Complaint Review: Argosy University/Seattle - Internet

To the Reader, Thank You for hearing me.

I entered Argosy University/Seattle in 2006 after graduating with a BA in Social Science from Washington State University with a 3.5 GPA.  I entered Argosy Seattle because they had a psychology counseling graduate program that I could do two intensive 24-hour weekend sessions for each course in the program.  

At that time I lived 400 miles away from Seattle. I lived 100 miles north of Spokane, and 5 miles from the Canadian border.  I chose this program over the program at Gonzaga University or Whitworth University in Spokane, both of which I had applied to, but were 100 miles from my home, and the classes were 3-4 days a week.  

I chose Argosy, in spite of it being what I considered, a second-rate university choice, because I would literally not have to move away from home for several years to complete the program.  I could instead just travel once a month to Seattle where I had friends I could stay with.  

I have a reported IQ of between 140-145.  A condition which perhaps makes me more frustrated with the incompetence I have seen directed not only toward myself, but directed toward other students, who like myself who have had the pleasure of experiencing Argosy University Seattle's Psychology Counseling Department.  A department of questionable standards, with it's ever changing faculty and far too many faculty members of substandard quality compared to the high quality of faculty at state funded universities, or quality private universities such as Reed College in Portland, OR.,  

Getting involved with  Argosy Seattle's Psychology Counseling Program, has become a scary and horrifying experience for far too many student's in the last 7 years.  Argosy Seattle  policies blatantly protect faculty misconduct and lack of accountability, in contrast to its polices that always and I do mean always favor the side of the dysfunctional faculty member when the student  lodges a complaint against a faculty.  

Argosy Seattle does not have policies that in reality protect it's students in an trust-based honorable manner.  Its extremely high tuition fees for too often lower quality of educator is criminal.

The Argosy Psychology Counseling Department has continued to arrogantly ignore repetitive complaints against the Director of Training, Dr. William Roedel.  Dr. Roedel may have some fine qualities, but it appears that in a position of power that his innate rigidity, lack of empathy, compassion, genuineness, honesty, trustworthiness, and feelings of protection toward students with so very much invested in time and money is totally heartless and shameful.  He might try practicing what he preaches, and treat students with the same standards we students are preparing to use to help our clients, live more healthy and productive lives.

Here I am with just one more practicum course to complete, 3 last credits, and with a flick of  Dr. Roedel's  fingers on a keyboard creating a letter to the Student Conduct Committee, he can cause me lose my hoped for career I have worked thousands of hours to complete, the $100,000 in student loans I will have to pay back, the destruction of my plan to enter into a new career, after heart-related, and back injury-related health issues caused me to seek a new career, and the crushing effects his cruel and cold decision on my well-being, and my physical health.  I am supposed to avoid stress as much as possible with my heart condition. 

Who does Dr. Roedel think he is? How did he ever get hired, and stay hired with all the repetitive complaints against him.  He had been previously dismissed from his last position, before he was hired by Argosy.  Why so, is the big mystery?  I learned this way back in 2006 from fellow students when I was in my first semester at Argosy.  

A friend of mine who graduated from Argosy Seattle several years ago, told me to get online, because she found out today that their are ex-students of the Psychology Counseling Department that are seeking others to enter into a class action suit against Dr. Roedel and Argosy University Seattle.  I also learned that it appears that most persons who fail their PCE have Dr. Roedel as one of the two professors who did the student's PCE evaluation? Interesting stuff. I intend to begin research on this immediately. 

I was a 53 year old woman in 2006.  Mother of 4 brilliant children, seriously. I have been married way too many times.  I am a near death survivor who is classified by the Washington State Red Cross to be one of the few "miracle cases". I will be 60 this coming November 9th: Rosanne Barr, the actress and I not only share similar physical and personality characteristics, we also share the same exact birthday making us the same exact age.  I consider my self as a feminist, alternative-living political and social activist of the old school type.  I am a Deadhead forever. I ate lunch with Rosa Parks many long years ago...   With a report this long, I feel I should share some of my life with you all.  

I currently work as a substitute public school teacher part time since I have been in graduate work. I have a long and interesting resume and a good employment record, and am a college trained potter, and a master gardener.  I continue to be a busy person.  

I created and used to work and own a natural food product company until my first heart attack in 1993.  Among other products I invented, I was Washington State's first fresh salsa company, located in Seattle.  I also catered and I had a food concession booth I used to take to the largest festivals held in Seattle.  I sold 500,000 pints of salsa before my heart attack at age 39, from a hereditary condition and 70 hour work weeks.

