The petition
***ATTENTION!!!! 9/14/07: Today I received a communication from ipetitions.com stating that they were forced to remove the program director's name from this petition because they had received a direct complaint regarding this and could not afford a possible lawsuit. Please be aware that the authors of this petition had nothing to with the removal of the name throughout this petition.
NOTE - 8/23/07: Certain elements of this petition were revised today to reflect that the problems related to the Dean and her leadership and questionable practices in the School of Psychology and Counseling, are in question only in the Masters in Counseling program, not the PsyD or PhD programs.
.: FINAL SUBMITTED VERSION - 6/29/07 :.
Note: Thanks to everyone for their encouragement and input. We turned in hard copies of this petition to the following people this afternoon (Friday, June 29, 2007): Dr. Randall Pannell, Dr. Jeffrey Pittman, Dr. Pat Robertson, Ms. Martha Smith, Regent’s Board of Trustees, and the Executive Committee of Regent University. The names of students and parents DID NOT appear on the petition, but the final count of signatures was 54!!! Thank you for your support! Please keep us in your prayers!!
_______________________________
June 29, 2007
To Dr. Robertson, Dr. Pannell, Dr. Pittman, Ms. Smith, our Board of Trustees and Executive Committee;
Greetings from the community members of the School of Psychology and Counseling at Regent University.
First, we thank you wholeheartedly for taking the time to hear our concerns. We have attempted to present to you here, facts that are both cogent and succinct. We have not embellished these facts, nor do we wish to promote the drawing of false conclusions.
In the past few weeks, five professors from the MA Counseling program, 2 professors from the PsyD program, 2 teaching assistants and 1 field placement coordinator have left the School of Psychology and Counseling here at Regent University. Our dean expressed to us that the departure of these professors was nothing more than “coincidental” and that there was no need for concern. We spoke with our professors, both those leaving and those staying, and received information contrary to what the dean had previously stated. We then proceeded with a Matthew 5 model to resolve this disparity in information.
(1) We requested a meeting with our dean, through our COGS senators, to resolve this incongruence and were refused.
(2) We then proceeded to contact Dr. Randall Pannell and eventually were granted a Town Hall Meeting with Dean Hughes as originally requested.
(3) Unfortunately, the dean was not forthcoming in the meeting, failed to validate any of our concerns or acknowledge that changes are in order, and refused to take responsibility for the problems arising in the environment of our program.
(4) We now come to you, as a “last resort” and are grieved that we sense this to be our only option left in order to restore peace, professionalism and integrity to our program.
We the undersigned, humbly petition the leadership of Regent University to commission a full, independent investigation into the business practices, governing procedures and policies implemented by our current dean, for the purpose of determining what is causing an “unacceptable” environment for professors and students to remain in our program.
From this investigation, we desire to see those things that are found to be in contrast to the mission, vision and foundational commitments of Regent University brought to the attention of our university leaders. Through the remediation of these issues, we hope to see the MA Counseling program once again become, as our school tenants state, “a family of God”. We hope to see only “high quality personnel” (people of BOTH high academic and spiritual excellence) teaching and administrating in our programs. Lastly, we yearn to see an environment of safety and autonomy in our program where dissent from students does not result in punishment and where the experience and discernment of faculty is honored and respected by the dean.
We respectfully petition the leaders of Regent University to take action in the following areas:
1. Commission an independent investigation into the business practices, governing procedures, and policies implemented by our current leadership—allegedly creating an “intolerable” environment contrary to Regent’s commitment of “providing exemplary physical and social environments which promote high morale and increased productivity”.
- Rationale/Related Concerns
• A 90% rate of turnover of MA Counseling faculty in the past four years.
• A 62% rate of turnover of full-time MA Counseling faculty in the 2006-2007 school year. (Including 5 professors resigning in the span of one week.)
• Concern over future retention of faculty and staff.
• Lack of acknowledgment by our current dean that changes need to be made to facilitate autonomy between faculty/students and herself.
• Low morale and pervasive feelings of helplessness and fear within the student body.
• Absence of validation from our dean regarding concerns about the “unhealthy” environment.
2. Focus special attention on the exit interviews (being conducted by Human Resources) of those professors and staff leaving the MA Counseling program.
- Rationale/Related Concerns
• Professors have been legally bound to keep confidentiality and not release sensitive information to students.
