Statement on the resignation of Josh Shenk

Given the emerging reporting around Josh Shenk’s resignation from UNLV’s Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute (BMI) and The Believer magazine, I feel compelled to offer my perspective.

What was first presented as an embarrassing and somewhat comical Zoom mishap has been revealed to be part of a longstanding pattern of abusive behavior. However, as is often the case, there is a profound institutional failing at the heart of this matter.

I earned my masters degree in creative writing from UNLV in the spring of 2013 and, upon graduation, was hired as assistant director of BMI, which is a department within UNLV. That year, founding director and UNLV president emerita Carol C. Harter and founding artistic director Richard Wiley both announced their retirements. Shortly thereafter, the institute (which then had a very modest budget) received a $10 million dollar donation, followed soon by an additional $20 million pledge. During this time, UNLV conducted a national search for a new executive director to replace Harter. The search continued through the end of 2014, and in early 2015 Shenk was hired.

Many of us on the BMI staff, along with the English Department faculty, the advisory board of BMI, and especially students in the writing program were excited and optimistic about Shenk’s hiring — he brought with him contacts at The Believer magazine and The Moth Radio Hour, as well as experience with a former literary institute, the MacDowell Colony, and various other institutions that were incredibly appealing to aspiring writers.

When he arrived on campus, it quickly became clear to many of us that Shenk had misrepresented himself during his hiring process in significant ways. While he had expressed a profound enthusiasm for the institute’s work and a desire to continue it, in reality he had only the vaguest understanding of our programs and publications and little interest in learning about them. To the contrary, he immediately set out to eliminate the programs and programming already in existence, as well as to abandon the hard-won relationships BMI, under the leadership of Carol Harter, had forged with such prestigious entities as the Library of Congress, the John W. Kluge Center, the international City of Asylum Program, and others.

Shenk began creating a toxic environment from the start. He belittled the staff and was condescending to faculty and graduate students. He did not tolerate opposing views. He seemed suspicious of our activities and demanded that we submit to him a daily written report documenting, in fifteen minute increments, every moment of our day.

More seriously, Shenk displayed personal conduct that was deeply alarming. He dressed in a way that was inappropriate for the workplace and wore improperly buttoned dress shirts and low-slung pants, routinely exposing his chest and midriff to staff and students. During the hiring process for a new staff member, Shenk sought to interview applicants (all women) alone in his private residence. He repeatedly spoke on the phone with [edit: who I took to be] his personal therapist at full voice with the door open, well within earshot of adjacent offices, where he could be clearly heard discussing issues that were highly inappropriate for the workplace.

In short order, Shenk turned a vibrant institution into one in which female students hid in their offices in the dark to avoid him. He performed various “handshakes” with female students, which included entwining fingers and stroking palms, which they reported made them profoundly uncomfortable. He blatantly focused his attention on younger female students, resulting in their attempts to evade him.

During this time, I remained in close contact with students and friends in the creative writing program. I watched as their energy and attention turned away from teaching and writing to Shenk’s unsettling and demeaning behavior. I was a graduate of the writing program; I had been student coordinator of the program; I edited Witness, the program’s well-established and highly respected literary magazine; I helped organize student readings and Las Vegas’s annual literary festival. In all of those capacities, I felt a responsibility to the institute and the students.

Shenk had been hired on a one-year contract; we felt it imperative to express our concerns to the university while it was considering the extension of his appointment. I was not alone in my opposition. The entire BMI staff, several board members, numerous members of the faculty, and even president emerita Harter opposed extending his contract. Within two months of Shenk’s arrival on campus, the entire institute was in a state of mutiny.

In response, the university sought a third-party “mediator” — ostensibly an impartial professional — to examine the allegations against Shenk and to understand and alleviate the widespread dissatisfaction among the staff. UNLV hired New York-based “thought leader” Joanne Heyman without informing us that not only had Shenk handpicked her, she was in fact on his payroll at the time as his life coach and advisor.

Heyman spent two full days interviewing staff, fellows, and faculty who expressed the above stated concerns, along with many others. During these interviews, she frankly stated that her objective was to “save Josh’s job.” She succeeded. Heyman produced a report that, aside from a passing reference to workplace attire, contained none of our serious concerns. The process was not an investigation of Shenk’s behavior; it was an investigation of us.

At no point was the staff given an opportunity to examine and respond to Heyman’s report, and it was accepted without question by Dean of Liberal Arts Chris Hudgins. Hudgins used this report to threaten the staff with termination, while also using its supposed lack of evidence against Shenk to justify the extension of his contract.

