Ecoversity factions clash over school's future

Julie Ann Grimm | The New Mexican

3/30/2008 - 3/31/08

Directors of a Santa Fe school founded by a peace- and planet-loving philanthropist are at war with former participants.

Leaders of Ecoversity say they are shifting the focus of the educational nonprofit and making campus improvements in the wake of the 2003 death of benefactor Frances Harwood. Former staff, faculty and students, however, say Harwood's goal of teaching sustainable living is not being honored by the new administration.

Claude Convisser, a local attorney who took classes at Ecoversity, is calling for an official investigation into the school and an affiliated nonprofit founded by Harwood called Prajna. He has presented sworn testimony to the state attorney general claiming Jeff Harbour, the president of both boards, defrauded his benefactor, seized control of the school and is departing from her mission.

Harbour said the claims are outrageous and that his character is being defamed along with the organization he's tried to grow. He also claims Convisser is really the one trying to take control of Ecoversity — an assertion Convisser refutes.

"We are on the cusp of having something really wonderful," said Harbour, whose first name is Thomas and who also goes by the initials R.P. "It has come at a price of making a lot of people mad ... but the environmental movement had to go more mainstream."

Harwood founded Ecoversity in 1999 and opened the 11-acre campus on Agua Fría Street in 2001. The school offered courses on topics such as solar energy, efficient building, gardening, water harvesting and beekeeping — all taught by professionals from the community.

The trouble seems to have started in the spring of 2003, when Harwood, known to many by the nickname Fiz, was diagnosed with lung cancer and sought to put her affairs in order. Six days before she died that summer, she signed a new will that put Harbour in charge of her estate planning. A few months later, he took her place on the boards of the nonprofits.

Since then, Ecoversity has gone through two administrators, and in 2006 its core faculty made a group decision to stop teaching there in protest of Harbour's management decisions.

Scott Pittman was among that group. Pittman and his wife, Arina, devoted years to the school — Scott as a permaculture teacher and Arina as the executive director — before leaving to continue building their own nonprofit devoted to sustainable practices. Arina said Harbour fired her and asked her to sign a gag order, but she refused.

Now the Pittmans are advocating Harbour's ouster as part of "Rescue Ecoversity," a campaign to urge a state investigation. The couple and several others formerly associated with the school have signed affidavits supporting Convisser's allegations.

"We all shared Fiz's dream of 'Look, we are dealing with everything falling apart on this planet, and truly there is no one out there teaching how we can get out of this corner we have painted ourselves into,' " Scott Pittman said. "The tragedy of this drama is that it was an incredible gift to the community, and the community has suffered a tremendous blow by losing that asset."

Lost asset or mission shift?

While a course book for 2006 was thick with classes offered by more than a dozen instructors on a wide range of topics, the Ecoversity Web site currently advertises three courses available for next month. Dates for the classes were added Friday.

Board member Willem Malten said a waiting list of 25 people has formed this winter for a beekeeping class, and Harbour said an algae demonstration project is also planned by Alfonz Viszolay for Earth Day on April 26.

The board is finishing up renovations to three campus buildings. It has added a solar-powered electricity system and is acquiring LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for the small house where Harwood lived and died that is now the Ecoversity headquarters. A larger, 1930s-era building has a new roof, floor and electrical wiring.

Malten said the school is moving away from campus-based programs to an online focus. It has turned a two-car garage into a "solar studio" classroom designed to produce good audio and sound recordings. Programs are posted on the school's Web site.

"We went from 200 hits a month to 30,000 hits a month. That's not because we are doing nothing. It's because we are doing something," he said.

Charles Bensinger, an alternative-fuels expert who helped Harwood create curriculum for the school, said he believes Malten, Harbour and other leaders are doing things Harwood would have liked.

"From what I can see and have observed, Ecoversity is following her vision pretty well," he said. But Bensinger said he's not privy to information about school finances and has tried to stay out of the controversy.

Ecoversity does not, however, seem to have nearly the same presence in the community that it used to have, he suggested, saying, "It seems to me to be sort of in a dormancy period right now. ... I have heard the comment from people that the place has great potential and that it's too bad that whatever happened, happened."

Harwood's dream and death

Harwood was an heiress who moved to New Mexico in the 1990s. Educated as a cultural anthropologist, she was also a Buddhist practitioner who helped found Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colo., the first Buddhist university in the Western Hemisphere.

Her aim in Santa Fe was to establish another school, a place where hands-on learning could motivate students. She told The New Mexican in 2003 that she started Ecoversity because something was missing from academia.

"My interest always has been cultural ecology, how people view the land," Harwood said in the interview about four months before her death. "I wanted to do something with other people that would rejuvenate and rebuild Earth. I wanted to come out of the ivory tower."

