Campus response to the story former Writer-in-Residence Sam Kashner wrote for the October issue of GQ has been varied. Many classes were even interrupted by a discussion as to whether or not the events in the article were true.

The article, which was under the heading of "First Person," implied that Kashner had an affair with one of his married students that caused the woman's husband to commit suicide. The article also said that several of Kashner's students had made sexual advances towards him.

Although the GQ story was ambivalent about whether or not the piece was true, students and professors had their own ideas.

"It's all a very complicated mix of fact and fiction," modern language professor Tony Anemone said. "No one who has spent two minutes on William and Mary's campus would think the things described were typical ... The faculty that I speak to are more concerned with [the question of] ... is it ethical to write an article that looks like a first person article when it isn't?"

Sociology professor Kate Slevin found the piece misleading.

"The asterisk at the bottom [saying that names had been changed] ... implies that everything is factual," Slevin said. "That's what adds to the muckiness or mudiness of our responses to them."

English professor Chris Bongie would not respond to Kashner's story.

"I think most people in the department would say they have no comment," he said.

Senior Jed Davies has been taking a class with English professor Nancy Schoenberger, Kashner's wife, this semester. Because Schoenberger was finishing up a large project, Kashner has helped teach the classes. Davies also thought the piece contained non-fictional and fictional elements.

"Sam Kashner using the first person -- that's a combination of him and other professors he knows and his imagination," Davies said.

Davies said that Kashner spoke in class about art extending beyond the boundaries, so that fiction includes more non-fictional aspects, while non-fiction tends toward the fictional.

"The thing about all art, that is the most important thing about it, ... is that it's always going to slip around the corners of its containment," Davies said. "Sure, it could have been [set at any college] and the piece still could have worked ... but there's a lot more realism in that [including the College's name] ... even if 99 percent of your readers don't know the place that you're talking about."

Kashner was supposed to teach his wife's class again this week, but Schoenberger returned a week early. According to Davies, about half an hour was spent talking about the story in GQ.

The piece reminded junior Tyler Henry of the movie "American Beauty."

"People are opening up to the idea that grown men are still really attracted to young women," Henry said.

Henry and Davies both had a personal connection to the story.

"The sample story [in the article] was written by a friend of mine," Henry said. "It comes across as fictional for anybody looking at it realistically ... If you really knew the people well, you could identify them."

Davies knew one of Kashner's students who did a class project that required her to interview people about how they lost their virginity. Henry doesn't believe Kashner went too far in writing the piece.

"It wasn't a cover story. It was buried pretty far back in GQ," Henry said. "It wasn't like Sam Kashner was saying 'Here we are at William and Mary, and it's crazy. All we do is f--k all the time.'"

Anemone also didn't criticize Kashner for his actions, but he found the piece's ambiguity a concern.

"One can't be critical of him [Kashner] for doing something he didn't do ... I'm not defending anything that happened in Kashner's article," Anemone said. "Where I am critical of him is for playing a game between fiction and autobiography ... Here's a case where he's doing bad things to other people by doing this literary game."

Schoenberger said she can't comment further on the piece.

"Sam [Kashner] stands by his story," Schoenberger said. "I think Sam Kashner is the most moral person I know."

Anemone considered the issues within an historical context.

"Plato talks about teaching and the whole issue of the erotics of teaching," Anemone said. "Our shock and outrage at it shows a lack of historical sense and consciousness about what's going on."

The College's policy on consensual amorous relationships was passed in 1991. It insists that the faculty report any romantic student relationship where the faculty member has a position of power in relation to the student.

That power role could include grading, evaluating or supervising. The faculty is also advised against participating in such a relationship. Slevin was involved in the discussions in 1991 about the campus' policy on consensual amorous relationships.

"I know a number of us wanted a stronger policy, but this was the one that passed," Slevin said. "We wanted to say 'Look, just don't do it' ... There was a camp of male faculty in the law school ... a camp that was quite opposed to any legislation about faculty-student relations."

Anemone believed the policy is appropriate in its present form.

"People do bad things. That's why we have policies," Anemone said. "We're in a society, and William and Mary is a part of that society where consensual relationships are a part of people's lives."

The policy proves the behavior exists, Davies said.

"You know that there have been faculty-student relationships or there wouldn't be rules about it," Davies said. "Some professors are 25, and some students are 23. That makes sense to me."

The talk and controversy surrounding the article will be short-lived, Davies said.

"It's just one of the funny knacks about art," he said. "It's going to piss people off for another month, and then people are going to forget about it."