A recent Facebook post had the HR Manager congratulating the President of Pacifica for the “legacy” she is leaving: a continued farce and total denial of the trail of chaos, misery and historical erasure she is creating by firing much respected employees, announcing the elimination of Lambert Campus, and confusing her fundraising for her Born-Again Christian Ministry with the fundraising for what she calls “The Pacifica Promise”— which still states in the official documents she plans to built a public mental health clinic on Ladera, when she never followed the Santa Barbara Foundation’s strong recommendation for a feasibility study — and after being told that a clinic would violate SB County zoning laws. The President doesn’t seem to care about the law and the PGI Board members don’t either— no one has stepped down in spite of over 400 signatures on this petition, hundreds on a second one, over fifty faculty complaints, and dozens more to WASC.
Furthermore, the President— in a more recent holiday FB post— continued to promote a plan that gives her Carte Blanche permission by the board to change the mission, vision and and re-branding of the entire Institute, at her whim. She is selling memberships to the public programs that were re-branded as “Pacifica extension”— claiming certification program workshops will apply for college credit, but no one can say to which programs, and nothing has been approved. We allege this amounts to false advertising and fraud, just as collecting tax-free donations for a proposed clinic on Ladera to pay for for-profit college scholarships is fraudulent when she knows full well that she cannot have a community health clinic on Ladera Campus. Getting scholarships for students, if done legally and honestly, is great. Done through deceptive or impractical means is harmful to the life of the institute, donors and those who are hopeful of scholarships that she will have to return if not collected legally or ethically.
Her plan to move classes fully on line instead of face to face is in effect, and she has a faculty member of the Clinical Psychology program promoting this for her, claiming online classes are better for people being connected to their own community, rather than acknowledging what PGI’s students are missing out on by never meeting face to face in the incredibly beautiful nature setting on Lambert campus or Ladera (as stated in another FB post).
We urge you to share this petition with everyone you know; write to the board directly, contact the media, WASC and the Attorney General’s office and demand those on the Board who are in violation of conflicts of interest, who violate EEOC policy, who want to get rid of Lambert Campus forever, and who refuse to provide adequate oversight resign immediately. Demand they stop their erasure of the past — denying the long and illustrious history of PGI’s Public Programs, and also of “shared governance”, which Dr. Mathison is claiming now as her accomplishment (when it was her two year demise and delay of it, until after 35 faculty members and all 100 + counseling students demanded an investigation into her actions, and change).
It is time to end the narcissism, prejudice, and alleged ethical violations, quid pro quos, manipulations, punishments, lies, erasures, wrong re-writing of the past, and crimes that are being committed by the Board and this administration.
We believe the only solution is replacing her with a President and board members who are actually and specifically qualified; who understands PGI’s history indepthly— from the inside out— who is committed to keeping the college intact, understands the ecopsychology of students learning together in community on the sacred land that is Lambert Campus and Ladera and being seeped in nature together— rather than just giving lip service to the subject— someone trained and experienced in Psychology and academia, and someone who doesn’t hire based on ethnicity or religion or gender but rather on wisdom, compassion and experience.