Professor Hospitalized After Being Attacked In Parking Garage At Kendall Campus

A 31-year-old music and humanities professor at Kendall Campus sustained a bloody nose, bruises to the head, and injuries to the jaw after he was attacked in a parking garage on campus, according to a Miami-Dade Police Department report.

Marc Magellan, who teaches Introduction to the Humanities, Music Appreciation, and Music Theory I, was transported to Baptist Hospital in Kendall. He was discharged several hours later.

“The investigative position is that the simple battery occurred as a result of a student being ejected from the professor’s class days earlier,” said Alvaro Zabaleta, a detective for the Miami-Dade Police Department.

The incident happened on April 15 at around 6 p.m. on the third floor of Parking Garage L located on the northwest side of the campus, just south of the baseball field. Nothing was reported stolen from Magellan during the incident.

According to the police report, as Magellan walked through the garage he was confronted by a 5-foot-10 inch,  black male, with a medium build and an afro, who yelled  “Professor, Marc,” before striking him in the face. As Magellan fell to the floor, the suspect crouched over him and “continued to punch him unmercifully.”  

“The aggressor ran down to the second floor, where a dark blue sports car was waiting for him,” according to Marc Magellan’s mother, Marta Magellan, who is also a professor at Kendall Campus.

Marta Magellan was not with her son at the time of the attack. Marc Magellan did not want to be interviewed at this time, concerning the incident.

“It was probably one of  those brainless thugs, who was put up to it by someone else,” Marta Magellan said. “It seems impossible to me that it was one of my son’s students because students know if they want a good grade, they have to study, not beat up a faculty member. So although a lot of people are thinking it could have been a disgruntled student, I can’t imagine what student at Kendall would be so uncivilized and so lacking in intelligence as to resort to uncivilized behavior, that clueless of what it means to get an education.”

Police said the investigation is ongoing. No arrests had been made at the time this issue went to press.

Kendall Campus President Lourdes Oroza sent an email to faculty and staff the day after the incident.

“Our thoughts are with him as he recovers,” Oroza said in the email. “We take these incidents very seriously. Although the investigation is ongoing, it appears to have been a very isolated incident. There is not much else we can share with you at the present time. This is a very safe campus. In an abundance of caution, we have further elevated our security. Regardless of any situation, I urge you to always be vigilant.”

The incident left  Magellan’s colleagues with some cause for concern.

“You know, I’ve been [at MDC] for probably about 28 years now…and this is really the first time that anything like this has happened,” said Kenneth Boos, a music professor at Kendall Campus. “It changes the dynamic of the institution.”

Marc Magellan’s co-workers describe him as engaging, passionate and student-friendly. The popular professor,  an accomplished jazz and blues guitar player, earned a bachelors degree in music business and entertainment industries from the University of Miami in 2005 and a masters in music theory from Florida State University in 2009. Magellan, a Miami native and 2001 Coral Reef High School graduate, has been teaching at the College for more than  two years.

“He is very intelligent, easygoing, cares about the students a lot, and just a overall nice guy,” said music professor Leo Walz.

Magellan’s mother, Marta, called for tighter security measures.  

“What happened to my son was one of those inexplicable things, yet, had there been security cameras there, we would have had a chance of catching the aggressor,” she said.

Staff writer Stephanie Fernandez contributed to this report.