Media Credit: Jared Yoakum / The Western Front Theatre Arts Department chair Mark Kuntz said the morale of the department has improved since Mills' suspension. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: Jared Yoakum / The Western Front Western junior Evan Bourm is testifying as a character witness for Mills in today's hearing. [Click to enlarge]

Western's Faculty Senate Executive Council is conducting five meetings to determine the fate of Western theatre arts professor Perry Mills' career at Western.

The fifth meeting is at 3 p.m. today in Old Main 340, where a hearing panel will hear witnesses' testimony.

"God only knows what the lawyers are going to ask them," Mills said.

Western's Theatre Arts Department suspended Mills in October 2004.

The Executive Council of the Faculty Senate selected five members from senate committees to comprise the hearing panel.

Western's Assistant Attorney General Wendy Bohlke said the faculty hearing panel listens to testimonies, deliberates on it and issues its findings.

The panel must render a decision within 15 days of the hearing's conclusion. She said the panel's decision could result in Mills' dismissal or severe sanction - such as the Faculty Senate placing him on leave with or without pay for any period of time.

The panel conducted the first meeting Oct. 5. It conducted the last three this week. If the panel does not reach a conclusion, it could hold additional meetings next week.

Bohlke would not comment on the number of witnesses at the meetings or the nature of their testimony. The hearing panel has barred the public and members of the media from accessing the meetings.

Theatre Arts Department chair Mark Kuntz said the panel's decision to ban the public and press from the meetings follows Western's faculty handbook's procedures.

"The university is working hard to give Perry his rights," Kuntz said.

The handbook says the hearing should be private, unless the hearing panel, in consultation with the provost Andrew Bodman and Mills, decides it should be public.

Bohlke said the meetings are closed to the public so Mills would not suffer publicly should the panel dismiss the charges facing him. Kuntz said private meetings are standard when dealing with personnel issues.

"They've clamped a lid of secrecy on it," Mills said. The panel's Hearing Officer Judge Robert Alsdorf, a former King County Superior Court judge, declined to comment before the hearing's proceedings.

The hearing officer is responsible for interpreting the Western Faculty Handbook's policy procedure during the formal grievance process. The hearing officer does not have the power to vote in the grievance decision.

"Alsdorf is one of the finest judges there ever was in Washington state," Mills' attorney James Lobsenz said.

Lobsenz said the Washington State Open Meetings Act and the state constitution stipulate citizen justice be open to the public. Lobsenz said he wished the public was allowed to attend the meetings.

In many ways, Lobsenz said, he wishes the hearing was more like a normal court procedure. According to the Western Faculty Handbook, hearings before a panel with a hearing officer presiding are the appropriate way of dealing with faculty grievances such as Mills' suspension.

Strict rules of legal evidence do not bind the hearings, and the panel can admit any evidence it considers valuable in the hearings. Lobsenz said he does not believe the panel could legally override a public hearing to keep them private.

"But that's what happened," Lobsenz said. "The panel voted to keep the meeting secret."

When the Chair of the Tenure and Promotions Committee recommended Mills for tenure in 1994, the chair informed the university president of Mills' confrontational teaching style and easily offensive nature to students, Mills said.

Despite this, the Tenure and Promotion Committee unanimously recommended Mills for tenure, he said.

Western junior Evan Bourm will testify to protest Mills' dismissal from the university.

Bourm said he hopes Mills will resume his position at Western. Bourm, who took a theater class from Mills fall quarter 2004, said he is a different kind of teacher.

"He's an excellent speaker, and he commanded attention," Bourm said.

He found few teachers able to communicate their knowledge as effectively as Mills. Currently, however, Mills is speaking a little less.

"For the moment I think I'll keep quiet and let them dig a hole and see what they come up with," Mills said.

According to the statement of charges Bodman sent Mills June 6, two female students, unidentified to Mills, filed complaints referring to Mills as cruel and demeaning.

"The university feels there's plenty of evidence, otherwise we wouldn't be here," Kuntz said. Kuntz said Mills' suspension caused zero disruption in the Theatre Arts Department. Students are excited to have new professors in the theater arts program, Kuntz said.

"Things are going great around here," Kuntz said. "You can draw on that how you like."

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