Ex-UMaine student blames bank mix-up for dismissal

BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY BRIDGET BROWN ?I?m just going to keep fighting this thing as long as I have to,? said former University of Maine student John Marshall of Dover-Foxcroft. Marshall is on academic suspension from the school where he was a freshman last year studying international affairs. His photo was posted on the school?s online message board as a person of interest in an ATM theft, which was later attributed to a mix-up. This, along with other family issues, lead to his grades suffering, he said, and now he wants a second chance to prove himself at the school.

DOVER-FOXCROFT, Maine — John Marshall, 19, a former honor roll student at Foxcroft Academy, had high hopes when he entered his freshman year at the University of Maine in Orono in September 2007.

Marshall’s sights at UMaine had been set on international affairs, but he soon learned the sights of UMaine’s police were for a short time set on him, which he says led to the disruption of his studies and eventually an academic suspension.

Four weeks into his freshman year, Marshall said, he learned a photograph of him was posted online by police in two places under an announcement and alert section of the campus’s internal conferencing network.

The network bulletin sought information about the man in the photograph which had been taken by a security camera at an ATM machine. While police asked the university community to identify the person so they could speak to him, Marshall said, he eventually learned police believed he had fraudulently withdrawn money from someone else’s account, when he had not.

The day after the photograph was displayed, Marshall said, he learned his credit union had made a mistake by issuing the same account number to two people. While he knew there was a mistake, others did not, and he became an object of interest to people who recognized him from his online photograph, he said.

“People started looking at me funny. Well, some of them thought I had done something wrong,” Marshall said. “It was a weird situation and it was stressful.”

Matt Walsh, president of the University Credit Union, said last week the mix-up was an unfortunate situation and was taken seriously.

“Errors do happen, and I apologized to Mr. Marshall,” he said.

Marshall’s ATM card had been coded wrong, Walsh said. The credit union employee who opened Marshall’s account recognized there was a high probability of an issue with his card and the employee tried to contact Marshall by telephone and e-mail without success, Walsh said.

At the same time, the credit union was working with another customer who was having trouble with his account and the police became involved.

The error was quickly fixed when Marshall contacted the police, he said. Walsh said it was his understanding that Marshall’s photograph had been online for only a few hours.

Joe Carr, university spokesman, said recently that police posted the photo in order to talk with Marshall. It was not a wanted poster, just a request for information, he said. It’s “very rare” that a photograph is placed on the alert, he said.

Carr said one of the photographs was removed a couple of hours after it had been posted. The longest the second photograph of Marshall was posted on another online folder was for seven hours and 32 minutes, Carr said.

According to Marshall, his photograph was posted in two places and one of them was not removed until a couple of weeks later.

Despite the fact it was not a wanted poster, Marshall said, “It was embarrassing.”

Marshall said he became overwhelmed with what people thought of him and his grades began to slip. Then his mother, Frances Marshall, 78, of Dover-Foxcroft began having problems with her housing and the two issues consumed him, he recalled.

“My focus wasn’t there [on my studies],” Marshall said, so his grades started to slip and he was unable to catch up. Marshall said he knew there were academic advisers on campus, but was unaware counselors were available. Had he known, he would have sought their help, he said.

Marshall said he began to lose track of his classes and floundered academically the first year, so much so that he was placed on academic suspension for a semester. The suspension or “time out” meant Marshall could not return to UMaine this fall and that he would have to reapply to return the second semester with no guarantees he would be accepted back.

Because of the extenuating circumstances involving his first year, Marshall filed an appeal with the university, but the appeal was denied. He said the hard-earned scholarships he received at his high school graduation are now at stake.

“I am ashamed and angry that I let this [grades slide] happen in my life,” Marshall said. “I should be in my classes, making up the grades that were bad, moving on, not staying at home.”

His time now is spent volunteering at Center Theatre, helping a friend of the family and working for a local business.

The young man believes he would still be a student had it not been for the ATM mix-up and his worries about his elderly mother, who adopted him when he was 3 days old.

“I was wasting [so much] time with this whole ATM thing that I started to lose track of some of my classes,” Marshall said. “Then, I knew something was going on with my mother. I didn’t know, well, what to do in the situation.” Even after he was issued a new ATM card, Marshall didn’t dare use it, he said.

Marshall said it bothered him that credit union officials and the police made light of the situation. After they learned of the mix-up, the police laughed and thought it was funny, he recalled. He said he was told, “welcome to the ‘real’ world, John.” The credit union official also “pretty much laughed it off and gave me a new card,” he said.

Had it not occurred, his mind would have been on his studies, so he doesn’t understand why the extenuating circumstances did not lead to the granting of his appeal.

Carr said Marshall’s appeal went through the system’s process for reviewing decisions.

“The university has a set of policies that are meant to provide ways to uphold the university’s academic standards while assuring fundamental fairness,” he said. “The academic action process is serious and deliberate, involving people of high integrity who are committed to the process in finding the appropriate outcomes.”

According to the university’s online catalog, an accumulative grade point average of lower than 1.5 at the end of a first-year student’s first two semesters is cause for academic suspension of one semester. Marshall said his accumulative average was 1.39.

“When a student is suspended for academic reasons, the option exists for them to reapply for readmission after a semester,” Carr said. In addition, these students can take up to two non-degree courses with university permission.

Marshall said Wednesday that a university official this week called and offered to allow him to take an online calculus course this fall with the understanding that if he passed the course — a course he failed last year — then he would be allowed to enroll for classes in the semester starting in January. The only catch, Marshall indicated, is that the course costs $900, which he does not have at this time and which financial aid will not cover for a part-time student.

Marshall recognizes the policy says he must wait out the first semester of this school year before he can file for re-admission, but he worries about the loans he took out for school and the scholarships he earned.

“I feel that I have the right to continue on at college and prove to myself first that I am a productive young person and prove to you folks that I am proud to be able to get back where I belong,” he said.

There should be some way for the university to help freshmen who fall victim to extenuating circumstances, Marshall said. “However, I realize this is the real world.”