not over. And the days of domination are likely over at the college level. But signing day is naturally a time to reflect on the journey to this point.
So in four years at Century, three singles titles and a team championship in hand, what’s the best moment?
“The team aspect,” Goodwin said. “I really enjoyed just traveling on the bus, being with my friends and just watching everybody play.”
Bengal breakthrough: ISU club baseball team enjoys conference championship season
cglorfield@journalnet.com @ChaseGlorfield
All season long the Idaho State club baseball team had this as their goal — a tall task considering the Aggies were the defending National Club Baseball Association World Series champions.
“Our biggest rival, our biggest challenge, happened to be last year’s World Series champion, Utah State,” said ISU head coach Bob Hunt, who just finished his fifth year with the Bengals. “In order for us to be able to go beyond our conference, to a regional opportunity, we had to beat Utah State.”
And as if the NCBA schedule-makers gazed into a crystal ball and saw the future, the two teams were pitted against one another in the final weekend of the regular season for a threegame series at Halliwell Park — with the Northern Pacific South title and a berth to regionals on the line.
All the hard-hitting Bengals had to do was win two out of the three games and they would knock off the champs and punch their own ticket to the postseason.
It all went according to plan as Idaho State “punched the Aggies in the nose,” according to Hunt.
Idaho State hammered its foe from Logan 14-1. The second game was closer, but ISU prevailed 5-4.
“They’ve been our biggest competitors since I’ve been there,” said outfielder/pitcher Nate Mortensen, a senior from Rexburg whose brother, Clayton Mortensen, pitches for the Boston Red Sox. “We went into that weekend focused. We knew we needed to get those games to make it regionals.”
The Bengals had done it. They were conference champions, much to the delight of the full house at Halliwell Park.
“It was electric. I’ve never seen such a big crowd, ever,” Hunt said. “The stands were full. There were a lot of nerves. We all knew all year long that was the team we needed to beat to advance.”
“It was a big relief. There was a lot of excitement,” Mortensen said. “It was incredible to think these guys (just) took the national title and we stole a regional spot from them.”
The huge number of fans that came out to see the Bengals clinch their postseason berth was symbolic of how much popularity the team gained over the course of 24 games.
Even though their season ended at the hands of Western Washington in the regional playoffs by a score of 2-1, the Bengals became the darlings of the NCBA world, a Cinderella that upset the mighty Aggies of Utah State. “That was one heck of a season we had,” Hunt said.
Mortensen said key to the Bengals’ success was two-part: Great unity on the team and Hunt himself.
“He’s put a lot of time and effort into the program,” he said. “We have a lot of respect for Bob and a lot of love. He’s put his heart into the program. We’re not a mess-around team. We’re a good program.”
But the Bengals weren’t just a product of good coaching and effort — even though they have plenty of both. The talent existed in order to make their magical run happen.
“We finally got all the tools in the shed that we needed to be able to fill the positions at every position,” Hunt said. “We didn’t have a weak spot on the field.”
The team is comprised of mainly former junior college or NAIA baseball players who were looking for a fresh start, guys who didn’t want their collegiate careers to end and had loads of experience on the diamond.
“They wanted to finish college, but they didn’t have an opportunity to play Division I somewhere and play that third or fourth year,” Hunt said.
Idaho State was happy to accept them.
Many players are from eastern Idaho, including the two seniors that Hunt and the Bengals will lose to graduation, Tory Hansen and Mortensen.
Both players earned All-Region honors the last two years while Mortensen was an NCBA All-American last year and is a candidate to do it again this year.
Hunt says he is sad to say farewell to Hansen and Mortensen. But when it comes to baseball, he thinks his team is stacked and ready for another run at the World Series.
“We’re only losing two players this year, so we’re going to come back next year with a very solid, solid group,” he said. “We have guys that are going to fill their shoes handily.”
“They’re only losing two guys. To me, they’re going to be strong next year,” Mortensen said.
And Hunt is already dreaming of next season.
“I cannot wait for September to roll around,” he said. “I’ve had kids contact me who are either transfers from other colleges or kids that are graduating this week and (are) wanting to come to ISU and play baseball for us.”