• Professors have expressed that this exit interview may be their only chance to be “heard” and to “tell their stories from beginning to end”.
3. Acknowledge and respond to the increasing concern of the MA Counseling student body as to the stability of the program and the experience, professionalism, and qualifications of the persons currently being interviewed for faculty positions as well as disconcertion regarding a professor hired to the program last summer. These events have appeared to go against the university’s distinctive of “employing high quality faculty and staff [..] who contribute effectively to meeting the university mission”.
- Rationale/Related Concerns
o On the matter of hiring/replacement;
• There is obvious instability in our program and the dean has not acknowledged this nor provided us with any hope that plans will be considered to remedy the environment so that future professors will be retained.
• The dean has stated that our “education will continue in the same quality mode that it has always been” and we are well aware each of our resigning professors holds an extensive and diverse clinical counseling experience. This has proved an invaluable piece of our experience here at Regent, which has been excellent up until this point. However, the past two interviewees have had PhD’s and admittedly very limited or NO clinical counseling experience. In addition to this, only one of the two individuals coming in for interviews this week is even a licensed professional counselor.
o On the matter of disconcerting behavior;
• Dr. **** was hired in the course of last summer by the dean and repeated the story to us numerous times of how she was “hired in the parking lot” of the SPC because of her previous personal connections with the dean. Numerous faculty, who were on staff at the time, have attested to the fact that they were not consulted on, or part of, Dr. ****“interviewing” or hiring process in any way, which is not standard procedure.
• This is also troubling because Dr. ****has little or no clinical counseling experience and does not hold her professional counseling license.
• Soon thereafter, Dr. ****was promoted to the position of Program Director of the MA Counseling program. This was done, again, solely by the dean and without consultation or notice given to the students and other faculty members.
• This matter could possibly be overlooked were it not for the consistently unprofessional behavior of Dr. ****in the classroom.
• Dr. ****has insisted on using politically incorrect terms in our classes that are offensive and insensitive. When students approached her regarding this, punitive measures were taken against them. (This incident will covered in further detail in Article 5, below.)
o Words commonly used in a derogatory way by Dr. **** during class: “brothas”, “hoes”, “gays”, “yuppies”, “homos”
• These words are not used as part of illustrations or classroom material (i.e. Dr. ****: “Did you know there’s five levels of hoes? Regular hoes, dirty hoes, skanky hoes…”)
• Dr. **** often uses statistics that seem unreliable and does not offer adequate citations or reference material to understand better her usage of these statistics, even upon request.
o Dr. **** stated in January 2007, “This is true. President Bush has said that he believes that every family in the United States makes $200,000 or more a year.” When students requested a reference for the quote, she claimed the statement was true, but that she did not have a reference because she said it “came out of her head”. Students have searched and have been unable to find this quote elsewhere.
o For further evidence of this, we would encourage you to review some of Dr. ****’s classroom powerpoint presentations (which contain countless slides of un-cited information).
• Dr. **** has, on many occasions, pulled students aside or into her office in order to discuss other students in a derogatory manner. She does not seem to realize that this is ungodly and unprofessional.
• Class time is disorganized. Discussions are frequently scattered and un-moderated. Students are often unsure of her expectations both during class time and out of class and she seems unable to adequately articulate these even when asked repeatedly for clarification.
• We do not wish for Dr. **** to be the focus of this petition. We bring these items to your attention in an effort to bring validity to our current concerns regarding the professionalism of our program, it’s Godliness and the quality/experience of professors being hired by our dean.
4. Call further investigation into to the alleged lying, policy infractions and other harmful actions taken by the current dean against several of the departing professors as well as the student body of the MA Counseling program.
- Rationale/Related Concerns
• In the dean’s initial email to student regarding the resignation of four professors in one day, she states, “There is a time for retirement, for caring for your family, and for God taking people in new directions. The coming together of circumstances for these folks at the same time are coincidental and not a reflection of anything else.” However, in statements (portions below) released to the student body, two professors expressed their reasons for leaving as anything but “a life-cycle phenomenon” as the dean had stated. They also verbally emphasized many times that their departures were not coincidental, nor were any of them “retiring”.
