On December 13, 2023, I got my Zoom meeting with Colorado Christian University’s (CCU) Clinical Mental Health Counseling (CHMC) program dean, Dr. Burkhart. (He will be mentioned forward as Ryan to make my storytelling easier, and to reflect the accuracy of me not being able to maintain complete respect for him and calling him Ryan.)

I sent him a document ahead of time outlining what their program was like and how it ended up discriminating against me and not meeting my expectations. He didn’t seem to understand I didn’t need to be fought on it, just that I wanted him to know that the program as I came to take it was not the program as it was advertised and promised.

So I take this Zoom call and am full of anxiety and stupid fear.

Ryan began by asking me to share my thoughts.

Now, let me be very clear: I knew the game he was playing, and it was to try and respond to all of my thoughts with reputable evidence to prove he wasn’t responsible. Fine. That’s what it takes sometimes to deal with pompous people who are so stuck in their ways.

I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere if this guy couldn’t just scream at me for a little bit to get over that he didn’t like my interpretation of a better advertising strategy. He was so mad that I was in the majority of the mental health community, and I later saw that.

I asked him if he had any questions. Ryan took the bait.

I knew he was trying to not get off his chest how angry he was at me for being harmed and standing up for myself. That’s why he didn’t want to start. But I can take a bully or someone whose convictions are so firm that they don’t understand how to converse.

Within seconds, he launches into an attack on my credibility and stance as a clinical counselor and academic student. Beginning with comments about, “I have access to your entire application and all the papers you ever wrote here,” I knew I was in for a treat of a “meeting” to discuss my grievances. I took the meeting to see what he was like.

That was it. I knew what the program was, and I had figured it out through handbooks and presentations that misaligned themselves with course content and objectives. I was only on the Zoom call to see what Ryan was like, and if he was really who I thought.

He goes on for about fifteen minutes (give or take a minute or two) with his lecture about all the retorts he has to my complaint and grievance. I make several attempts to respond and am cut off many times. I figure it should be easy enough to vocalize, “Can you please let me finish what I’m saying.” This gets the response expected and fear confirming.

Ryan guffaws and raises his eyebrows. “Oh this is an interesting turn of events.” He laughs and perhaps I wonder if he sees the lack of professionalism in his demeanor. “See, I wanted to begin the conversation by hearing your thoughts. You’re the one who asked me if I had any questions. Now you’re saying I’m not letting you speak?”

Funny enough, because he didn’t let me speak, he never did hear what I needed to say.

He was responding to my firm stance that the program I had described was not the clinical program they had advertised themselves to be. He took the stance I figured he would – lecture the confused student about how it was her fault the program misaligned with the university it was housed in and she should have known better.

Eventually I helped him respond in a kinder and better way.

I am a counselor, and I deal with fighty young men. A man twice my age who thinks I’m some ridiculous young woman is exactly the conflict resolution I can deal with. It’s the norm as a young woman in addictions counseling centers. I expect to be disregarded.

I simply state, “Well, perhaps a better way to have begun this was by stating what pastoral counseling is to you and maybe then why you disagree with my claims.”

This opened up a new side of the guy. He seemed more human in that moment.

He begins by defining pastoral counseling in terms of what it is not. I have seen this logical argument many times. It breaks down pretty quickly in this case, though.

Ryan, to his credit, tried really hard, “Pastoral counseling just means you use the Bible and theology to intervene. Pastors can’t diagnose or assess mental illnesses.”

And that was where I got the answer I needed.

He was thinking that was sufficient to tell the girl who knew clinical counseling was more than knowing how to diagnose and assess. He thought that their program wasn’t something due to what it provided in excess. To me, that’s a logical loophole and I agree that there are differences in pastoral and clinical counseling. They’re just bigger than that.

To me, doing the bare minimum of a clinical program is not a clinical program.

I will write a whole discussion on why this leads to poor counseling outcomes.

But I could spend paragraphs recounting the silly things Ryan told me and the lack of professionalism and clinical expertise he held. I have some great quotes and ways he revealed my point without saying the words he thought he had told me.

I’ll speak to one. This one was particularly good.

Ryan at one point threw a fit, “I don’t believe you didn’t know what you were getting yourself into. CCU is very upfront about who we are. You even signed the CMHC program handbook that outlined all of this to you.” And to me, that was where he got stuck.

I began my Jesus-type lecture, “So you’re saying if 90% of people understand something and 10% of people don’t, then that’s okay with you? You think that’s not an issue.”

Ryan throws a fit, “Yes, of course-” and I cut him off with a, “That’s fine.” before he can continue his huffy rant about how I’m making a mountain of a molehill.

He stops and looks confused. I wasn’t trying to argue him. He was lost.

So I then moved to my next point, “Well, then I guess you should know that a lot of neurodivergent people exist in the mental health field. Especially as incoming students, it would be better for them if the messaging was clearer. Neurodivergence is very common in this field of study.” I’ll never forget the look on his face. I’ll never forget.

