Reaction to Web Site

The student community was slow to respond to the announcements, but Ehrenfels received many requests for additional information from concerned psychology majors. "They (students) were more concerned about their futures than about the quality of their education," remarked Ehrenfels, "which prompted me to reassess tactics. While I would not say that I receive a high volume of e-mails from psychology majors, I frequently receive an e-mail that causes me to upgrade the status of a mailing from 'unresponsive' to 'very responsive' for a given university. I remember one student in particular who wrote to inform me that I have had quite a 'scandalous' effect on the student community, that ShadowPsychology had become quite a gossip among students who felt wronged by this one professor."

Ehrenfels also disclosed the recruitment of local evangelists or operatives at colleges across the country. Ehrenfels defines an 'operative' as someone willing to monitor the pulse of his or her community. One such operative tipped Ehrenfels off to the actions of an academic advisor, who distributed a memo to her student body warning the students not to read any e-mails from Ehrenfels. "This was a huge boon to me. Up to this point, I had not received any correspondence so I assumed my e-mails had either failed to reach the students or failed to rouse any kind of response." The memo, distributed to the majors over a listserv, was independently verified by Ehrenfels, who visited the archives on line. "The student also added that he had spoken to a number of psychology majors who he said had 'suspended judgment,' indicating they just did not know what to think at this time. My operative proved instrumental here. I have reason to believe that he had helped them to keep an open mind. This is important because the psychology majors are more disposed to agree with their professors, authority figures -- plural -- who are visible on a daily basis and in whom their futures are vested. I am aware that many professors have attempted to deflect credence in my web site by casting quasi-plausible aspersions on my motives. 'He is digruntled,' they say; or 'he couldn't cut it in the field, so he's angry.' And these impressionable students, who want to continue to believe good things about their major and prospective profession, think 'that makes sense' or 'that's good enough for me.'"

Within the past four days, an analysis of fireflySun.com web logs revealed a barrage of accesses from a cluster of similar IP addresses traceable to the city of San Jose, CA. "Now this intrigued me. The four IP addresses accounted for an inordinate number of visits." After extensive research into the addresses, Ehrenfels reported grounds for speculation that the IP addresses represent a group of PCs in a computer lab. "The flurry of diverse web activity associated with these addresses in my opinion rules out adjacent faculty offices, but the psychological nature of some of the other sites accessed from these PCs suggest students."

Not that Ehrenfels is unwise to reports of faculty activity. With adjunct instructors among the ranks of his operatives, Ehrenfels was able to obtain a firsthand account of a female assistant professor who, according to the report, ran down the hallway to call the attention of another faculty member to the web site. "In the words of my associate, the professor said, 'Did you see this guy's web site?! He must be schizophrenic and narcissistic.'" Ehrenfels withheld the name of the university to avoid compromising the identity or operations of his associate. "I will tell you my associate friend was quite distressed by her colleague's reaction. The reaction alone had set in motion a chain of observations that opened her eyes to the anti-intellectual climate of that department."

Ehrenfels reports having had to assume a counseling role to help students cope with the stress caused by a critical mass of new evidence that his argument had merit. "I have been planting seeds. Naturally, not much of what I say now will resonate with the young undergraduates. Some arguments will take time to sink in. But other arguments, like those pertaining to the odds and obstacles of admission to graduate school, sink in right away."

With new tools in his promotional and presentational arsenal, and with the release of his book imminent, Ehrenfels looks forward to a gathering storm of response. "The climate is about to change."