LACROSSE, Wis. — A faculty committee recommended unanimously that the former chancellor of the University Wisconsin-LaCrosse, Joe Gow, be stripped of his faculty status for producing his explicit “Happy Sex” videos with his wife. The UW system’s governing board now will hold its own hearing. At issue is a tradition of allowing former chancellors to retire to tenured faculty status. The committee conducted two days of hearings in June on 12 allegations of unethical conduct. In summarizing its conclusion, the five-member faculty committee did not dispute Gow’s right to undertake activities in his private life but added a big “but”: “However, Professor Gow’s private life is now public by his choice; his private conduct is entangled with his professional role as a UW-L faculty member; and how he has acted since the discovery of his pornographic content has affected UW-L and the rights of its other employees.”
Core issues
The committee found that Gow referred to his work at the university in several videos. This was despite several independent reviews of the videos that found Gow referring himself and his wife only obliquely as being in prominent professional careers. The report alos said that Gow wrote about hiring sex workers around the country, sometimes within an hour of La Crosse. Also, he report said, Gow acknowledged that his activities might be illegal. These were claims that Gow denied at the hearing and claimed were at most out of context.
Poetic license? Dishonesty?
Gow also said at the hearing he sometimes took creative license in his narratives and that some things were more fanciful than intended to be taken as fact. The committee, however, was unamused at Gow’s colorful if not literally correct commentaries and declared that he showed a lack of intellectual honesty and was thus was unfit to teach. The committee also cited technicalities., most of which Gow denied, that he :
> Impeded the university’s investigation after he was removed as chancellor.
> Deleted pertinent evidence from his computers before turning them in after he was fired.
> Misused campus technology to further his online adult profile.
> Failed to take “timely action” to remove sex toy vendor emails from his inbox.
> Used his email to purchase two pornographic books in 2016.
> Downloaded a co-performer release from pornographic website xhamster and printed the form using a campus printer.
Earlier: UW-LaCrosse showdown: Gow v. regents
Gow. A setback at faculty review level. Fate on professorial status still up to UW regents.
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Authorship concealed. Gow and professor-wife Carmen Wilson wrote two books with pen names. They identified themselves as “energetic executives.” Their personas were visible in subsequent explicit sex videos bit never with their names or U-WL affiliation.
WSU link
From 2001 to2004 Gow was dean of liberal arts at Winona State, the largest of the university’s five colleges. Later was liberal arts dean at Wesleyan University in Nebraska, then president. Then 16 years to UW-L as chancellor.