ISU engineering dept. to host youth program June 10-21
POCATELLO — The Idaho State University Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is holding a two-week non-residential National Summer Transportation Institute program from June 10 to 21 for seventh- and eighth-grade middle school students.
Students interested in the program are encouraged to apply immediately. The program will run from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.
The objective of the program is to provide awareness and stimulate interest in secondary school students to take advantage of opportunities that exist in the transportation industry. Selected students will receive a full scholarship that covers tuition, meals, laboratory usage, supplies and field trip costs.
Daily transportation will be provided to and from Sho-Ban Junior High School for students in Bingham County. A maximum of 26 students will be selected. The program will run daily, Monday through Friday. There is a two-night field trip to Boise June 11-13 during the program. Students will be housed at a hotel with strict guidelines and chaperones. Parents are welcome to join as chaperones.
Students will participate in a variety of hands-on activities in science and engineering as well as participate in robotic cars, friendly competitions, and classroom instruction to enhance academic and technology skills.
Students interested in the NSTI program should contact Bruce Savage at savabruc@isu.edu as soon as possible to receive the application form. All applications should be received at the School of Engineering as soon as possible and no later than Wednesday, May 29. The application can be mailed, e-mailed or faxed.
For more information, contact program coordinators, Savage at 208-282- 3131 or savabruc@isu.edu ; or Arya Ebrahimpour, 208-282-4695, or ebraarya@isu . edu.
Transportation Engineering Summer Camp to be held at ISU
ISU news release:
POCATELLO – The Idaho State University Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is holding a two-week non-residential National Summer Transportation Institute (NSTI) program from June 10 to June 21 for seventh- and eighth-grade middle school students.
Students interested in the program are encouraged to apply immediately. The program will run from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday-Friday.
The objective of the program is to provide awareness and stimulate interest in secondary school students to take advantage of opportunities that exist in the transportation industry. Selected students will receive a full scholarship that covers tuition, meals, laboratory usage, supplies and field trip costs.
Daily transportation will be provided to and from Sho-Ban Jr. High for students in Bingham County. A maximum of 26 students will be selected. The program will run daily, Monday – Friday. There is a two-night field trip to Boise June 11-13 during the program. Students will be housed at a hotel with strict guidelines and chaperones. Parents are welcome to join as chaperones.
Students will participate in a variety of hands-on activities in science and engineering as well as participate in robotic cars, friendly competitions, and classroom instruction to enhance academic and technology skills.
Students interested in the NSTI program should contact Bruce Savage at savabruc@isu.edu as soon as possible to receive the application form. All applications should be received at the School of Engineering as soon as possible and no later than Wednesday, May 29. The application can be mailed, emailed or faxed.
For more information, contact program coordinators, Savage at 208-282- 3131 or savabruc@isu.edu; or Arya Ebrahimpour, 208-282-4695, or ebraarya@isu.edu.
ISU Geosciences Professor Benjamin Crosby gets scholar award to work in Chile
ISU news release:
POCATELLO – Idaho State University geosciences Associate Professor Benjamin Crosby is heading about 6,000 miles south to Concepción, Chile, where he will serve as a Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad de Concepción and do research to assess the impact of hydroelectric dams in Chile.
During his one-year sabbatical from ISU, including six months serving as a Fulbright Scholar, Crosby will be responsible for teaching and research among diverse Universidad de Concepción faculty members in engineering, geosciences and geography.
He will be teaching the first geomorphology course in that university’s history.
Geomorphology is a branch of geology focusing on the processes that sculpt the topographic texture of the earth’s surface. He will leave his course and laboratory materials with a faculty member who will continue to teach the course after Crosby leaves.
“They have never had a geomorphology class taught at the university,” Crosby said. “This will be the first time that students are exposed to the dynamic interactions between rivers, hillslopes and glaciers. This class will be of interest to a wide variety of theoretical and applied academic disciplines at the university.”
