THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, March 28, 1995 TAG: 9503280243
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
Students and faculty often praise Virginia Wesleyan College as a tightly knit campus with a happy, family atmosphere.
Basil H. Smith Jr., a security officer fired last fall, says the campus is a pressure cooker where some employees are treated worse than a disobedient child.
It's a place, he says, where you can be scolded for meeting your wife for breakfast in the student center after-hours.
A place where you get told by the president, after suggesting that the college provide bulletproof vests: ``If you perceive that you are in danger, I suggest you find other employment.''
A place where you can be fired for being six minutes late - even if you got to work on time that night.
Smith, 47, has sued Wesleyan and two administrators in charge of security for causing him ``severe emotional distress.'' Wesleyan President William T. ``Billy'' Greer Jr. said he could not comment on the lawsuit, which represents only one side of the dispute.
Both Smith and his lawyer, SuAnne Hardee, are graduates of Wesleyan. They say that they're still loyal alumni, but that the college isn't entirely living up to its reputation.
``Great faculty, great student body, but it has some problems,'' Hardee, who graduated in 1990, said Monday. ``Life's peachy keen if you're a student, but it's not so pleasant if you're a staff member. I'd like to see it cleaned up because I am an alum.''
Smith worked at Wesleyan from 1989 to September. During that time, Smith said in the lawsuit and in an interview Monday:
He faced ``arbitrary and inconsistent disciplinary action.'' Other security guards came in late dozens of times without penalty, Smith said. He was late about 10 times and was punished twice - once being suspended for five days without pay.
Smith said he may have been singled out for his outspokenness. He said he told Greer that guards should get vests after he was shot at by a driver at the campus entrance on Wesleyan Drive in 1992. ``The fact that I didn't have any qualms about bringing things up - I was looked at as a problem child, an instigator,'' Smith said.
He was subjected to ``angry tirades'' and ``demeaning language'' from his bosses. Once, when Smith was driving through campus, leading a group of rescue vehicles to a dorm where a student was having convulsions, he was stopped by William S. Culberson, administrative supervisor of security. Culberson ``cursed me and said, `Get the hell out of the way,' '' Smith said. Culberson ``made us feel like we were blooming idiots.''
Another time, Smith was chastised by security director Richard G. Safford for having breakfast with his wife, a Wesleyan student, after his shift had ended. ``I was told not to fraternize with students'' while in uniform, he said.
He said Safford also accused him of malingering and faking a back injury. Smith said, however, that he drove into a ditch on campus while on bike patrol and could not work for a month.
Tensions escalated last September after a ``line inspection,'' a test of security guards' readiness. He said Culberson and Safford opened a locked door, left cigarette smoke and tripped an alarm in the administration building late one Saturday night.
Smith, assuming there had been an intruder, called the city police. Before they got to campus, he learned that it was a ``line inspection.'' He said he called Culberson, who criticized him for calling police and not following ``proper established procedures.'' Smith told police what had happened.
The next day, Smith said, he filed a grievance. Later that day he was told he was terminated - not for his response to the ``line inspection'' but for being six minutes late that shift. He said he was also cited for engaging in ``racist'' language for talking Spanish over the radio to a Hispanic officer. Smith said that, in fact, he was on time that day and that he often spoke Spanish to his colleague.
Smith's suit was filed in Virginia Beach Circuit Court on March 13 against the college, Culberson and Safford. He seeks $1.4 million in damages.
``I have no animosity toward the school,'' said Smith, whose son Basil III will graduate from Wesleyan in May. ``As far as the faculty go, I still think it's No. 1.
``But there are two totally different sides of the school - the faculty and the administration.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Basil H. Smith Jr.
by CNB