A UCA student contacted UCAPD to report that an instructor hit him with a marker during class and told him to leave the room.
Cesar Francisco Orea said Associate Professor William Kordsmeier hit him with a marker during his business statistics class on Jan. 25.
“We were just sitting in class before the teacher arrived talking about our plans for the weekend, stuff like that,” Orea said. “The teacher came in, pretty much on time. After that we were all quiet. I was opening my notebook, and I started writing, trying to look up to the board. Something hit my nose under my eye. It kind of hurt.
“I thought it was a joke from my classmates. I looked up to see who did it and everyone was looking at me – no one was laughing.
“The teacher was looking at me. He said, ‘Get out of my class.’ I had my laptop out, and I stood up, putting my backpack on the table – just trying to put everything up. [Kordsmeier] said, ‘What, you not leaving?’”
According to the police report, Kordsmeier then said to student Tassia Pavilhao, “What you didn’t like that?” and instructed her to leave the class as well. When Pavilhao asked Kordsmeier why she was being asked to leave the classroom, Kordsmeier said to her “because I don’t like you, and I don’t give a shit.”
As Orea and Pavilhao were leaving the room, Kordsmeier told them he didn’t want to see them again and they would have to talk to him before coming back to class, according to the report.
Orea said he and Pavilhao then waited outside Kordsmeier’s office to discuss the incident but went to the computer lab in the building after 10 minutes. In the computer lab, Orea said they were advised by another student to discuss the incident with Steven Zeltmann, chair of the department of management information systems in the college of business.
In the dean’s office, Orea said Zeltmann offered to change both students’ classes for free, purchase new books for them, and offered them free summer classes if they didn’t like any of the courses offered at that time.
“It was just weird,” Orea said.
A memo from Kordsmeier included in the police report also describes the incident:
Eds. note: Quoted spelling and grammar errors were in the original copy.
“I tried to begin lecture, but the noise level was very high,” Kordsmeier said. “I told the class that it was time to start lecture and asked them to quiet down. Most everybody did and I tried again to begin lecture again. There was one male individual in the last row … who continued shouting in a very loud voice to someone else sitting to his right.
“I picked up a marker and through it at him to get his attention. I then told him to ‘Get out! Just get out!’ He didn’t move and so I repeated myself. The girl sitting to his immediate right began to glare very defiantly at me. I told her to get out with him. When she asked me why, I told her it was because she was sitting there glaring at me.”
Orea said he filed a police report because he “didn’t want this to happen to another kid.”
“I was surprised,” Orea said. “I’ve never had problems with a teacher. During class, I’m just taking notes. This is the first time I’ve ever had problems with a teacher. I’m actually kind of in shock.”
Orea told The Echo he had been told by other students in the class Kordsmeier was no longer teaching the class but would be grading the tests.
Attempts by The Echo to obtain Kordsmeier’s personnel record under Arkansas Freedom of Information Act were not successful by press time.
Calls made to Zeltmann’s office went unanswered.
According to the College of Business Web site, Kordsmeier is an associate professor of economics and has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Dallas, a master’s from the University of Arkansas and holds a doctorate from Texas A&M.