His research will focus on what allows daily cycles in river attributes – such as temperature, discharge and chemical character – to persist through only a portion of a stream’s network. Though this ‘pulse-like’ behavior is evident in headwater regions, the signal decays downstream.
This research emphasis is pertinent to modern Chile.
“This work will provide a framework for scientists to both assess the impact of dams on rivers and potentially improve dam management to better mimic natural cycles in rivers,” Crosby said.
Crosby will complete his research traveling between the Concepción, Santiago and Patagonia regions of Chile. He noted that Chile’s economy is growing fast and has ever-increasing demands on power to support urban growth and a large mining industry.
“Right now Chile is deciding whether to build seven new hydroelectric dams, some in Patagonia on some of the most pristine rivers left in the world,” Crosby said. “My hope is that if we better understand the timing and magnitude of the natural pulse of these rivers, dam managers can design water release scenarios that come close to replicating pre-dam conditions (if the dams are built).”
Crosby is taking his family to Chile. Accompanying him will be his wife Cana, 13-year-old daughter Dylan and 11-year-old son Wells. They’ll be flying to Concepción, with a metro population of about 500,000 residents, in early June, spending two months in the country becoming familiar with it and improving their Spanish (Crosby, however, will be teaching in English, a requirement of the Fulbright Scholar program) before Benjamin begins university instruction and the kids start school.
“My family has a nervous excitement about it,” Crosby said. “They’re excited about the opportunity and they know we’re coming back in a year.”
The family hopes to drive home from Chile, traveling through portions of Peru, Brazil, Columbia and Central America. Those plans are not yet firm, however.
Two people in particular inspired Crosby to pursue a Fulbright Scholar award. One was Chikashi Sato, an ISU environmental engineering professor, who was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to teach and conduct research in Nepal for seven months in 2012. The other person was Peter Goodwin, University of Idaho civil engineering professor at the UI’s Center for Ecohydraulic Research in Boise.
“Goodwin has for years encouraged me to participate in research in Chile, but I wasn’t able to do so until this sabbatical,” Crosby said. “He was a Fulbright Scholar in Chile in 2003. Ten years later I’m following his footsteps.”
Crosby is chronicling his experiences as a Fulbright Scholar in a blog crosbyfulbright.blogspot.com.
The Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES), under a cooperative agreement with the United States Department of State, administers the Fulbright Scholar Program for faculty and professionals. Each year, the core Fulbright Scholar Program sends some 800 U.S. faculty and professionals to 155 countries to lecture, research, or participate in seminars. At the same time, approximately 800 foreign faculty come to the U.S. each year. For more on the Fulbright Scholar program, visit http://www.cies.org.
Transportation Engineering Summer Camp at Idaho State University, June 10-21; Applications Due May 29
Released by Idaho State University
POCATELLO – The Idaho State University Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is holding a two-week non-residential National Summer Transportation Institute (NSTI) program from June 10 to June 21 for seventh- and eighth-grade middle school students.
Students interested in the program are encouraged to apply immediately. The program will run from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday-Friday.
The objective of the program is to provide awareness and stimulate interest in secondary school students to take advantage of opportunities that exist in the transportation industry. Selected students will receive a full scholarship that covers tuition, meals, laboratory usage, supplies and field trip costs.
Daily transportation will be provided to and from Sho-Ban Jr. High for students in Bingham County. A maximum of 26 students will be selected. The program will run daily, Monday – Friday. There is a two-night field trip to Boise June 11-13 during the program. Students will be housed at a hotel with strict guidelines and chaperones. Parents are welcome to join as chaperones.
Students will participate in a variety of hands-on activities in science and engineering as well as participate in robotic cars, friendly competitions, and classroom instruction to enhance academic and technology skills.
Students interested in the NSTI program should contact Bruce Savage at savabruc@isu.edu as soon as possible to receive the application form. All applications should be received at the School of Engineering as soon as possible and no later than Wednesday, May 29. The application can be mailed, emailed or faxed.
For more information, contact program coordinators, Savage at 208-282- 3131 or savabruc@isu.edu; or Arya Ebrahimpour, 208-282-4695, or ebraarya@isu.edu.