New documents show that Montana State University-Billings officials placed two tenured professors on immediate leave because they say communicating with Montana State inmates voluntarily via email after classes ended was a “safety risk.”
A disciplinary document that is forming the basis of the university’s decision to terminate both Jennifer Scroggins and Joshua Hill’s tenure and jobs details the communications, and has also formed the basis for the university to allege both of them had lied about a romantic relationship with each other, which they said did not develop until recently, reports the Daily Montanan.
The move by MSUB administrators to terminate the two professors, though, began after the professors had brought up concerns about a prison education program about which other faculty had raised concerns. Those concerns range from whether students could even earn a degree, if it was draining the prisoners of federal loan eligibility, and whether Department of Corrections officials were retaliating against the professors as faculty members pushed for answers about the program.
Hill and Scroggins are longtime professors at the university, and were told on the first day of class this fall that they were being placed on administrative leave immediately, leaving students enrolled in their courses — they both were teaching full-time — to find other courses. Previously, students told the Daily Montanan that they may have stay additional semesters to get the courses they need, and said they were left in the dark by the school’s administration.
University officials have declined several opportunities to discuss the matter with the Daily Montanan, saying they will not comment on personnel matters.
The Daily Montanan also requested an interview with Travis Anderson, the director of education for the Montana Department of Corrections, and the administrator who decided email communication with the students violated prison policy to such an extent that he banned both Scroggins and Hill from teaching or entering a facility.
Anderson also warned MSUB officials that he was reporting the incident to the Montana Department of Criminal Investigation, according to emails provided to the Daily Montanan.
The Montana Department of Corrections, through a spokesperson, declined an in-person interview with Anderson, saying that they would only consider emailed questions.
The email
In an interview with the Daily Montanan, Hill, who is a professor of economics and has taught at MSUB since 2013, admits he and Scroggins are in a romantic relationship. He said it has been going on this year, after a longtime friendship with her.
Hill also admits he and Scroggins have been critical of the prison education program, and have raised those concerns with the faculty and administration. He claims the university uses the program as a money maker, but was not concerned about incarcerated students getting a degree that could be usable after serving their sentence.
He said that because of the tension and because the university’s faculty — not the administration — own the curriculum, he and Scroggins were targeted and silenced. However, he also said they were not the only ones to share concerns.
However, he said the university is using a benign friendship with former students and illegal justification to silence them by trumping up charges to dismiss them, possibly sending a message to other faculty members to quit raising concerns about the program.
Meanwhile, Hill said he’s disappointed that the union that represents the faculty, the Montana Federation of Public Employees, has mounted such a tepid fight, while Hill and Scroggins’ professional and personal reputations hang in the balance.
The MFPE did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story, and didn’t comment when the news of the termination broke. Moreover, the union may have its own internal conflict: It not only represents the faculty of MSUB, but it also represents the guards of the prison in Deer Lodge.
In a 13-page Oct. 24 memorandum, Lee Vartanian, the MSUB provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, outlined the specific allegations against Hill, while frequently referencing Scroggins. Sources close to the situation tell the Daily Montanan it forms the basis of the proceedings against both of the professors.
That document shows it was Anderson with the Department of Corrections who began the process, when he claimed that the two professors were in violation of DOC codes, and made a report to university officials.
It was from there that the DOC combed through the email of three inmates and the correspondence from the professors. Anderson and the DOC claim that email communication regarding anything else besides coursework was against the DOC policy, and served as the basis to kick Hill and Scroggins out of the Prison Education Program, and furthermore, he said it threatened the university system’s relationship.
That policy is four pages. The particular passage Vartanian zeroed in on prohibits “engaging in personal or business relationships that may compromise professional integrity, compromise security, or cause embarrassment to the Department of Corrections or the State of Montana.”
The Department of Corrections Policy 1.3.12 also warns employees or service providers not to engage in behavior “unrelated to a legitimate correctional purpose, such as socializing or sharing of personal information.”
In his memo, Vartanian said that violating the Department of Corrections policies is one of the reasons that he’s recommending Hill and Scroggins be terminated. However, both professors point out they are not employees of the Department of Corrections, and they indeed honored the terms of the policies, even though both have said their employment and conduct isn’t governed by the DOC, rather through the Collective Bargaining Agreement of Montana State University.
Furthermore, at the time the email communications were started, Hill was not teaching courses in the program — it was the summer. Hill said he was not scheduled to teach in the program, and that all affiliation with the program had ended for him. The earliest email that Vartanian referenced was July 31 — months after the last day of class. Hill said the three students had become friends, much in the same way that former students become friends or keep in touch.
“I have always said my goal isn’t to teach students, but create colleagues,” Hill told the Daily Montanan.
Because he was communicating when he was not the inmates’ instructor, not in the PEP program, and because he said nothing inappropriate was discussed, the efforts should be dismissed. He also told the Daily Montanan that he found the timing of discipline odd in several ways: It happened directly after he had complained about the program, and the university’s bargaining agreement said that administration can only bar suspended employees from campus if they pose a security threat, something no document alleges.
He believes the harsh punishment serves a different reason — to muzzle and isolate Scroggins and Hill, and send a message to any other faculty members with concerns about the prison program.
Vartanian presented parts of eight emails in Hill’s disciplinary document. Vartanian and MSUB claim that the content of the emails violated the DOC policy, and that included a picture of Hill with his dog.
“A student inmate messaged him that he and the inmates would vote for him as governor,” according to the document.
Hill replied with the picture of the dog: “As long as that’s governor of snuggles!”
The disciplinary document also faults Hill for discussing “personal book and movie recommendations” as well as a talking about a home renovation project.
