2/16/2007
Dear Friends of Principia #5,
It saddens me greatly to see the crisis at Prin play out so much like we have witnessed in politics on our national scene the last decade. Every effort is being made by the CEO Stuart Jenkins and the Trustees to subvert the process of fact finding rather than resolving the very real concerns of staff, faculty and students on both campuses and so many alumni and friends of Principia around the world. It would be easy to just give up and feel that our struggle is all uphill. However, the price of thinking that our children and grandchildren may not have the opportunity to walk the bluffs, sing in the chapel, play on a team with other Christian Scientists, sketch historic houses in Elsah, or travel to Tibet on a Prin abroad motivates all of us.
The 5 attached stories from today’s Pilot should both encourage and alarm us. Our consecrated prayer is needed this moment for Principia and all the parties involved. I plan to update this e-mail tomorrow and include more of the articles from the Pilot.
With gratitude,
Paul D. Schmidt JD GRI
College C’71
Major donors pull funds
Four donors withdraw support over controversy
Caitlin Carpenter Staff writer
Several major Principia donors have stated that they have withdrawn their support of Principia due to the recent controversy surrounding Prin’s Board of Trustees, including CEO Stuart Jenkins. Dorothy Moller, Betty Barker, Barbara Gordon, and Marie Garritson Juriet, all substantial donors to Principia, believe Prin needs to have a change in leadership before they will continue their fi nancial support. Dorothy Moller said her displeasure over the way the CEO ran the school began before the controversy surround- ing his 47 percent raise began. She said Jenkins’ pattern of decision-making was not always in line with Christian Science and she was upset with how the faculty was treated. As a result, she withdrew her support about a year ago. Gary Krisel, a trustee until July of last year, said the trustees were not made aware of Moller’s withdrawal of support. Prin has been a frequent recipient of donations from the Dorothy D. and Jo- seph A. Moller Foundation, which gives $30,000 annually for student scholarships and $100,000 for the Moller Research Fel- lowship that allows Prin faculty to pursue post-graduate degrees. Also, after she pass- es on, Prin would have been one of three organizations that would have received “six-fi gures” worth of money annually. This offer has now been withdrawn. She said, “There’s sadness in my heart; with so many things going wrong in Bos- ton, I looked to Prin to continue the Cause of Christian Science. It’s very upsetting.” “Stuart has not done a good job; he has to leave because he’s lost so much credibility and caused so much pain,” Moller said. “I hope Prin can start over and regain its sensibility,” she said. She added that she would reinstate her support if the necessary changes take place.
Betty Barker, a long-time donor to Prin, has also ceased contributions until “the prob- lems are solved that seem to exist.” Barker, who was on the cover of the most recent development offi ce mailing high- lighting noteworthy donors, was made an honorary alumna. She was also on the Council to the Board of Trustees for two years recently and was offered the position of council to the CEO, although that position never materialized. She said over the years she has put Prin in touch with several substantial donors. She said, “I think the trustees have failed to get qualifi ed, credentialed leaders and dedicated metaphysicians. Until I feel that is done properly, I cannot support what they do.” Barker added, “I love Prin and want to contribute, and that’s the reason I’m speaking out. Hopefully this will bring about changes. Barbara Gordon, another donor, is upset over the way college President George Moffett was treated by the trust- ees and Jenkins. Gordon, who also taught Spanish at the college for two years, graduated from Prin (C’43) and has donated ever since. She said, “I have Principia in my will. I’m not a wealthy person, but I was giv- ing them a sizable donation.” Despite being a donor to Prin, she received no word from the trustees that Dr. Moffett was leaving, she said. Gor- don said she fi rst learned of the situa- tion after there was an ad in the Monitor for a new college president. “The whole thing is very strange and I was incredibly sad,” she said. “George was one of those very special selections of a younger person with spiritual understanding, wonderful leadership, and a Ph.D. In addition, he had wonderful over- seas experience, wrote a book, and brought in top speakers to Prin,” Gordon added. Overall, she thought the way Moffett’s departure was conducted was poorly thought out and handled. Marie Garritson Juriet, a music professor at the college, also donated substantially to Prin over the years, but has withdrawn support “while the institution is in this state of turmoil.” She believes that Prin needs to resolve its issues before she can continue her fi nancial support.
