An assistant professor in the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism was arrested early Wednesday morning for burglary and sexual misconduct.
Tyler Hack, 29, was held overnight at the Boone County Jail on $25,000 bail. He was released Thursday afternoon.
The police arrested Hack after responding to a call at the 1100 block of West Broadway at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday, Columbia Police Department spokeswoman Latisha Stroer said.
Hack entered his neighbor’s house through an unlocked back door. The neighbor was asleep and woke up to Hack fondling him.
Hack taught classes in sports management at MU but was scheduled to leave at the end of this semester. He had accepted a new position elsewhere, MU junior Matthew Coleman said. Coleman took a class Hack taught last semester.
Coleman said he had a positive experience with Hack, who he called an all-around good guy.
“He is extremely smart and dedicated,” Coleman said. “He is (a) good teacher, too.”
Junior Caleb Fair was enrolled in four of Hack’s classes this semester. He heard about the arrest from a friend.
“When I read the article and found out why, I was like ‘oh dang,'” Fair said. “That makes it 10 times worse.”
Fair said his friends in the class were also surprised at the news of Hack’s arrest. They all thought of him as a “normal guy.”
“That’s stuff you hear about but never think it is going to be the professor you had all semester,” Fair said.
Coleman found the arrest hard to believe as well.
“In my opinion, something was wrong,” Coleman said. “It did not make any sense. It is not something (Hack) would do. It was out of character and irregular.”
Fair posted a link about the arrest on the Facebook page “Overheard at Mizzou.” The post had more than 350 likes at press time.
MU does not have a policy on how to deal with arrested professors, MU spokesman Christian Basi said. Every case is examined individually.
“There are always different circumstances surrounding a situation,” Basi said.
Basi could not comment further because Hack’s situation is a personal issue.
The School of Natural Resources and the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism declined to comment.