MSUB also says that Hill violated policies when he expressed sympathy about difficulties the student was having. Hill responded that the student was “in his thoughts.” Hill also “donated $25 to an inmate’s trust fund.”
These emails took place from July 31 through Aug. 10.
An unspecified number of emails appeared to be turned over from Anderson to MSUB officials. From there, university officials said they found evidence that suggested Scroggins and Hill’s romantic relationship had been going on longer than 2025.
That information forms the basis of the second prong of the complaint against Hill and Scroggins. For a period, Scroggins was the department chairwoman in the department he served. When one of Hill’s students appealed a grade he had given, she appealed to the department chairwoman, Scroggins.
According to the documents, Scroggins upheld Hill’s decision, as did Dean Tami Haaland. The student then appealed to the then-Provost Sepher Eskandari, who “validated the student’s concerns and changed it to a passing grade.”
The university’s human resources department contacted the professors, both of whom denied the relationship in mid-2024.
However, in the disciplinary document authored by Vartanian, he said that some of the email communications with the inmates suggested a romantic relationship before 2025.
For his part, Hill admits they are in a romantic relationship, and nothing in the collective bargaining agreement prohibits that. He said at the time of the grade dispute, there was no conflict of interest.
In one of the emails to the inmate on Aug. 8, Scroggins said Hill and she started “dating about 3.5 years ago,” but it also acknowledged that they “broke up.”
“We do have a weird situation with my being his friend before anything else, being colleagues (so we vote on one another’s review decisions), then my being his ‘department chair (which is why I get his student complaints.)'”
However, in that same email, she discusses that while Hill has a higher academic rank (full professor), she has the higher administrative rank (department chairwoman).
“There’s a lot of boundary setting and watching for conflicts of interest that has to go on to make this all work,” she said.
University officials in the disciplinary document characterized Hill’s previous characterizations of their relationship as “dishonest and misleading,” something he denies.
“It obstructed the university’s ability to recognize, manage and mitigate a clear conflict of interest in both student and faculty-related matters,” Vartanian wrote. “This repeated dishonesty represents more than an isolated lapse in judgment; it is a pattern of misrepresentation that compromised students rights, impeded university oversight, and damaged the institution’s credibility. Such dishonest constitutes a substantial failure to perform faculty responsibilities, as honesty and integrity in university processes are essential components of assigned duties and a fundamental expectation required of faculty.”
Students respond
During the coverage of this story, the Daily Montanan has interviewed nearly a dozen students. Every one of them said they were aware that Hill and Scroggins were involved in a relationship. Many of them pointed out they’re aware of the personal lives of many of their professors, who often share personal details. In every interview conducted with students, none said their conversations gave rise to concerns of impropriety.
The Daily Montanan has received several calls and testimonies from prisoners being held by the Montana Department of Corrections. They, too, have been enthusiastic about the courses offered.
Travis Soderberg, who has a lengthy felony and conviction record ranging from Havre to Billings, sent a two-page letter detailing the impact of Scroggins.
“I doubted my academic abilities,” he said. “I was terrified because I didn’t think I could do it, but I was desperate to have something meaningful in my life…When I think of a teacher worth remembering, Dr. Scroggins always comes up. Her genuine nature to help people is something that is rare. Although her classes were very challenging, she made them see achievable because she set a tone that made me believe in myself. My experience with these professors was amazing because they brought out the best in me.”
But that influence doesn’t stop at in the PEP program.
Tyrah Knudsvig, is student who attends classes in Billings and is not a part of the PEP program. A junior from Great Falls, she said she has stayed at MSUB because of Scroggins. She’s now expanded her horizons, double majoring in criminal justice and sociology, largely due to the inspiration Scroggins has provided.
She said she wants to be proud of her university, but it’s hard when she’s watched it target the most powerful influence on her academic career. She has been working with a local police department as well as working as a victim’s witness, something she said would have been impossible without the help of Scroggins.
She also has concerns about how the university has handled the suspension, leaving students hanging, while she’s read comments from university leaders, even the Board of Regents, complimenting themselves on how well they’ve taken care of students. She was left scurrying to find different classes, and she’s still not sure if she’ll have to spend extra time and money to take classes she needs to graduate. Scroggins taught many of the courses.
She utilized the dual-credit enrollment program offered through many Montana high schools to get a head start on her college career, but now Knudsvig thinks adding a summer term to make up classes may be the only way she can keep on track.
“We still have no idea what’s going and the department says it can’t saying anything,” Knudsvig said. “No one emailed us anything and they never informed student about the huge changes that affected us. They don’t care about the needs of the students.”
And, she heard nothing when she needed responses from Scroggins because the university instantly cut off communications, including university email, with the professors. When she stopped to check in on Scroggins, her office door was shut. A university employee would only say: “She won’t be in for the rest of the week.”
“No one would say anything. (The students) were talking: What the heck is happening?” She said. “There was no communication.”
When she asked questions of the Dean of Business whose college was charged with helping students sort out the classes, she said she was told it could be a short-term problem or a long-term one.
That, she said, was no help to her or other students.
She described several other professors as “completely sealed up.”
“I want to feel proud of my university,” Knudsvig said. “But I don’t trust what they’re doing. I care about Dr. Scroggins and she’s trying to do the right thing and they’ve treated her horribly with disrespect. It’s hard to watch. But for them to say it’s not a student concern is just infuriating.
“I hope it all comes out, even if my school is dragged through the mud. They might need to do that if they’re treating professors that poorly.”
She said she wrote a letter and hand delivered it to MSUB Chancellor Stefani Hicswa, outlining her concerns.
She hasn’t received a response.
“We’re always told the goal is to graduate and succeed,” Knudsvig said. “And this administration has disrupted our plans to succeed.”