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Bliss speaks to students
Students react to ex-trustee’s talk
Laura Distel Staff writer
After hearing Stuart Jenkins, CEO and former chairman; Gary Krisel, former trustee; and now Traci Bliss, former trustee, speak, students are trying to sort through the information at hand. This includes several letters to the Board of Trustees, along with various other reactions to the situation. The All-Campus President and Vice President, Chrissie Sydness and Forrest Bless, sent a letter to the Board of Trustees on February 6th. The Presidential Board and the Student Activities Board approved this letter. This letter proposes the idea of an ad hoc panel with “complete access to all relevant information.” Sydness said. “We felt we couldn’t take part in a discus- sion to resolve the issue unless we had the facts that the faculty had based on their vote of no confi dence.” The pair requested that further investigation on the issue be carried out. There was an informal response by the trustees soon after the letter was received, but the formal response came in the form of an email on Tuesday to the Principia Community. Senior Joe Fitzgibbon and Sophomore K C Gahlon sent another letter to the Board of Trustees on behalf of the student body. This letter, sent over two weeks ago, has yet to receive a response. “I think it’s incredibly in- sulting that the Trustees chose not to answer our letter. We were only asking questions, and I think they showed disregard for our concern,” said Fitzgibbon. Other reactions or views on this issue are a result of the live phone conversation with Traci Bliss for students and staff on Monday. “I really appreciated how Dr. Bliss was able to link the salary question and other ques- tions…to the greater question of Board governance,” said Ian McLeland, a junior. Another student who attended this meeting, Junior Jen Snow, said, “I heard some of the stuff she said before second hand, but it was good to hear it directly from her. It made it a lot more clear.” At the end of the question and answer session, Bliss offered her views on the next steps in this process. “I thought she had a lot of good points about the campus needing to be more open and the Board of Trust- ees needing to have people on there that are elected by the alumni or the faculty or the students and not just their friends. I’ve been upset by the way the Board is set up for a long time, since I’ve been at the Upper School,” said Snow. Other students were not so persuaded by Bliss. “I thought it was a productive thing and a good step towards understanding the situation. It’s kind of hard to judge if it’s accurate or not, but her motives were just and sound principles were used in her decisions,” said Senior Seth Cadell. “It’s just one more opinion, and I still don’t see facts.”
Students are still on the search for truth. “I think we found the tip of the iceberg, and we are getting there,” said Abbe Boudreaux, a senior. “I still have a lot of questions, but we have a good start to our discovery.”
Now students are trying to move forward with the situation. In addition to activism, students are turning to prayer to help bring healing to the situation. “Unless we as a student body and a Principia community are able to step back and look at this objectively…this cause might get torn apart. I am still a little concerned right now, but I am hoping through prayer, we can get through this,” said Freshman Kenny D’Evelyn.
Sydness and Bless sent an email to all students in “response to recent events.” It concludes with, “We ask all of you to support Principia by joining us in prayer and maintaining the utmost confidence that this institution will remain as ‘a city that is set on a hill and cannot be hid.’ (Matthew 5:14).”
CEO holds student-only talk at
Some worry CEO’s closed meetings with students set a condoning tone and unfair manipulation of issues
By Caitlin Carpenter
Staff writer
CEO Stuart Jenkins held a question and answer session at the
David Brooks Andrews (C’76), whose parents were well-known former professors Joan and Bob Andrews and whose uncle was former Prin president David K. Andrews, said, I find it very disconcerting and not ethical by any means for one party in a dispute to draw students into the conflict and present only one side.”
“The fact that they are minors and there was only only one other adult and no faculty present makes this an even more serious problem,” he added.
On the other hand, Upper School Student Body President Kasey Kaupke, said she thought the meeting went “really well.”
She said, “I thought Stuart had some really good answers to the questions.”
Jenkins began the meeting by giving an overview of the situation to the approximately 45 students present, but most of the hour was reserved for questions. Kaupke identified the other administrator who was present as Connie Dennett, the student events coordinator on the St. Louis campus.
Kaupke said the meeting was an after-school, voluntary activity.
In terms of the content of the meeting, she said, “One of the questions asked what he would do if all the faculty at Elsah went on strike, and he said that we’d just have to replace them.”
She said another question asked what he thought of www.truthatprincipia.org, which chronicles aspects of the dispute. He had not looked at it, he said.
Jenkins characterized the dispute, according to Ward, as a group of people who disagreed with his policies over his three years as CEO, including various changes in personnel he had made on the St. Louis campus.
Ward said Jenkins addressed the faculty’s vote of no confidence in him, saying the faculty had [not] gone through the proper process to get all the facts because they had not talked to all the right people or seen all the relevant documents.
Jenkins also said some documents had been stolen out off his desk and then judged out of context, according to Kaupke.
As to how the controversy was affecting donations, Jenkins said some, but not a lot, of donors had withdrawn support, but that his presence was not “a harm” to the school, Ward added.
