Students, staff at Regent school torn by turmoil

A description posted on the Web site for Regent University’s School of Psychology and Counseling says the program’s mission is to train people “who are skillful, caring, and can help develop the spiritual and emotional well-being of those with whom they interact.”

These days, however, the Virginia Beach school is struggling with its own spiritual and emotional well-being. In the past year, turmoil has led to the exodus of respected faculty members and sent morale plummeting among many students in the master’s degree counseling program.

Nearly half the program’s professors have resigned in the past year, and some students say that they’ve been punished for raising questions about policies and that they fear further reprisals if they’re identified publicly.

Sanctions can include failing a course or dismissal from the program as a result of critical comments in a “professional development form,” or PDF, used to rate students in areas such as self-control and ethical practice.

More than 50 people have signed an online petition since it was posted in late June asking that “peace, professionalism and integrity be restored to our program.”

The students’ complaints focus more on the way they have been treated by administrators than on issues of academic content.

One of the professors who quit, Jacqueline Gatewood, a nationally recognized expert on ethics issues, described a “climate of fear and intimidation” within the school.

Mark Blagen

 The controversy has also raised questions about whether a culture of academic insensitivity has been fostered at the university under Regent’s founder and president, Pat Robertson, said several former faculty members, including Gatewood and Mark Blagen, another counseling professor who, like Gatewood, resigned in June.

Blagen shared his views not long before packing for a new job at Adams State College in Alamosa, Colo. He said professors were upset about what they felt were unfair teaching loads, a tenure system in which all faculty members must sign annual contracts, and general working conditions at Regent.

“It’s a question of the administration not valuing our opinions,” Blagen said. “The climate is contrary to Christian values rather than embracing them.”

Regent officials last summer notified faculty and students that a “president’s commission” had been created to review the counseling program, without publicly acknowledging that the action was in response to the controversy.

The commission recently concluded its work and forwarded its recommendations to Robertson, said Randall Pannell, the university’s acting vice president for academic affairs. Pannell told students and faculty in September that the commission had been formed “to enhance the excellence in the school.”

Requests for interviews with Regent faculty and administrators were directed to Pannell, who acknowledged in a recent interview that some students in the counseling school are unhappy.

“You won’t ever have 100 percent satisfaction,” he said. “It’s not that unusual to have criticisms; a university is like that.”

Last Tuesday, more than 100 students and faculty in the school attended a meeting at which the dean, Rosemarie Scotti Hughes, offered an apology to those who felt they had been wronged and asked for forgiveness, said several students who attended.

Hughes spent about 20 minutes reading a statement called “Moving Forward Together,” said the students, who requested anonymity.

Changes in school policy will include better e-mail communications with students and written notice before they’re evaluated in a professional development form, or “PDF’d,” as one student put it.

The students, however, said that the changes did little to address student angst and that they were disappointed that no members of the commission attended the meeting.

“Needless to say,” one student wrote in an e-mail, “after our months of persistence and pursuit for a higher quality of administration and education in the Regent SPC, the minor changes that were presented to us today were almost insulting.”

The problems came to the surface one day in June, when a standing-room-only crowd gathered in a Regent classroom after students demanded to know why five of the 11 full-time professors in the master’s degree counseling program had suddenly resigned.

When Hughes, the school’s dean, said privacy laws prohibited her from commenting on the matter, one of the departing professors spoke up, according to several people who were at the meeting.

“I have resigned my position … because the workplace atmosphere has become unacceptable,” said Gatewood, who said she also spoke for an absent colleague, Lori Burkett. “I cannot in good conscience continue to participate in this unhealthy and toxic environment.”

After the meeting, Gatewood said, she received an e-mail from Hughes ordering her to leave campus. Gatewood said Hughes also mailed a copy of the notice to her, and another copy was taped to her office door. Burkett – who like Gatewood had tendered her resignation but was still on staff – also was banned from the university by Hughes.

