However, in a letter to the student body late yesterday, Dunkle denies they were fired and says the Board of Trustees had accepted the resignations of the eight faculty members. “I heard of this about the same time many of you did. I share in your sadness. With the following, I hope you will see this as one of many ways forward for the remainder of today.”

However, the eight faculty members posted notes saying they had not resigned. “Our letters did not say that we would resign. We requested meetings with the Board. Indeed in our second letter we wrote to the Board ‘We assure you that your good faith willingness to meet with us will be received with our sincere good faith efforts to restore to our students the hours of instruction already lost to them by the Dean and President’s current policies’ and we explained that a ‘good faith’ response would ‘mean immediately undertaking to schedule a time to meet with us during the October board meeting’."

The faculty of GTS has been in revolt against its new Dean whose his brief tenure has been marked by conflict and hostility. The conflict has nothing to do with pay, hours, job description, benefits, or perks. There are none of the traditional pocket-book labor issues at stake, nor apparently any of the hot button sexuality issues that have been the hallmark of Episcopal schism.

At issue is the leadership style of Dean Dunkle and his tendency to "Lone Ranger" decisions -- even correct ones, but also dubious ones -- without debate, discussion or buy-in, according to The Rev. Canon Andrew Gerns, Rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Easton, PA, and a knowledgeable insider.

“This is not a disagreement over the need for change to the way we do theological education or the way we prepare clergy for ministry. So the Wisdom Year (where in students spend their third year in parishes, particularly those that are small, in distressed communities, or who have lacked regular, full-time priestly ministry, doing and learning parish ministry in ‘a real-world setting’) is not at issue. The faculty has been supportive of the concept both in theory and in substance.

“The main issue has to do with the relationship between the faculty and Dean & President, especially the consequences of his style of leadership. In particular, those who have chosen to take part in the job action cite the apparent tendency of the Dean to hear questions as dissent and to assign hostile intent to those who disagree with his approach.

“Dunkle makes no secret of the fact that he is a person who does not believe in collaboration, but rather that he prefers to be a leader who keeps and articulates the vision with the expectation that the leaders in the middle will use their talents and skills to carry out his central vision.

“The line in the faculty statement about ‘maturity’ has to do with the fact that the Dean has told the students that protest is a form of immaturity and that the problem is that the faculty will not do what they must do to accomplish the mission as he sees it.”

In keeping with the way he ran the Diocese of Florida, Dunkle apparently does not like to waste too much time in listening to or compromising with other stake holders, especially when that dialogue might delay or temper his vision. He wants to dive right in and get on with it. The faculty were all fired.

Related to this is the fact that he has gathered all authority to himself. He has final say over both curriculum decisions as well as the conduct of worship in the chapel.

“The problem is that – like many Rectors who find themselves in trouble -- he apparently has lost the balance in leadership between direction and influence that is essential to function effectively in an environment where checks and balances exist,” wrote Gerns.

“This comes into play in the Dean's public discussions about the so-called ‘Wisdom Year.’ For him, ‘Wisdom’ comes from the experience of enduring conflict. He has said that what students need to experience in the Wisdom Year is ‘being beat up.’ While he has publicly and repeatedly apologized for using that image, it reflects a bias that ‘wisdom comes through struggle.’

“Add to that the idea that theological knowledge is secondary to practical skills. He has also publicly told people in public forums that a priest's education is incomplete unless the cleric learns in the ‘real’ world; she or he must be able to ‘fix the toilet.’ His perspective is that unless the cleric learns practical considerations of institutional management, the priest will not be successful.

“We in this see two different visions of theological education at odds with each other.”

Dean Dunkle believes that the Seminary must align itself to be responsive to the general attitudes and trends of the church at large. To be relevant to the culture, the seminary must dare to jettison some long held traditions. So he has ended the practice of daily morning and evening prayer and daily Eucharist in favor of a schedule of alternate morning prayers and Eucharists over a few days a week. He has removed some of the pews to make space for people to socialize after chapel. He has discouraged the use of words like "Mass" in describing the Chapel Eucharist or "Solemn" in describing a sung liturgy (in favor of the friendlier "festival") because, in his view, that's not how the culture at large speaks about the liturgy.

There appears to be a profound lack of theological reflection in the process of change that the Dean has undertaken, which along with an impatience with relationship-building, that is strangely at odds with the mission of a seminary to form and prepare priests for mission in parish communities, wrote Gerns.

“After a decade or more of financial instability that required the relief of accumulated debt -- through the sale of significant chunks of property -- and after many false starts at realigning the mission of the seminary, I believe that the Trustees wanted a strong leader, a man of action, who was willing to think outside of the proverbial box. It is entirely possible that the Board is completely sold on and committed to the direction and changes that the Dean has in mind.