According to Andrews, “I’m sure there are a number of high school students who thought it was a great talk. That’s the problem: I think it helped put people to sleep. As Mary Baker Eddy said, ‘The time for thinkers has come.’ It isn’t right to discourage the students from thinking about moral issues and the issues their institution faces.”
In contrast to Kaupke’s opinion of the meeting, Upper School Senior Katie Ward said she did not think Jenkins’ answered several of the questions fully.
Ward said, “Honestly, for a lot of the questions, his answer was kind of hostile.”
Andrews said he believes one of the reasons other adults were not at the meeting is because “Stuart didn’t want to be seen pressing students and he didn’t want them to compare what he’d said before to what he was saying to them.”
The reason Dennett was present, Ward said, was to “make sure things didn’t get out of hand,” administrators told her. [this sounds like hearsay; be more specific
Kaupke said she was not concerned that faculty and other adults were not present.
Another student asked Jenkins why faculty members were not permitted at a similar meeting Jenkins’ had with the college students. Jenkins responded that the original request made of him was for a student forum, but he had handled it the wrong way by asking the professors to leave without conferring with the students first, Ward said.
Chrissie Sydness, college student body president, said that “the Chairman’s office initiated the invitation and when I spoke to Karen Eisenauer, his administrative assistant, and said that students would feel more comfortable with a staff and faculty member at the meeting to make sure his answers were consistent with those he told the faculty and staff, she said that it shouldn’t be a problem. Forrest and I had chosen a few Faculty Senate members to metaphysically support the meeting, and had Stuart and I met beforehand it may not have turned out the way it did, where he refused to speak if any faculty or staff members were present.”
Of the Upper School meeting, Ward said that, overall, it was interesting, but she still did not have a stance on the overall issues.
Kaupke said she does not think most Upper School students are aware of most of the issues and are confused about what to think.
Andrews said that Prin administrators, as representatives of an academic institution and particularly one for Christian Scientists, should be encourage all sides to be represented in a dispute and for students to exercise critical thinking.
Side bar on Page 7:
63 college faculty sign petition in support of President Moffett:
We, the undersigned members of the Principia College faculty , wish to place on record our deep gratitude to President George Moffett for his moral and ethical leadership over the past eleven years, and for exemplifying the spiritual vision for Principia as articulated by our found- er Mary Kimball Morgan that has elevated the standing of the College in the wider Principia community . In view of the controversy surrounding George Moffett’s resignation, we strongly recommend as a matter of principle his reinstatement as President of
Mediation talks:
Fac/staff consider its effectiveness
Caitlin Carpenter Staff writer
Adebate is underway over the ap- propriateness of mediation in resolving the standoff between various stakeholders in the Principia community and the Board of Trustees. Several experts on mediation, and Prin graduates have come forward to give their opinion on both the positives and dan- gers of mediation in this situation. Bobbi McAdoo, a law professor and senior fellow at the Dispute Resolu- tion Institute at the Hamline Univer- sity School of Law, wrote a letter to the Principia community posted at www.truthatprincipia.org on Feb. 7. McAdoo said, despite spending her career promoting mediation, in this circum- stance, mediation would be a mistake. McAdoo has an extensive background in mediation, starting in the early 1980s. She has been the executive director of the Mediation Center started by the Ameri- can Bar Association and she founded the dispute resolution programs at both Hamline and the University of Missouri. She practices mediation and arbitration in the legal system and has taught many mediation training courses. McAdoo has also written over two dozen academic articles on mediation. Lee Barron, who gave a Faculty’s Coun- cil-sponsored talk titled, “What is Mediation,” last week, is a lawyer, and a visiting instruc- tor teaching business law. He said, “We are at an impasse already. We have nothing to lose by pursuing mediation. We have a chance to model how disputes can be resolved and the impasse can be broken.” Mediation occurs when a neutral, in- dependent third-party helps two or more parties resolve a dispute in a mutually ac- ceptable manner. Mediation became a topic of discus- sion after the Faculty Senate’s 71-2 vote on Jan. 31 calling for the resignation of CEO and Chairman Stuart Jenkins was followed by an email response from the Board of Trustees stating the Jenkins would stay on as CEO and a member of the Board. Barron’s presentation on mediation came about after Barron wrote letters to Facutly Senate President John Williams, Staff Senate President Lora McMullin, and the trustees suggesting mediation as an alternative to the current method of resolving the confl ict. John Williams then asked Barron, on behalf of Faculty Coun- cil, to give the presentation.
