Patrick Menzies – he's the outspoken activist who came out against the University of Belize a month ago for the excessive fees being charged to students in the bachelor's programmes.
Only problem was, Menzies was working at UB when he did that. He was also backed up by a number of students who did the research. In a statement, the University Administration said it applauded the students for raising the issues. But, applause is not what Menzies got.
When he showed up on Monday of this week to teach his Management Information Systems Class, he was told the class had been handed over to another lecturer. Menzies told us he wasn't given any notice:…
Patrick Menzies - FORMER Adjunct Lecturer, UB
"My students applied knowledge - my students gave UB freely a study of what the problems were and how to fix it and I told my students this shouldn't be a problem. Well, the problem hit me. I went to the class Monday of this week because I was scheduled to teach and everyone in the media would ask me if I was sure I was going to have my job and I said I really don't think that UB is going to be really that ridiculous to try and tell me to go home. I get up and asked my students if the class was open and they told me it was locked so I went downstairs for the key and this guy walked besides me with the same key so I asked him how could he get it before, if it's my class. So I asked him which class he's teaching and he told me and I told him 'well that's my class'. The secretary calls the office and finally said 'Mr. Menzies that class belongs to the other lecturer'. I have recorded emails that between March 22nd - 25th I was asked to teach this class - no where have they ever told me, at no time that the class was going to be taken away from me, never."
Jules Vasquez
"But now the class has been taken away from you. Were you given a reason for that?"
Patrick Menzies
"Yes I was given a reason, this reason was because this new guy came on board one month ago and he's the new director of IT and they normally give these guys a class so they wanted to give him my class. The guy was hired two weeks ago and he was told Monday morning that he had the class. The guy asked me to borrow my book and that he doesn't have a book."
Jules Vasquez
"How do you answer the criticism that you could do to anything you want but you cannot work at a place as have a press conference to put your boss on blast - can't do that, nowhere in the world."
Patrick Menzies
"Really, I disagree with that -one - that nowhere in the world and number two this is a democracy and number three I am not an employee of the University and I refuse to be their employee that's why I'm an adjunct. I was leaving Belize for about 6 months to a year or two years, I am leaving Belize for a few weeks, I'm staying folks - I am fighting this because another Belizean should not have to go through what I went through."
That fight includes a lawsuit for wrongful dismissal that Menzies says he's going to take up against the school. Menzies says this would have been his last class after teaching at UB for a total of 18 months. In the January 2013 semester, he was assigned to teach three classes.
But, today a University spokesperson said Patrick Menzies was not on the official adjunct list so he could not have been fired, since he was never officially hired.
He added that it is the furthest thing from the truth to say that he was fired in connections with the research he and the students presented.
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