• Statement #1: “The whole reason Regent exists is to serve God by serving students. I teach for you. In my opinion, to serve the mission of Regent, the students come first, the faculty second and the staff/leadership third, but due to the nature of the leadership structure of Regent University, virtually all of the power is concentrated in the leadership/staff. Also, in my opinion, that is why many decisions that are made impact negatively on the faculty and subsequently the students.”
• Statement #2: "I have resigned my position at Regent University because the workplace atmosphere has become unacceptable. I have experienced disrespect, deceitful manipulation, and a callous disregard for my contributions to the department. Decisions that directly affect me and my position as a professor have been made in an arbitrary and capricious manner. Although I have clearly communicated my concerns, it has been to no avail. I cannot in good conscience continue to participate in this unhealthy and toxic environment."
• In our recent Town Hall Meeting, a professor spoke about facts concerning a meeting she’d had with our dean a year and a half prior in order to address the low morale and negative environment of the program. The dean first denied that any problems had ever been brought to her attention and eventually admitted to remembering the meeting, but not the nature of it. The professor’s memory of these facts and this meeting exceeded the memory of the dean to an excessive degree.
• The university’s procedures (outlined in the faculty manual) regarding “Phase-Out Retirement” were completely ignored in the case of one professor (who has subsequently resigned). Policy dictates that this form of retirement is completely voluntary and is only pursued upon the request of the professor. However, a contract for phased retirement was brought to a professor without her request and she was repeatedly asked to sign, which she did not. There is great concern that all the preliminary steps outlined in the faculty manual were ignored in this case.
5. Recognize and take action to improve the current environment of our program. Current leadership has created an environment that currently feels unsafe, fearful, and helpless. In addition to this, students and professors have been shown numerous times that “dissent among the ranks” will result in punitive measures being taken against the dissenting person. As a direct result of this, students feel extremely unsafe in attaching their signatures to this document. As of this date, exactly 54 community members have provided their names in support of this petition thus far. We are grieved that we cannot release this list of names to the administration, but will be pleased to accommodate a source outside of the university with this list. Again, we regret that concealing our identities is necessary.
- Rationale/Related Concerns
• As aforementioned, several students were retaliated against last semester by Dr. **** and with the alleged support of the dean after they wrote a letter of concern to Dr. **** and Dr. Rehfuss (our Associate Dean of Academics).
• This letter mainly covered the areas detailed above in Article 3.
• Several of these students had already spoken about these matters with Dr. **** individually (trying to follow a biblical model), but their concerns were not well received nor changes made.
• The students were afterward reprimanded and received PDF’s from Dr. **** that were placed in their files here at Regent.
• This shocked the students who were aware of the situation and was one of the major catalysts for the environment of fear that has since established itself in our school.
• We would urge you, as leaders, to make yourselves aware of the action taken against these students and review the PDF’s that were levied against them in an ungodly manner.
• This fear of retaliation was further enforced when a professor spoke out in dissent during our Town Hall Meeting and was subsequently banned from campus by the dean, proving that even professors are not immune from these types of repercussions handed down by our administration.
• In addition to this, another professor who had previously shared with us her reasons for leaving the university (again, quite contrary to those reasons stated by the dean) was also banned from campus. However, this professor was in the middle of teaching a course and had not even attended the Town Hall Meeting. This bears witness to intimidation tactics that are being modeled for us by our dean as well as choices being made which are clearly not in the best interests of the students or our education.
• This strongly goes against Regent’s vision of “affirming and teaching principles of truth, justice and love as described in the Holy Scriptures, embodied in the person of Jesus Christ”.
In closing, we would like you to know how wonderful our experience has been at Regent University up to this point. We have greatly benefited from our education thus far and feel privileged to have had the opportunity to learn from men and women of such high caliber, both spiritually and academically. The things we have gleaned from our time here are truly invaluable.
We would also like to thank you again for your time and consideration in reading this petition. Many in our programs are still grieving over the occurrences of the past months and we pray the Lord will bring peace, unity, and excellence to our school once again. We also pray for you, as our leaders, as you proceed in weighing these matters. We pray for you, what Paul prayed for the church at Philippi, and what we have prayed for ourselves over the past weeks;
“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ--to the glory and praise of God.” Philippians 1:9-11
Thank you,
The Concerned Community Members of the School of Psychology and Counseling
Sign the petition
Fields marked * are required.