University President Jesse Rogers said he received an anonymous email from one of the banquet attendees which then prompted him to speak to Jefferson about the banquet.

“It was her wish that she step down as the interim dean position and we accepted her wish. She did it entirely on her own,” Rogers said. “Her motivation was quite noble, and I appreciate her attitude about this.”

“I’m back to what I love to do,” Jefferson said, adding that she will continue to serve as full-time theater faculty member and will direct the spring play “God of Carnage.” Other than that, Jefferson said she stepped down for personal reasons and had no further comment.

Tim Green, senior in theater, was at the banquet and explained that attendees participated in a gift exchange.

“Whenever you pick up a present you have to tell a joke and some people were telling inappropriate jokes I guess, but it was in the spirit of merriment,” Green said. “We were all having fun telling jokes and someone took offense to some of them but didn’t bring up the issue at the time so we kept telling jokes.”

Rogers said he only learned of the events of the banquet from the anonymous email sent to him.

“Both faculty and students will tell you that probably a line was crossed,” Rogers said. “People can put in 20 years of the best quality work and stand for the best things and make a poor judgment for 15 minutes. I don’t think that it’s anything that should ruin a person or anything else.”

Rogers said he is impressed with the way Jefferson handled the situation by stepping down.

“Her reaction to it was so impressive to me because she thought about it, and like I say, every action that was taken was at her request and I think it showed her character and what she is as a person. I have a great deal of affection for her, and certainly a great deal of professional appreciation for her and others involved,” Rogers said. “The way they handled it was so impressive to me that I think that the matter needs to be closed. I’d like for everyone to learn something from this, and I think we did.”

Green said each semester theater faculty and students must attend a majors/minors meeting in which they discuss plans for the department. At this semester’s meeting held yesterday, students underwent sensitivity training coordinated by interim department chair Elizabeth Lewandowski to address the comments made at the banquet.

“We were just told about the jokes being inappropriate,” Green said. “Now we’re all aware that we can actually make someone feel that uncomfortable. We’ll all be more self-conscious about it and it will hopefully never happen again.”

Appointing new dean

After Jefferson stepped down, Provost Betty Stewart appointed Jim Sernoe as interim dean on Jan. 9.

Repeated phone calls and other attempts to reach Stewart proved unsuccessful.

“I’m optimistic,” Sernoe said in an interview last Friday afternoon. “This is my 19th year at Midwestern. I care about the university and college and the department.”

Sernoe will serve until Aug. 11 when Martin Camacho, the newly hired dean, takes over.

Rogers said appointing Sernoe as interim dean will ensure that the fine arts college will continue to operate smoothly until Camacho takes over in the fall.

“I’m glad that we have Dr. Sernoe there to step in for her,” Rogers said. “I think we won’t miss a beat.”

Sernoe said he prefers teaching to administrating, but he accepted the interim dean position simply because the Provost asked him to.

“I have 22 faculty colleagues counting on me. I have 300 students counting on me,” Sernoe said. “I’m equipped to do the dean’s job. I think I can do it for seven months, then I will be happy to be chair again.”

James Gorham, assistant professor, will also take over as interim chair of mass communication until August.

Sernoe said he will continue teaching classes in the spring and he will still meet with his advisees, but he won’t be taking on any new advisees until his term as interim dean has concluded.

“I’ll probably take longer to grade stuff for my classes though,” Sernoe said.