A professor at Michigan State University (MSU) stripped naked in front of his calculus class and began screaming at students Oct. 1.
According to his MSU profile, professor John McCarthy has been employed by the university since 1985, and is currently a tenured professor.
“On the afternoon of Oct. 1, Michigan State University Police responded to a call from the engineering building about a man shouting in the hallway,” Jason Cody, a media representative for MSU, said via email.
“Police took John McCarthy . . . into protective custody and transported him to a local hospital. No one was injured, and the professor is not being charged with a crime. Officers arrived on the scene less than four minutes after being dispatched,” Cody said.
Student Luke Gallup, an 18-year-old mechanical engineering student, was present in McCarthy’s class at the time.
“[McCarthy] just snapped. Went off shouting about there being no fucking God and more profanities. This turned into him taking all of his clothes off and chasing students down the halls,” Gallup said via email.
Gallup said the event did not take him entirely by surprise. “As soon as the semester began I knew something was strange about this guy,” Gallup said.
Gallup said he noticed that for the first three weeks of class, McCarthy had worn the same shirt and had a generally unkempt appearance. Gallup also stated that although the professor encouraged students to ask questions, his answers would often go off on tangents about seemingly irrelevant things, and many times the questions wouldn’t get answered.
“I’m pretty sure we all had ‘this guy is crazy’ running through our minds,” Gallup said.
Though Gallup acknowledges that McCarthy was able to teach students what they needed to know, he thinks the university should try harder to screen professors.
Cody responded by saying that the university does routine background checks on its staff, but could not speculate on what caused the incident.
The university currently believes that the event was a product of mental illness.
Sgt. Florene McGlothian-Taylor of MSU’s police department said that because of this, they will not be pressing charges. She said MSU is incredibly concerned with getting the professor the help he needs.
In a recent apology letter released to State News, the university’s independent newspaper, McCarthy stated that he does not remember what happened in his class that day, and issued an apology to all students for any distress he may have caused.
In the letter, McCarthy also addressed one of Gallup’s concerns about the tangents he took. “During the semester, some of my words may have been taken literally and hence misinterpreted,” he wrote.
“I assure you that in these cases I was merely presenting philosophical dilemmas and nothing more.”
Cody has stated that McCarthy will retain his position at MSU for the foreseeable future.
“All of McCarthy’s classes have been reassigned. McCarthy is currently on leave, with pay. At this point, our primary concern is his well-being. Several colleagues have visited McCarthy, and he has repeatedly expressed his concern for his students,” Cody said via email.
He said that the university has taken steps to ensure that students who were affected by the incident have the necessary emotional and educational support they need.
