A series by November

Chapter 82: A Good Defense

In the last week of the semester Rogue put on a brave face and went back to campus. She finished her thesis while everyone else was doing finals. Her other professors, perhaps cajoled by Dr. Pileggi, stated that if she took the tests she could do without retaking the course. She was able to scrounge up the class notes of some of her peers and make sense of them.

Her thesis committee had consisted of Dr. Pileggi, Dean Jeffries and Dr. Goldstein. Goldstein had gone to Scotland for a yearlong sabbatical and Rogue needed a third advisor.

“How about Hank McCoy,” Rogue said to Dr. Pileggi one day.

“You want me to let your friend on your thesis committee?” She was incredulous.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Rogue was used to having to explain herself to Judy. She no longer found it intimidating. It had taught her intellectual accountability.

“Well because he’s a Rhodes freakin’ scholar for one, he knows probably more than anyone on the planet about mutation manifestation, and because he’s a consummate scientist who would never let me off the hook because I know him personally. Besides, you could consider him sort of like a consultant, an expert in one aspect of my thesis.”

“Fine. Ask McCoy.”

Hank was delighted to sit in on the committee. He made her wait until August but that was fine with her. She took the opportunity to finish the rest of her classes. Despite using the notes of other students and having to reconstruct the curriculum from them, she did fairly well. She just wanted to graduate.

August arrived and Rogue put on her suit and gathered her visual aids and got ready for her defense. Logan, Maggie, Xavier, and Jean wanted to come along.

The title of the thesis was Adolescent Mutation Manifestion: Concurrance with Axis One Disorders and Implications for Treatment. Rogue had busted her ass on it for years and was not a bit nervous.

She was a bit surprised when the classroom was near-full. Someone from the WCC times had come. A lot of people were from the social work department and were just interested in the topic. At the last moment Scott and Leah came.

Rogue stood at the front with her overhead projector, looking over the crowd. She was excited.

“I didn’t think it would be standing room only,” she joked.

Dr. Pileggi and Dean Jeffries wre already seated at the table in front. Hank came in and squeezed into the chair next to them. She glanced at Logan. She smiled. He gave her such strength.

Logan watched her, fascinated, as she talked about case histories, diagnostic axes, and statistical significance. It took her about a half hour to get through her research, another five minutes to explain the implications.

"From these data and from accepted clinical practice in other disciplines, we can put together a model of counseling curriculum for new manifesters. One of the dimensions is debriefing: telling the kid what mutation is, what it isn't, that there are others like him or her. Another dimension is socialization, which is best afforded in a school or group home situation. Adolescent subjects identify the most crucial factor in their transition as identification of peers or adults whose mutations to not ruin their lives. A third dimension is counseling. These children need counselors, and counselors with a specialty in genetics."

"Based on these data I believe that proper and timely intervention after a mutation manifestation can reduce the risk of Axis One psychiatric disorders, especially depression, OCD, PTSD, and eating disorders."

She scanned the faces of her audience. Judy Pileggi had heard it a million times. Dean Jeffries looked intrigued. Hank was making copious notes. She could do this in her sleep. Then came the tough part, the questions.

Hank was first. “I’m concerned with your scale to measure the intensity of manifestation experience. Where did you get those numbers from?”

“From the subjects themselves. They were administered a questionnaire from a blind evaluator.”

“Don’t you think it’s possible that their assessment of the severity of the manifestation may be a function of, or biased by, the clinical presentation and diagnosis?”

“It’s possible. I’d be interested in hearing ideas on more objective ways of measuring that data.”

“There is a scale called the Life Events Stress Scale. It’s another objective scale, though empirically derived,” Dr. Pileggi said.

“So one avenue to take would be to explore the development of an objective measure of mutation severity. I agree.” Rogue smiled.

Maggie was lost. Logan was fascinated and most of the statistical analysis somehow made sense to him.

“Questions?”

Dean Jeffries spoke. “I think you’ve made a mistake that a lot of undergrads do, in that the scope of their thesis is too broad. I think it’s a bit too ambitious, though I find your methods, as always, to be sound.” He smiled.

Rogue smiled too. She knew that he was referring to the Dr. Kahn debacle. “Well, when I apply to grad school you know I won’t have any shortage of research ideas.” she said gracefully. Everyone laughed.

Logan was chafing. Who was this fucker to tell his Marie that she’d made a mistake?

She met his eyes. Chill. In a year of marriage she had learned to communicate that to him as clearly as if one of them had been a telepath.

“I have another question,” Hank said.

“Dr. McCoy?” She smiled, bracing herself. She had known that Hank would ask the tough ones, even when she’d decided to broach the subject of his sitting on the committee.

“Have you considered attempting to correlate manifestation intensity with level of mutation, just to see how the results would play out?”

“I’d love to study that. Obviously that’s beyond my means right at this point, though it would be interesting to see if it holds up as an objective measure of manifestation intensity. Maybe we can collaborate on that in the future.” She smiled. Some of the people watching chuckled, unaware that Marie was affiliated with Hank through Xavier’s.

“Absolutely,” he said.

Logan was in awe at the grace with which she handled herself. The whole setup seemed hostile to him, but she was alert and relaxed. Therefore he relaxed, because he could trust his girl to hold her own. And she did.

“Did you use independant raters to see that there was interrater reliability?” Jeffries asked.

