MU announces firing of engineering professor

After a lengthy court battle with chemical engineering professor Dr. Galen Suppes, MU officially announced his firing from the college Monday morning.

“Dr. Suppes’ misconduct has impacted many of our students, staff and faculty over a very long period of time,” Elizabeth Loboa, dean of the College of Engineering, said. “As educators and employers, we want to promote an environment where individuals can thrive. We could not allow his behavior to continue impacting our community. After numerous attempts to counsel Dr. Suppes over the last several years, I became convinced that this action had to be taken.”

The termination, which was finalized on Aug. 18, comes after a jury ruled in favor of the university in its intellectual property case against Suppes.

“It has been our policy for many years not to release information about why individuals leave the university,” Provost Garnett S. Stokes said. “We have decided to make an exception in this case because we believe it is in the interest of the public and our campus community to know the details of the dismissal, and because Dr. Suppes himself has made public statements about the matter. We value tenure very highly at Mizzou, and it is only in unusual cases that we believe this type of action is warranted. By his own conduct, Dr. Suppes was interfering with the ability of our students to learn, our staff to work, and our faculty to teach, conduct their research, and engage in service activities. As a result, we believed it was our duty to take this action to improve Mizzou’s working and learning climate.”