I currently have completed 300 college credits, 200 undergraduate credits.  I am also a graduate student in Psychology at Walden University with a 3.98 GPA, with 3 courses left to complete.  I have completed all but my Practicum work in the Psychology Counseling Program at Argosy University Seattle, and currently have a 3.45 GPA.  With the extra courses I have been forced to take to bide my time while waiting to reenter Practicum for the last three years, I now have approximate 60 credits from 3-credit courses, completed at Argosy Seattle.  All my graduate credits are in psychology.

In 2009, after completing all my required course work for the Psychology Counseling (PC) Program, I enter the Practicum (student practice) segment of the PC Program.  Unfortunately, the only course section left was with my student adviser, who just happened to also be the "Director of Practicum Training", a Dr. William Roedel.  I had already had problems interacting with him when he was my adviser, and had previously avoided taking any courses with him. This was because I had learned in passing from students who had been in his classes that he had a tendency to choose specific students to pick on openly in his classes, when the mood came on him, and that it was obviously noticeable to students because they saw it happening.

By student grapevine, I knew by the time I completed my first semester at Argosy, that I wanted to avoid courses with Dr. William Roedel because of the reputation he had incurred with some of his students, particularly the more unique personality students.

I noticed from the time of my first seminar session with him as my Practicum I instructor, and afterwards, that he spoke to me with a surlier, shorter tone than he used with the other 5 students in the seminar (all in their 20's).  Which really surprised me because, I have a solid reputation for being a very straightforward, honest and trustworthy individual and a quite social person, some would say popular, with a large social base including long time friends, family and over 100 ex-employees that I share mutual affection with, from the days when I had my own natural food products company in Seattle in the 1980's and 90's.  

In the first hour of the the seminar session I was supposed to present my first case formulation during, Dr. Roedel had the floor, and he spoke of this and that.  Toward the end of the hour, he told a story that got him so emotionally excited that he literally got red in the face. The story concerned his internship in Baltimore Md., where I grew up until I was 24 and moved to the Northwest.  I used to live, owned a house, in the area where he had gone to do this internship work in Baltimore. The story was about his perceived mistreatment by his supervisor there, who I told him to quit if he could not handle the case load she was giving him.  He had told her that he was not going to take any more clients, and she told him that if he did not take the clients that she had told him to, that she would simply replace him.  He knew I was originally long ago from the Baltimore area, because we had discussed it once.  It appeared that the incident still deeply angered him, and I believe I likely have some of those Baltimore "Charm City" ways about me.  Almost right after the story, I began my presentation, and I would swear upon the life of my mother, that some sort of sick "transference" happened, and suddenly his demeanor toward me got strange, and I was a target to release his frustration on and to prove his power with, now that he was in a position to lord over those who are in a weaker position than him.  In all my years of education and skills learning, I have never had a single negative experience until Dr. Roedel was allowed to persecute me, and abuse his power as Director of Training.  

When I tried to present my first client-case formulation in Practicum I in 2009, with Dr. William Roedel, I was no more into my oral  presentation than 5 minutes before, I was abruptly, and coldly interrupted and asked a question about a diagnosis; that I answered by saying that it was my site supervisor Dr. Mac Dougall, in her 60's? a clinical psychologist of many years experience that had made the official diagnosis of my client.  Suddenly, the gleam came into his eyes, and the situation started to become heated, and I was put into a position where I was badgered, for the next 2 hours in front of my fellow students, who were so distressed.

After seminar ended at the end of the two hours, one classmate was crying, and several told me how sorry they were that he had treated me the way he did.  They were appalled at the eagerness he displayed in his attack, and that he did this to me for 2 hours, instead of taking me aside in private to talk.  He was noticeably unconcerned that the student who was to do their case presentation after me, and who had not slept the night before because she was finishing her presentation, had been given no consideration at all, and was not even apologized to by either Dr. Roedel or his helper-TA. None of my classmates were apologized to.  I apologized to my classmates right away after class, and they said it was not my fault what happened.

 I was never apologized to by anyone at Argosy about the rude and unethical behaviors I have endured from Dr. Roedel.   He was not alone in his attack, where every time I responded to what he said with a true justification, and in defense of his out of control fired-up attack on me, his doctoral student helper TA quickly teamed up with him, and glowed from his approval of her for helping him attack me.  I did not cry during the 2 hour attack of continued unethical cruelty to me as a graduate student. I waited to cry until I left the school, and then I cried in anger, and unfairness.  I recorded the elements of this confrontation, after it happened so as to have a record. 

I returned to seminar the next week, deciding to buck-up and get on with the work.  The week after that, I quit Practicum I, for reasons other than the cruel and self-esteem crushing behaviors of Dr. Roedel, who never had a word of apology for me, or a kind word, and definitely no showing of empathy, compassion, or honesty.

