A group of protesters gathered in the heat of the morning on Friday, June 6, to demand that Truett McConnell University’s Board of Trustees bring justice to administrators suspected of wrongdoing against alumni Hayle Swinson and others. They gathered support from drivers honking their horns on East Kytle Street and shouted “we’re praying for you” as the board members walked into O’Dell Hall.
The planned preliminary march from the White County DFACS parking lot to O’Dell Hall was canceled, as DFACS workers told protestors they could not park in the lot. Heather Pillsbury, one of the demonstration’s organizers, was disappointed by the change of plans.
“I think it would’ve been really impactful for us to walk down as a group, but we’re rolling with the punches,” she said.
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Pillsbury said her distrust of TMU’s leadership began when President Caner and his administration backed Paige Patterson, the former president of the Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary, who was involved with a similar sexual abuse scandal in 2018.
“Since then, I have distanced myself with even wanting to be associated with Truett because of the current leadership and the culture that I felt was present there,” she said. “But with this alumni group coming together, I have never been more proud to call myself an alum of Truett McConnell.”
‘Unfit’ for leadership
The Stand-In for Accountability organizer believes that President Caner is unfit for the TMU presidency “either through sin and willful wrongdoing or willful ignorance,” and she expects his resignation.
Brianna Lewallen, another demonstrator at the event, was a student and later a dormitory resident advisor and resident director at TMU from 2014-2018. She is now a registered nurse and lives in Hampton, Georgia.
“I feel like we’re really truly broken,” she said. “The behavior of TMU is not aligned with their mission,” she said. She opposes the university’s practice of requiring NDA’s (non-disclosure agreements) of departing faculty and staff, which alumni believe has restrained the university and perhaps law enforcement authorities from learning the complete truth about Reynolds’ misdeeds and possibly an alleged university cover-up.
“There are some people at the university or who were there who want to talk about what they saw, who can’t do so because of the NDAs,” she stated.
Lewallen says she served as a dormitory resident advisor and resident director during the years Swinson was on campus. She was one of the people who received a petition with at least 50 names, complaining about VP Reynolds’ behavior in the classroom—specifically requiring female students to meet with him behind closed doors to discuss past trauma.
She said that petition was delivered to Jonathan Morris, an administrator, and she knows it was brought to the TMU trustees. “My staff prayed for the truth to come out,” she said. Morris was later dismissed from his job, with the university alleging it was for financial impropriety.
Lewallen said she personally was not called behind closed doors with Reynolds. “I wasn’t a target, because I have no history of abuse,” she said.
She said she had one direct experience with Reynolds that made her question his theology and his behavior. “He told us that angels had semen,” she said, an idea not found in the Bible, and that Lewallen had never heard before or since in any Christian setting. It struck her as odd that he was introducing a sexual idea to a theological concept, she said.
‘Heartbroken’ and ‘upset’
Bennett Clough, one of the five or six men at the demonstration, and the only one wearing a clerical collar, said he is a Methodist minister at three churches in Franklin and Banks Counties. He was on campus from 2018-2022, and he said that, during his time there, there was “whispering” on campus about the behavior of Reynolds and some other men as well.
“TMU means a great deal to me,” Clough said. “I met my wife here; all of my closest friends are from here. I really love this school…but I’m heartbroken and really upset about what happened. People took advantage of vulnerable people, and that’s the opposite of what Christ told us to do.” He said he strongly believes the trustees should launch a full-scale investigation of not only misdeeds, but into who knew about them.
“I just want us to be better,” he said.
Clough did not say if he wanted or expected Caner to be dismissed.
TMU released a press release on June 6 stating its next steps amid the sexual abuse allegations levied against various school officials.
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UPDATE: TMU Board of Trustees agree to third-party investigation, Caner administrative leave