The school was certified by the state Higher Education Department to offer continuing education courses, and at the time of Harwood's death was planning a longer course called "Earth Based Vocations." That endeavor has since stopped. The state did not issue a license to Ecoversity in 2007 because the school did not apply for one, a state spokeswoman said.

Convisser, the president of an alternative-fuel company who moved to Santa Fe about two years ago and never met Harwood, said concerns expressed to him by a former board member motivated him to investigate.

What he found outraged him, he said. Tax documents show Harbour took salaries from the nonprofits that totaled more than $178,000 between 2004 and 2006. He got another $138,000 for his two-year job of settling Harwood's estate.

"The primary purpose is not happening there," Convisser said. "Ecoversity as a center for the community to go and learn about sustainability is not there, with a few token exceptions."

Convisser claims Harbour and another board member, George Clark, conspired to defraud Harwood by persuading her to sign a new will while she was on her deathbed, and that Harbour has been squandering money intended to be used to teach the community about sustainability.

Convisser sent a 19-page complaint detailing his concerns in a letter to state Attorney General Gary King last summer. King's staff, which has a heavy workload and handles various investigations around the state, is just now getting to the case.

"We did get the complaint, and it's being reviewed as we speak," spokesman Phil Sisneros said. "We have not, at this time, anyway, opened an investigative type file on it yet."

Seeking legal recourse

The Ecoversity saga took a public twist this winter, when Convisser and others began collecting signatures at places such as the Santa Fe Farmers Market and a Bioneers conference on a petition calling for a grand jury investigation.

The petition drive is an attempt to invoke a little-used state law by which a group of residents can ask the District Court to convene a grand jury investigation of an alleged crime.

So far, the campaign has about 480 signatures. In order for the petition to comply with state law, it must contain 2 percent of Santa Fe County's registered voters, or about 1,733 signatures. A Web site complete with links to tax documents and other correspondence was recently established to spread the message.

Convisser also tried to interest the District Attorney's Office in his evidence, but, according to District Attorney Henry Valdez, the office only takes referrals from law enforcement.

Valdez said Convisser would not be the first to attempt to invoke the citizen-initiated grand jury, but he does not recall any such juries that produced an indictment.

Harbour vehemently denied every aspect of what he calls Convisser's "conspiracy theory" during a recent interview at Ecoversity.

"I knew Frances Harwood for a long time," he said, "and I am working very hard to fulfill her legacy and make this place successful, and (Convisser) does not have better things to do than to go around and ... "

He trailed off, throwing his hands in the air.

Getting to the bottom of it

State District Judge Barbara Vigil, who handled Harwood's probate case beginning in 2003, said in a recent interview that there was no information introduced during those proceedings that suggested any impropriety with Harwood's last will.

"I don't recall that being introduced in this case," Vigil said after reviewing the file. "We would have settled it. Usually if those issues are raised and there is merit, we have a process."

Harwood's sister, Sybil Hardwood, and other family members hired their own attorneys to oversee the estate settlement after her death and did not express formal complaints about Harbour's services.

Sybil Harwood, who lives on the East Coast, said she thought it would be a good idea for someone to look over Harbour's affairs at Ecoversity, but she refused further comment. Another sister, Catherine Harwood, was unavailable for comment.

Dr. Hennie Fitzpatrick, who served as Harwood's personal physician, also disputes the idea that Harwood was incapacitated in any way when she signed her will.

Without a court review, there might never be a definitive answer to the question of what Harwood wanted and whom she wanted in charge of her legacy.

Tomas Enos is also among those who lost faith in the current management of Ecoversity. A former teacher, he also visited Harwood on her deathbed and said that around the time she was supposed to have signed the will, his friend wasn't able to speak and seemed barely conscious.

Saddened and shocked by her death, and further discouraged by the direction he saw the school going in, Enos said he distanced himself. But now he has renewed courage to stand up for something he said is wrong.

"We need to find out what is going on," he said. "We need to push for this investigation."

Contact Julie Ann Grimm at 986-3017 or jgrimm@sfnewmexican.com.

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FROM FOUNDING TO FEUDING
1999: Frances Harwood founds Ecoversity.
2001: School opens on 11 acres bordering Santa Fe River and Agua Fría Street, offering courses on solar energy, effi­cient building, gardening, water harvesting and beekeeping.
2003: Harwood, diagnosed with lung cancer, puts Jeff Harbour in charge of her estate; she dies later that year.
2006: Teachers protest
management and decide to stop teaching.
2008: Ecoversity campus is undergoing renovations, shifting focus from on-site to online; former teachers and students are circulating a petition urging an investigation of the organization.

DUELING WEB SITES
 www.Ecoversity.org
 www.rescueecoversity.org

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