Mike Conklin

Class Dismissed Mike Conklin

Every small, rural community has secrets, some harmless and embarrassing and others dark and ugly. No question what's hung over Harrison, a college town in southern Indiana. The mysterious death of Marlene Scott, a precocious high school student, has gone unsolved for 50 years. Enter Phillip J. (Flip) Doyle and a course he teaches at Harrison College, a sleepy, staid academic fortress yet to discover the 21st century. The school's ambitious, new president, Jonathan Casey, wants to change all this with new, barrier-breaking faculty like Flip and their curriculum proposals. First, Flip must tiptoe his way past tenure-obsessed colleagues, an entrenched dean, and arcane department meetings sure cures for insomnia. As a lowly, young instructor with no PhD to his name, it was a high wire act for him simply to introduce a writing course to the Harrison curriculum---judged by peers too utilitarian and not a credible higher ed offering. Through Flip's networking, the students got their work published in the local Hoosier-Record, helping to revive a struggling newspaper faculty considered a joke. And, looking back, it was inevitable the ambitious, young teacher and his merry band of bright students would run head-first into the Marlene Scott case. Could they solve a 50-year old murder mystery? Did new technology open doors to a solution? Could the killer be found on Google? Joining Flip and the students in this exercise was a helpful, young woman, Maria, an outsider who opened their eyes to a world under their noses. Little did they know her own story was as compelling as the one they chased.