Professor Daniel Gladish, who has taught a variety of courses, primarily about plants and biology, and Associate Professor of Anthropology John Cinnamon both were suspended, and both have appealed.
Brian Grubb, who was manager of the Conservatory, officially resigned that position under pressure. He also worked as a biological sciences instructor and was employed on a year-to-year basis.
The appeals process for the faculty members, which began last semester, is ongoing, said university spokeswoman Claire Wagner.
“We’re going through the hearing process,” she said. “Witnesses have testified, and the process resumes” this semester.
The three were praised by colleagues and members of the community in their personnel files. None has commented, nor have their lawyers.
University police and Drug Enforcement Administration agents visited The Conservatory on Nov. 26, 2018, where they interviewed people, took photos of an Iboga plant and confiscated it, before also visiting a student who allegedly took seedlings from the plant to grow on her own at home.
The police report does not indicate any plant roots were used to create drugs, and nobody was charged.
A colleague in the field, Ernesto Sandoval, who is manager of the University of California-Davis Botanical Conservatory, has criticized Miami for the actions, calling the suspensions “an incredible over-reaction.”
A Miami official wrote that the faculty violated Miami’s Drug Free Workplace Policy and the Reporting and Addressing Illegal Activity and Misconduct policy.
Grubb, defending himself in an April letter to Dean Cathy Bishop Clark, noted the tree was at the Conservancy nine years before he was hired as its manager.
“I did not introduce any of these plants into the collection and I have removed them all, once I was informed of their toxic effects,” he wrote.
He added he helped police to the best of his ability, and, “I cannot stress enough that no one involved was charged with a crime.”
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