Michael Simonson is gone, but no one is saying why. However, many are speculating why.

The education professor has been placed on administrative leave since Feb. 25. University officials say matters of administrative leave are always confidential.

However, if a professor is placed on leave because of health circumstances, an overseas teaching opportunity or a research assignment, officials are usually quick to point that out.

University officials, especially in the College of Education, are not denying or admitting if any of those are reasons for placing Simonson on leave. Nevertheless, this makes the mind wonder about the possibilities of why he could be on leave, since the university will not comment on the reason.

Is Simonson on leave for health problems? Is he gone because he will be having a sex change? Is he gone because of some legal troubles with the university? Is he gone because he has legal troubles outside of the university?

The mind can think of many reasons as to why Simonson is gone. None, however, will be satisfactory unless one of them is the truth, which is not being told.

All students, especially those who have Simonson as a professor, deserve an answer, however trivial or serious it may be.

It does not have to be a detailed one, but a simple and straightforward answer that will stop people from looming the possibilities of why Simonson is gone.

People are already speculating about why he is gone. People may also be spreading rumors regarding Simonson’s leave. Any rumors of the sort could be stopped if only the university would give students some kind of an answer besides “no comment.”

Simonson is, after all, a public university official whose students deserve the right to know why he left them in mid-semester without a simple explanation, without a statement or without a clue.