Ryan responds, pausing and then looking askew, “You mean in the clinical space?”

It was in theis moment I realized he had never understood my stance. He was so mad at some autistic and C-PSTD diagnosed girl for her words that he didn’t read the inherent argument. He thought my argument was that their program was bad. (Which is a whole argument I wasn’t about to have.) He missed the underlying argument that I began by stating that I looked into a program and chose them for an accredidation purpose.

If Ryan had read my argument, he would have asked the question, “Why didn’t you understand what you were getting into?” And I would have been able to reiterate that CCU markets themselves one way and the CMHC program markets themselves as being not that. And yet, the CHMC program is in CCU and can’t be not like CCU.

But to Ryan, a dean in the Liberal Arts Bible College that is CCU, he was so stuck on the fact that I was neurodivergent. It was news to him, in some sense, it appeared, that a boldly neurodiverse student would attend their program. He was completely stunned.

Because to him, when I was on the Zoom call, I came across as this completely competent, completely aware clinician. He’s stuck there going, Well why are you so damn smart in your ability and poise to scream at us when we thought we covered all our bases to prevent this from happening to people? Why can’t you just stop fighting us for exisiting?

It was in this moment that I realized so much was lost on this man.

So I simply go, “Of course. A lot of neurodivergent people attend clinical mental health counseling programs. That’s why I’m speaking up about this, really.”

He seems more confused and I can tell is about to retort in defense of being defeated.

I take control, and am admittedly angry and enraged, but maintain composure and look simply like someone who is being annoyed to their wit’s end. “I should not have to present my diagnosis to you to prove my point. That’s not my job.”

He retreats, emotionally and opens up his stance. “No, it’s not your job.”

It seemed that his moment of understanding my heart posture was only indicated when he was given a real reason to listen to me as a genunine human being. It was suddenly now that he saw my viewpoint and was looking at me more like, Oh, I guess you kind of do have a right to be angry. You read all the documents and you can verbally verify and prove to me that you did. You’re still saying clarity in retrospect doesn’t fix it being intially unclear.

He was exactly who I thought he was.

He is not just a guy who works at a Bible College who doesn’t logically understand why a Bible College wouldn’t be respected by the mental health community at large. He is a guy who doesn’t understand disability compliance or accessibility needs. That’s an issue.

One of my issues with CCU, which was in my complaint, but got lost in the sauce, was that the school as a whole has a really terrible disability department. As well, the school is not equipped to handle students who have chronic illnesses or get a severe diagnosis.

While I understand that’s a bigger issue than he can fix, it’s an issue.

A CHMC program attracts, by virtue of the field, people with chronic health issues.

This ranges from mental to physical and everything inbetween. (If that means anything.)

A Bible College is something that is ill-equipped to have a CHMC program by virtue of misunderstanding that the disability community is worth accomodating. Most schools, in my experience, if you get MRSA and are out for a month, will give you a medical withdrawal form and it wouldn’t count against your GPA requirements. Most.

Bible Colleges are infamous for thinking that by not allowing neurodiverse, chronically ill, or disabled students in; they can then circumvent needing proper offices. But what happens when one (like me) slips through the cracks and is really, rightfully, bothered?

Because my complaint may have read like, “You are a CMHC program that’s really just a glorified MDiv, and I am ashamed to have attended it.” There was a lot in it, though.

And perhaps that was the only part a dean at a Bible College knew how to react to.

To me, I thought a CMHC dean would know how to read a complaint and address all the issues in it without conflating the facts/assertions with character attacks. But to me, a CHMC dean at a Bible College is a glorified pastor. Sorry, not sorry – for one second.

Ryan was exactly as I had expected him to be.

He was like many of the pastors I have met who are so mad that I take issue with their program (or church) at large as well as the finer points within it, that they cannot seem to hear my finer points. Telling a Christian you think theological training is contraindicated by clinical research is a big swing. I kind of made that mistake. My points were lost.

My story about the medical and ethical discrimination of a CMHC program housed in a Bible College were lost. I was firm and right. When I said, “A program shouldn’t be allowed to accept students like me, where I felt unaccepted and discriminated against.”

Ryan tried his best, “No, that shouldn’t have happened.”

I stand firm that it’s a fight I was glad to have presented.

Telling the dean of a CMHC program that they aren’t disability compliant or maintaining proper clinical standards was a great argument to have. I wished he could’ve heard me when my email said, “Here’s my grievance. I wanted to discuss solutions.”

Instead he was who I expected him to be.

He wanted to fight me that there was nothing to solve. Instead, I wanted to be able to present that I was treated unfairly and realized I never should’ve been accepted. I was smart enough to know all about that, and they said it was my fault for their error.

Unfortunately, fighting an organization’s missteps is challenging.

We love to tell people to advocate for themselves, until it makes us realize we’re harming them and may be more the villian than the hero.

Keep fighting.

XOXO,

Dorothy B