I left practicum because my partner, Bill, was told by his neurosurgeon that he needed to get in for his 3rd back operation as soon as possible, because his legs were going numb, and were buckling out from under him.  I needed to be his full time caregiver after the operation for a couple months, so I was unable to work, or drive to Seattle 400 miles one way every week. He had taken care of me when I had open-heart surgery, so I needed to help him, and there was no one else to help him.

I notified my site supervisor, closed out with my clients (gave them back to Dr. Mac Dougall, whop had been their counselor before she turned them over to me), and notified Dr. Roedel by phone that I had to leave Practicum.  I did everything required of me so as to do "no harm" to my clients.  

A couple weeks later I receive an official letter that Dr. Roedel had filed a complaint about me to the Student Conduct Committee at Argosy Seattle.  Suddenly he was claiming that I had endangered my clients by abandoning them.  A totally bogus, lying  claim; simply punishment for and his way to assert his power over me.  I was in shock.  I notified Argosy, and Dr. Roedel that I had done an ethically based close out with my clients, and that no harm was done because I had only seen the 2-3 times, and that they still had Dr. MacDougall, their previous counselor who had been their counselor before giving them to me. 

I was allowed no one to come with me to the meetings that followed Dr. Roedels's bogus claim.  I was alone with no support system.  They told me I was not allowed any legal representation, and not even a friend.  My penalties were pre-decided, and supported by Argosy's remediation plan system. Including a year penalty before i could enter Practicum again, I needed to pay out of my own pocket for a $100/hour counselor (as a budget conscious grad student this was harsh).  I had to sign the remediation plan if IO wanted to complete my degree, and several other points.  I had to sign an agreement as if I was the guilty party, and no one at Argosy to my knowledge, even pretended to hold Dr. Roedel responsible for his continued unethical behaviors.

Dr. Roedel, with his suave voice, and psychological lingo seemed to steamroller me, and it appeared that no one at Argosy Seattle had the backbone to pursue penalizing him his unethical behaviors as an Argosy instructor. I suppose his lies and distortions of the truth were ignored because it was easier for all concerned but me, the lowly, keep her in her place student.

Now, in Fall of 2010, I finally reentered Practicum again. My first semester went smoothly with Dr. Nina Parker-Cohen as my Practicum I, instructor. I passed the course.  In Practicum II we got a new instructor, after the first one left over some dispute with Argosy.  The new instructor Dr. Roedel chose is a female friend of Dr. Roedel's.  All seemed to be going along fine until I let her know that I had gone, with my site supervisors permission, to do a therapy session at a disabled woman's home, a face-to-face session required by the DSHS program once a month.  The woman is medically restricted from driving due to seizures, lives 30 miles from town, and had transportation problems. 

My practicum instructor got very upset, and said she had to go to Dr. Roedel with this unethical behavior of mine.  She did, even though I had informed her that others in my class were blatantly going into foster children's homes, without another licensed mental health worker present weekly, while doing their practicum work at the YMCA in Seattle   That was 2 months ago. At the time, and still today, I did not mention the students names, or that the client's were foster children, nor that the YMCA was involved, not that these students were in my own class.  

I have attempted up to this point to protect those students. I informed one of these students back in Sept. 2010, because I had applied for the YMCA position myself, and knew what they were expecting their practicum students to do, and wondered if it was ethical. I suggested the student go to Dr. Roedel and ask in order to protect themselves.  The topic was never again discussed, but I have known these students have been doing sessions in homes. and have transported children in their cars without other licensed persons present.

These students have gone on to finish their thesis PCE work.  My question is, why was my practicum instructor so hard on me, reporting me and for my conduct, and yet she never reported the fact to Dr. Roedel that these other, young and bubbly students had been deceiving the program in illegal and unethical ways, and have known it all along. I even asked one of these students passively when they were presenting their case presentation, where the session was being held, and she said, in the child's home, and my practicum instructor sat right there listening, and blatantly ignored the information the student shared out loud.  At this point I knew I was again that I was being assessed by a different set of criteria than my fellow students.

After she was hard on me about the in-home session incident, and she spoke to Dr. Roedel about me, her whole attitude changed toward me, and I had a feeling that when she reported me it gave Dr. Roedel an opportunity to share his view of my past history, from his self-serving distorted perspective.  My new practicum instructor, has now come to target me, through seriously nit-picking my work, interfering with the completion of my practicum case presentations by delays, unnecessary repeated revisions of my work and causing me unfair stress over my work.  

When I examined of my fellow student's work , which I have copies of, points I was nit-picked for had not been nit-picked in their work.  She informed me midway through the practicum II session, with terse and triggering emails, that she felt IO was not doing grad-level work. Though I may not be perfect, it is my belief, and the belief of my site supervisor, that the purpose of practicum seminar is to help me through feedback and support to prepare me for my PCE thesis presentation.