He said “As a visiting instructor I attended several of the faculty meetings and had some concerns that the process was not leading the institution in the direction we would want to be going. I was concerned that the lack of process was getting things stirred up without bringing about any resolution.”
However, Lyn Kendrick, a community mediator in the
Kendrick added, “This is an opportunity for Prin to work on trust building and listening to each other.”
Barron said the entire mediation process, from finding the mediator to the mediator’s research of the college and issues to the mediation itself could only take a few weeks.
However, Peter Salem, who has no connection to Principia and is the executive director of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, said that mediation can take years if it there are complex issues or if one of the parties does not want to address the conflict or has good reasons to avoid scheduling and attending meetings.
Still, mediation could only take weeks if the parties see the issues similarly and there is a certain degree of trust, said Salem. For example, he said he recently worked on a relatively simple project with only three parties and it took a year before the mediation process was complete.
According to McAdoo, there are several reasons it would be detrimental for the faculty and other stakeholders to pursue mediation with the trustees. For mediation to be successful, she said, both parties need leverage, trust in the other parties, no fear of retaliation, and similar values.
McAdoo said the faculty did not have any leverage with the trustees until recently when they gained knowledge over the conduct of the trustees, including the CEO/chairman, and formed a shared opinion to speak with one voice. At this point, mediation would be “fatal” to this leverage, McAdoo said.
Since the trustees still have exclusive access to pertinent information, McAdoo said the trustees hold an unfair advantage. McAdoo said mediation is not recommended when a “power balance exists, such that one side can freely hold information from the other side without that side knowing it.” In such unfair circumstances, an adjudicative process must happen to force the appropriate party to come forward with all the information.
However, Barron, who is trained as a mediator and has been involved in mediation as a lawyer, said “You don’t need to have all the information before you enter into mediation. If one party feels they’ve not been given all the information, they can get up and walk away. And the neutral mediator can tell one party that for the process to move forward they need to bring forth certain information.”
Salem, who has been a mediator and teacher of mediation for over 20 years, stresses that mediation is not a fact-finding process and he would not recommend it for people who want an investigation of truth.
In addition to the problem of the power imbalance between the parties in this dispute, McAdoo said she believes there is not the necessary element of trust between the Board and the other parties.
She said, “There’s no indication that the trustees or Stuart have started telling the truth, and once you’re in the mediation process there’s no way to ensure that they do.”
“It is particularly saddening to me that when the faculty made its pronouncement, the trustees came back with their response that they would elect five new trustees under this old faulty system,” McAdoo said. “That doesn’t show the good faith necessary when preparing for mediation. It shows another distinct reason why, at this moment, mediation won’t work.”
“The trustees are saying, ‘We have the power. We’re going to quick elect these people of our choosing, and then we’re ready to talk.’ They’re stacking the deck,” she added.
Yet Barron said he is often involved in mediation with parties he does not trust and that the mediator has no ability to impose a decision – the parties have to come to a decision on their own. He said, “The underlying issue of mediation is to build trust.”
Another vital criterion for mediation, according to McAdoo, is the impossibility of retaliation by one party against the other later. Due to the power imbalance, and the lack of tenure at Prin, McAdoo said faculty would likely feel uneasy speaking their minds during mediation.
Barron said that such job assurance and an ability to speak openly could and should be built into the process before mediation begins.
Mediation is also inadvisable when the parties a fundamental divergence in values. McAdoo gives the example of mediation between a polluting company and an environmental group. If the polluting company says it will continue to pollute at will, then the two groups will never be able to negotiate. In Prin’s case, she said that whether the CEO should resign is non-negotiable. She advised, “You shouldn’t negotiate for the trustees to do the right thing. You shouldn’t negotiate over whether the institution should be based on integrity or not.”
She added, “It seems to me, the faculty have looked at the facts and have come to some conclusions based on facts. In a sense, they’ve used a process of adjudication to decide that the CEO needs to be relieved of his responsibilities.”
Barron disagrees that there are divergent values amongst the stakeholders. He said, “If a group of reasonably like-minded people with a similar Christian and religious background can’t sit down and listen to each other, there’s really little hope for bringing peace to other parts of the world. I’m confident that all sorts of insights and inspired resolutions that nobody’s thinking about can be discussed, and the different groups can see the dispute from other side’s perspective.”
He added, “We have a great deal of difficulty dealing with conflict at this institution, which is why a process like this could be useful.”
McAdoo said, “This crisis of integrity will continue to hurt admissions and donations until the hemorrhaging stops. I don’t see that happening unless the CEO is gone and the trustees show their good faith and not immediately electing these new trustees.”
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