“I would have loved to, but as you pointed out the means and scope of an undergrad are limited. If I replicate this, one of the first things I intend to do is to use multiple independent raters.” She nodded. “Other questions?”

“I have a question for Dr. McCoy,” Jeffries said.

“Okay.” Rogue looked surprised but watched the two men speak.

“When you referred to level of mutation, can you tell me what you were referring to.”

“Certainly, I’m sorry. Mutations involving the X gene all have different intensities. We have devised a mathematical measure of intensity buy relating the ratio of genetic expression, that is the amount of mutation-related RNA, to the amount of genetic code on the X-gene. More simply put, the strongest mutations are alpha mutations. The stronger telepaths, shape shifters, et cetera are usually alphas. Then there are the less strong betas, and so forth.”

“Thank you.”

“Any other questions from the advisors?” There were none.

“We’ll confer now,” Dr. Pileggi said and walked out with Hank and Jeffries.

“Questions from the audience?”

Xavier raised his hand. “Some time ago we talked about the development of a residential program for abandoned mutant children. How have your findings in this study impacted that idea, if at all?”

“Good question,” Rogue smiled. She hadn’t expected to have an audience to take questions from other than her advisors.

In the hall, Rogue’s thesis committee was laughing. It was a foregone conclusion that they would pass her. However, Dr. Pileggi was relating to them the story of how Rogue statistically proved that Dr. Kahn was a biased grader.

“I was one of the raters,” Hank said.

“Well that sounds rather biased,” Jeffries said warily.

“Not at all. She whited out the names on the tests and even had someone else copy her answers so that I wouldn’t recognize her handwriting.”

“See what I mean, it was methodologically perfect.”

“Is she really applying for grad school here?”

“I think so. I’m surprised she came back this summer, actually.”

“She’s a trooper,” Pileggi said.

“That she is,” Hank concurred.

Inside the classroom, the discussion had become less academic and more experiential. Some students were tossing out ideas for different dimensions of a scale to evaluate a person’s environmental response to manifestation, such as violence, denial, ostracism, and accidental injury or death.

There were no more questions so the students filed out. Her people stayed behind.

“You did great,” Jean said.

“Thanks.”

“You handle constructive criticism with a lot of grace.”

“Just trying to keep Logan calm,” she smiled.

“Hey, I’m not an animal. I can handle intellectual discourse without getting violent.” He looked slightly miffed.

“I was kidding, honey.”

“So what are you doing next, Rogue?” Xavier wanted her in earnest to go to work for him in developing his residential program, but he would not stop her from going to grad school.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re more than welcome to come work with Hank and I,” Jean said.

“I don’t know jack about genetics,” Rogue said.

“But we do. You’re the clinical person.”

“Well, we do have a perfect subject pool, though I doubt JAMA would feel that way.”

“Ah, so we do an adjunct at an inner city school to control for selection bias. No problem.”

“It’s tempting.”

Just then, Pileggi, Hank, and Jeffries walked in.

“Okay,” Pileggi said in her usual no-nonsense way. “You’re graduated.”

“Yay! Finally.” Rogue shook hands with all three advisors and thanked them for sitting on her committee.

“Doctor McCoy, may I have a word?” Jeffries said. The two men went out into the hall.

"What was that about?" Xavier asked.

"I have no idea," Rogue said.

Xavier took everyone, Pileggi and McCoy included, to the Four Seasons in honor of Rogue’s defense. She felt light and happy, poised and together in her black suit, the pain of losing the baby a little less, with her arm around Logan and all her friends close.

Hank come alone, and arrived a little late.

“So Hank, what did the Dean want?”

“He offered me a job.”

“That’s great!”

“I’m not sure I should take it. I question his motivations.”

“How so?” Rogue asked.

“He wants me to teach an advanced genetics seminar.” He didn’t notice that Jean looked momentarily jealous. It had chafed her that Rogue had automatically selected Hank for her committee, though he was more qualified than Jean. He had more education and research experience. Her forte was more clinical.

“What do you think his motivations are, Hank?” Xavier asked.

“I get the sense that he’s an opportunist,” Hank put down the roll he held in his giant hand. “Mutation is becoming the next big thing in academia. I actually heard someone use the term “mutant chic” on Friends the other night. I’m not sure if I want to feed into that sensationalism.”

“Just because his motivations are off doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be a good thing.” Rogue said. “One thing I’ve learned is that there is a lot of well-meant interest among students, the desire to understand mutation. You could do that while being a role model. Show ‘em that you can be blue and still be a kick ass teacher.”

“Rogue, dear, I’m afraid you overestimate my teaching abilities.”

“Bullshit,” she said demurely, sipping her wine.

“Henry, you’re an excellent teacher.” Charles said.

“Thank you, my friends. I must confess that a lot of my reluctance is simply fear of harassment and violence.”

“Tell you what, Hank. You teach the class and I’ll be your personal bodyguard.” Logan said. “That way you can concentrate on teaching, and I can audit the class while keeping tabs on the riffraff.”

“I do admit that it’s tempting.”

“I want to take it too,” Rogue said.

“I didn’t know you were interested in genetics, Logan,” Xavier said.

“Of course I am. I’m a mutant, aren’t I?”

“You’re a renaissance man, Logan,” Charles said, lifting his glass to him. “Henry, if you wish to teach the class you couldn’t be in better hands than with Logan.”

“I’ll think about it,” Hank said.