Mentors angry over rejection e-mails

Correction appended

Complaints are mounting from members of the Portland State mentor community who say that graduate mentors were arbitrarily fired from their positions after two administrators took over the hiring process last term.

The complaints stem from e-mails that told eight graduate mentors who work in the University Studies Program that they would not be rehired as mentors next year. Jones Estes and Leslie Batchelder, two of the co-directors of the mentor program who are responsible for hiring new and rehiring old mentors, said they made a mistake when they sent out the e-mails.

Five of the graduate mentors out of the initial eight were rejected because the co-directors thought the applicants were applying to be mentors for a fourth year, which is against the program’s rules. The applicants were later offered their jobs back, after it became clear that it would not break the guidelines, said Batchelder, who said she later apologized to each of the five mentors.

Even so, Chris Cottrell, a recently rehired mentor, said the mentor community is concerned because the people who were not asked to return were done so under unexplained or seemingly arbitrary reasons. Cottrell, as well as other mentors who refused to speak on the record for fear of retaliation, said that mentors who were hired back do not want to speak out against the administration for fear that they will be fired.

“There’s a sense that people are being offered their jobs back with the sense that they’re being asked to, you know, play ball,” he said.

The trouble with the mentors has hit University Studies while the program is in a time of transition. The director of the mentor program, Candyce Reynolds, was fired in February for reasons that the University Studies administration will not talk about.

Although Reynolds will finish out the school year and leave her position in June, Estes and Batchelder were hired as co-directors to assist Reynolds in the mentor hiring process. The duo had to take over the rehiring process when Reynolds stopped working on it with them for reasons that Estes said she is uncertain of.

“Candyce recused herself,” Estes said. “We picked it up at the last minute.”

Reynolds could not be reached for comment Monday.

Sukhwant Jhaj, the director of University Studies, said it is the policy of the program to send out rejection e-mails to applicants who have not worked for the program before.

Batchelder said she sent out e-mails to all applicants whose applications were not approved, whether or not they had already been mentors, because she thought it was standard procedure to do so.

“I felt like, ‘What the hell?'” Batchelder said. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Batchelder said she had made a mistake because she was not given any training for the position.

Cottrell and other mentors say they think that is not a good enough reason.

Sarah Iannarone, a mentor who was openly critical over the termination of Reynolds and was not rehired for next year, said she was not only angry about Reynolds being fired, but also because mentors were not told about it in advance.

Iannarone believes she was not hired back because she spoke out about these issues.

“There’s no one who would debate firing me,” Iannarone said. “There’s no reason to fire me. It would be really tough to say that they had grounds to fire me. I was very clear and very direct in my criticism and so they very clearly decided what to do with me. It’s not ethical what they’ve done.”

Cottrell agrees.

“She was openly critical of the fact that Candyce was fired,” he said.

Both Batchelder and Estes said they have encouraged members of the mentor community to come and talk to them about their concerns, adding that some still have not.

–Due to an editing error, Jones Estes was misquoted. She said, “Candyce recused herself. We picked it up at the last minute.”