Gatewood said the current environment in the psychology and counseling program did not exist when she arrived in 1996. She said the conflict is especially troubling within a department charged with teaching students to advise people in how to deal with interpersonal-relationship issues.

Robyn Rennie, now on the faculty at Northern Kentucky University, left Regent in 2005 “because conditions had become so stifling I felt I had no future there …

“The thing that has been most difficult for me is that the Regent program had the potential to be the best counseling program in the nation. I would have stayed for life.”

The June meeting followed months of turbulence during which, students and faculty said, they were subjected to humiliation by administrators in the school. With an enrollment of 418, it is one of seven graduate-level programs at the Christian-based university begun in 1978 by Robertson, who also founded the Christian Broadcasting Network.

The petition, addressed to Robertson and other administrators, notes that 10 members of the school’s faculty and staff had resigned in the weeks prior to the petition’s filing, including the five professors in the counseling program.

The document’s authors wrote: “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.”

The authors of the petition said that they have not posted the names of those who have signed the document because of fear of reprisals.

The petition raises questions about the practices and behavior of Hughes and Rosemary Thompson, the program director of the counseling department. Thompson was hired and promoted to program director by Hughes without consulting faculty, a violation of protocols within the school, according to the petition.

When it was posted, the petition also claimed that Thompson had used “politically incorrect terms in our classes that are offensive and insensitive” – including “brothas,” “hoes” and “homos.”

The petition’s authors said Thompson had told her students during class, “Did you know there’s five levels of hoes? Regular hoes, dirty hoes, skanky hoes …”

Several students said in interviews and e-mails that they believed the remarks were offensive, but others disagreed, saying Thompson made them in an academic context.

Thompson’s name was deleted in October by the owners of the Web site, iPetitions.com. A spokesman for iPetitions notified the petition’s author of the change in an e-mail, explaining that unspecified concerns about litigation had arisen.

The petitioners say that leadership “has created an environment that currently feels unsafe, fearful, and helpless” and that “'dissent among the ranks’ will result in punitive measures.”

One student said in an interview that she and her fellow students “were crying in the halls and hugging to console each another.”

Pannell declined to discuss specific faculty members, citing privacy issues.

“We’ve never penalized anybody who’s spoken up,” he said, adding that the commission determined the school’s “current leadership is effective and well-respected.” As to concern that a culture of fear and intimidation exists, “I don’t see it as valid,” he said. “But I take seriously someone’s concerns. We need to respect and respond to that.”

On Sept. 7, during a meeting at the Regent law school, Pannell told students and staff of the creation of the president’s commission and its mandate.

Pannell opened the session with a prayer, then announced that the commission had been formed “to enhance the excellence in the school in every way possible.” Pannell did not mention the concerns addressed in the petition and raised by departed faculty members.

He said the review would include interviews with randomly selected students by outside facilitators. He also announced that a session would be conducted the following week during which students could voice concerns. He said students would be required to submit copies of their comments before making their presentations.

Eleven students spoke during that gathering, some criticizing leadership at the school in stark terms.

One student said that during a meeting with Hughes, she was given no opportunity to tell her side of the story. The dean acted in a “belligerent, unyielding, and tyrannical” manner, she said.

“In my shock, sadness, frustration … I began to cry,” the student said. Hughes then berated her for crying, she said, telling her “it’s not professional.”

Two students said that because of the turmoil and leadership issues, they could no longer recommend Regent to prospective applicants. The Virginian-Pilot obtained copies of the statements from a student who took part in the meeting. The speakers’ names had been deleted.

One said the June town-hall meeting at which Gatewood spoke did nothing to allay concerns about leadership:

“A classroom full of hurting and confused students sat there, hoping for clarity, comfort and peace. What I feel that we received instead was defensiveness, authoritarianism, and denial. …

“I was in a Christian graduate program, where our Philosophy was 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself, (Matthew 22:37-39)’ ...

“I ask you, Where is the love?”

Bill Burke, (757) 446-2589, bill.burke@pilotonline.com