Two weeks before the end of practicum II, I gave all my work, and all email communications between my instructor and myself, to my work site supervisor to review.  Her opinion was that my instructor's responses to me appeared to be punishment driven, and that every time I responded back to my instructors distorted claims, that the punishment increased.  My supervisor felt I was being being set up for failure.  Being targeted again because my practicum instructor was using her power in ways that were intentionally designed to trigger me into giving a defensive response.  My site supervisor could clearly see that the emails from my instructor, were harried, and that the instructor seemed to have become locked into some agenda, inconducive of

Though drove 13 hours round trip and did not miss a single seminar session, I showed active enthusiasm in class, my assignments were in on time or early and I completed them all, did all the revisions. I was only allowed 35 minutes to present my first presentation, while my other classmates had been allowed an hour or more.  

I was denied, again by email, any revision/feedback on my second case formulation before I even turned it in. Evidently, if it was not perfect enough for these special standards she had come to set especially for me, I was warned I might not even be allowed to present my case at all!  As penalty I suppose, and I was informed by email only, even before my second case formulation was submitted, that if my case formulation was not approved for presentation, she in good conscience could not give me credit, instead I would receive a no-credit grade.  What she did not say, was that the the no-credit grade would keep me from entering into the Practicum III seminar;  my final semester at Argosy.  

Interestingly, my instructor did do feedback, a little only, and gave me a terse email telling me that I could not use my client's real name in my second case formulation.  Instead of asking me if "Maria", was really my client's true name, which it was not.  I made up a name to call my client, her real name is not Maria. When I addressed this issue, I was not even given an apology, and it was her primary feedback on my second case formulation, which in fact was done in a professional way, according to my site supervisor.

When she sent me the little needed feedback on my second presentation, she had already written a  grade on that presentation, even before I presented; she assigned me 0 of 60 points.  Making sure I would not receive the points needed to pass the course.  

I mean heck, I was not even given 5 or 10 points, for a case presentation submitted on time, that was completed in a way that demonstrated a well-thought-out improved standard of work, and that I had obviously worked hard on to please her.  I diligently applied all points of my instructor's feedback from my first case formulation, to this second case formulation; keeping in mind that my work was being pre-penalized and pre-judged even before I submitted it.  Work that my site supervisor reviewed after it was sent back with the 0/60 point grade, and found "presentable', as a practice case formulation.  

After the 0/60 grade, I still revised my second presentation, which actually took me very little time, and sent it back to my instructor.  I then received another email that said, she was not going to allow me to present my work in the final seminar class of the semester.

I of course responded to her weird decision, and laid out my reasons why I believed I should be allowed to present my case to the class.  I received another terse communication by email telling me she had decided that she would "allow" me to go ahead and present and that I would be given an hour at the beginning of class. Of course, I thought being allowed to present would likely change my 0/60 points grade on the presentation.

Though the presentation went better than I had expected. She did not even allow me to play more than 6 minutes of my 10 minute transcribed session to my classmates.  She abruptly told me to stop the CD, and to go on to classmate feedback.  She visibly appeared rather inattentive of my work, and down right unfriendly to me, and did not even smile or give me one point of positive feedback.  

As I stated previously, my work was satisfactory enough for a practice case formulation  My grade remained the same, whatever the points totaled to, is a mystery to me as a student.  I thought, as my site supervisor also does, that I was denied my rights as a student to learn from my errors, to have receive any recognition at all of my of clearly improved work.    

It has been four weeks since that last class.  I received a no-credit.  It was not until 3 days ago, that I received notification, again via e,mail, that I have again been referred to the Student Conduct committee, and would be notified of the date I would will need to appear.  I have been referred for dismissal from the program.  I still have not been told the nature of the referral, except that the claim is I am not held to the conditions of my agreed upon remediation plan from 2009.

The last time I went before the Student Conduct Committee in 2009 I drove 400 miles to get to Argosy. Once there I realized they had allowed time for only a 1-hour meeting.   No one from the Psychology Counseling Department attended.  Instead, the only persons that did appear were the Registrar, Deann Ketchum, the financial aid officer, Sara DeWitt, and a Dr. Park, a faculty member  from the Clinical Psychology Department, who was totally unfamiliar to me, and clearly did not want to be there, and seemed visibly antsy to leave as soon as possible.

I have finally called an old friend of mine Peter who is a long time, well established civil rights attorney in Seattle.  He says he will help me. This time, I will not keep my mouth silent.  I refuse to take this treatment by Argosy University Seattle any longer, without a fight this time. I want restitution!  The Student Conduct Committee has sent me an email today, stating I could not bring any legal representation to the meeting they want me to come and defend myself at.  If I am not allowed to defend myself against bogus behavior, why am I being asked to attend a meeting where I am being forced to defend myself? 


Peace and Love to all who take their valuable time to read my story.  Feel free to contact me if you share any of my concerns.

Thank You