“I believe that the faculty were as anxious as the Trustees were to have in their Dean someone who was willing to take big risks and make bold moves. What no one expected is that this particular leader would not be at home with collaboration, but is instead impatient to get going and get the job done.”

The Rev. Ellen Tillotson, a priest in the Diocese of Connecticut and a member of the General Seminary Board of Trustees reflecting on the conflict between the faculty and the Dean at the Seminary, wrote, “Like many Trustees of GTS, I have been heartsick and felt profoundly betrayed for a week now as I have wrestled with, read in shock, re-read in disbelief, the communication that the Trustees received from people I believe to be my friends and colleagues in the great enterprise of the Realm of God.”

“On September 17, eight members of the GTS faculty prepared a letter and sent it out to the Trustees. In it, they said, twice, that they were unable and unwilling to work with Dean and President Kurt Dunkle and that unless certain changes were made, they would be ‘no longer able to serve in our positions at General’. They also made several allegations about comments the Dean allegedly made that currently are being investigated at the request of the Executive Committee.”

In addition to the implied demand that President Dunkle be fired, they put the following conditions on their continuing to work: 1) the appointment--by them, not by the Board--of a committee of Board members to meet with them to discuss their "conditions necessary for moving forward as an institution"; 2) that the faculty be immediately empowered to set the curriculum, the academic schedule, the worship and overall program" of the seminary (vitiating several stated and traditional lines of governance stated in by-laws adopted unanimously by the board); 3) the identification of an outside person, external to the institution, to provide pastoral support to students, staff and faculty; 4) placing the authority for the implementation of the program of the seminary in the office of the Academic Dean; and, 5) the hiring of a fundraiser.

(Though God knows why anyone would take THAT job with such chaos going on -- my editorial comment.....) Numbers three and five aren't bad ideas at that. The others are simply impossible. Impossible.”

They stated again, at the end of the letter, that "If Dean Dunkle continues in his present position, we will be unable to continue in ours."

When the Board, through its Executive Committee, moved on the most urgent matter -- that of investigating the accusations against the Dean -- that action was dismissed as "irrelevant" in a second letter and the investigators -- a highly respected law firm doing the work pro-bono -- dismissively referred to it as a kind of corporate reputation white-washer (my phrase but reflective--I can give you the exact language if you want it.) The investigation continues, by the way, and we take it with utmost gravity.

In this second letter, the eight members also stated that "the damage has been done," "no working relationship is possible," "we can no longer work with President Dunkle." They also reiterated the five demands placing conditions on their willingness to talk, informed the Board that they were organizing as a union and that ALL "further negotiations of these matters will be through our Union and in consultation with our Attorney." They said that they were stopping work, all teaching and administrative work, commencing Friday, Sept. 26. They also stopped attending worship.

The faculty, while offering an ultimatum and desiring only a conversation, hs been so delimited as to make it impossible for them to hold, the attorney said.

Another voice wrote, “I strongly believe that nothing ‘must’ happen for God to work redemption and renewal out of any hurt, chaos or betrayal. And I know from human sinfulness--most especially my own--that human beings will mess it up royally on a regular basis. Me, I'm rooting for God's power working in us, accomplishing infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. It's the only hope we have.”

UPDATED

General Seminary Board of Trustees Accepts Resignations

General Theological Seminary press release
September 30, 2014

Yesterday, after much prayer and deliberation and after consulting our legal council, the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees of The General Theological Seminary voted with great regret to accept the resignations of eight members of the Seminary faculty. The Board came to this decision with heavy hearts, but following months of internal divisions around the future direction of General Seminary, some faculty member's demands for action not possible under the governing structure of the Seminary, and the eight faculty members' refusal to teach, attend meetings, or even worship, it has become clear that this is the best path forward in educating our students and shaping them into leaders of the church. However, even after accepting the resignations, the Seminary is willing to meet with any former faculty member about the possibility of reconsidering the resignation.

Simultaneously, the Board of Trustees is conducting an internal investigation into certain allegations of statements made by the Dean and President. Further comment on the investigation, pending its outcome, would not help that process. We encourage everyone to withhold any further judgment or comment.

The primary concern of General Seminary continues to be the education and formation of our students. The Church is counting on us. This week Dean Dunkle and the remaining faculty are working on the best ways to continue teaching and advising and to assure all that we will continue to provide quality education and formation with the least amount of interruption possible. Our location in the heart of New York City affords us access to a wide range of resources, and we shall be drawing upon those resources to address any needs created by these resignations. We will share specifics with our students as these plans unfold.

Yesterday's decision was not easy. For nearly 200 years, General Seminary has prepared more than 7,000 men and women as leaders in the Church. Dean Dunkle has helped that mission thrive as we advance it through the 21st century. While we may sometimes disagree, the commitment to our current students is a responsibility that the Board takes seriously. It is for their well-being alone that we came to this resolution, and pray that our decision was the right one.

The Board of Trustees
The General Theological Seminary