No member of the university administration ever invited a staff member to share their views on the matter. The staff was offered a perfunctory chance to comment on Heyman’s report only after Hudgins had announced his decision and reiterated that anyone who did not fully support Shenk should resign. The fact that Shenk’s word — someone who had been at the university less than two months — was taken, without question, over the unified objections of the five staff members of BMI — who represented several decades of exceptional service to UNLV in virtually every capacity, including as classified staff, academic and administrative faculty, masters and PhD students, and visiting fellows — was the most disappointing and disheartening experience of my professional life.

This support from the university predictably emboldened Shenk. He refused to take any responsibility for the situation and declared that he would no longer permit any member of the staff to disagree with him. He instructed a female colleague to express herself only in questions rather than direct statements. He invited me to speak privately and confidentially about the discord in the office, then immediately reported details of our conversation to human resources, which issued me a formal letter of censure without even speaking to me.

Sadly, by this point none of this surprised me. When I initially began expressing concerns about Shenk, then-BMI chair and UNLV faculty member Marta Meana, who by her own admission was acting as an informal advisor to Shenk, approached me privately and, in veiled language, suggested that I should resign if I did not like Shenk and could not get along with him. I also met with Robert Correales, the UNLV ombudsman, who seemed dismissive of my concerns and took no action. I made an oral report to my representative in the administrative faculty senate. Again, no action was taken.

I submitted my resignation prior to the beginning of the following academic year. This was not a forced resignation; it was not arbitrated in any way. I was offered what was presented to me as the university’s standard separation agreement. In truth, it was far from standard and included a stipulation that I not “seek nor accept employment of any kind, whether temporary, permanent or in any capacity whatsoever, with UNLV or NSHE (Nevada State Higher Education).” Creative writing degrees are principally used to secure teaching appointments. The university that granted my degree was preventing me from using it in the entire state of Nevada. When I consulted with president emerita Harter (who, as longest-serving president of the university was in a position of knowledge), she confirmed that the clause was not only far from “standard” but that she had never heard of such a stipulation. I again sought assistance from ombudsman Correales, who told me that I should “show it to my lawyer.” I found the suggestion that I, as a young recent graduate, would have an attorney to be deliberately insulting. Through my relationships in the university I was ultimately able to get this clause stricken, but only after I agreed to sign a non-disparagement agreement (a clause that I suspect the university could accuse me of currently violating).

I felt betrayed by the university that had been my home for six years. At no point in this process did I feel that UNLV exhibited proper concern for the safety and well-being of its students. When we raised these issues with the university, we were the ones investigated, threatened, and retaliated against.

UNLV protected Shenk then and continues to protect him now. The staff members who reported that he exposed himself during a virtual staff meeting have been silenced by the university, which forced them to sign non-disclosure agreements. I have had numerous conversations with former students who feel prevented from speaking out by fears of legal retaliation by the university or Shenk himself. Many worry that Shenk could use his contacts, influence, and money to damage their writing careers and reputations.

I recognize that I may be exposing myself to legal and financial risk by speaking truthfully about my experience. I do so in support of those who have already shown the courage to speak out, as well as many others who feel intimidated into silence. I find it absolutely appalling that the only people who fear consequences in this situation are victims and whistleblowers.

Why does it take an act so egregious as exposing one’s genitals for action to be taken? Why did the university continue to employ Shenk for months after this incident? What laws or regulations bar it from acknowledging that this event even happened? Why, as a society, do we permit the existence of NDAs that serve only to protect wrongdoing and silence victims? How can it ever be illegal to speak the truth of one’s own life?

These tragedies (and it is indeed a tragedy) are never about one action, one person, one institution. We cannot address them one action, one person, one institution at a time. We don’t need another email about a university’s commitment to “do better.” We need institutional reform. We need legal reform.

I feel compelled to close by expressing my heartfelt gratitude for my time in the UNLV Creative Writing Program. Faculty members Douglas Unger, Richard Wiley, Maile Chapman, Claudia Keelan, and Donald Revell created an exceptional program, and have dedicated tremendous amounts of time, attention, love, and support to their students. They had no part in this wrongdoing. It breaks my heart that Shenk’s actions will leave a stain on the program. But that is what happens when institutions choose to protect predators instead of their students.

• Joseph Langdon
  UNLV MFA 2013