Nicholas Winset

Nicholas Wolf Winset (born July 14, 1970, in Miami) is an American polymath, educator, designer, and writer. Best known for academic freedom issues.

Background and education

Professor Winset, a descendent of French Jews fleeing the Holocaust, was raised in the Caribbean and Miami, Florida, where he attended the Vineyard School in Silver Bluff. Starting college at age eleven, he earned bachelor’s degrees in History, Business Administration, and Civil Engineering, as well as graduate degrees and certificates in Finance and Accounting. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in Energy Economics.

Creative works

Amongst various articles and essays, in the mid-90s Winset developed the comic strip “The Incredible Dreamworld of . . .”, which was produced in an extremely wide variety of media and forms. In addition to print, this may have included graffiti and guerrilla art similar to Banksy’s work. The strip’s main characters were “furries” along with students and faculty at the mythical “York Polytechic Institute” (probably inspired by WPI, which graduated Winset in Civil Engineering in 1995).

Controversy

After the Virginia Tech massacre, Winset received media attention after posting a series of videos on YouTube discussing his termination from Emmanuel College in Boston for a controversial discussion that involved the professor and a student pointing magic markers at each other and saying "bang". After talking about non-violent points of view and philosophies, which Winset explicitly stated he agreed with (such as Tibetan Buddhism), Winset then used a prop to show how violence can paradoxically be used to stop violence. Following disclaimer and agreement to participate by the class, this was a segue into a larger discussion and assignment analyzing the almost non-existent effects of the shooting on the stock market and on education-related securities.

The administration stated that they fired Winset after "students and parents . . . contact(ed) the administration with complaints." The professor and his supporters saw "his dismissal as a violation of academic freedom and an example of the way colleges may overreact to a nationally traumatic event." Winset said it was "abysmal at Emmanuel if an adjunct can be fired without a hearing based on saying some unpopular things one day in class. The whole point of tenure and free speech is to protect speech that is unpopular. If it is popular speech, you don't need to protect it." The college had neither interviewed nor talked to Winset prior to firing him, and had not held a formal public hearing regarding his termination.

The college issued a statement shortly after the videos were posted to YouTube denying that the termination was related to academic freedom. The statement went on say that Professor Winset had violated the schools standards of conduct and civility and characterized the professor's actions as discriminatory.

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