Arkansas Business gets to the bottom of the recent abrupt departure of Anthony Chelte as dean of the UALR College of Business. An internal audit raised questions about unreported leave time and unauthorized or duplicate travel expenses.

Chelte incurred more than $75,000 in travel expenses during 18 months as dean — including seven trips to France. The university audit recommended reimbursement of more than $11,000, in addition to $3,800 he's already paid back for one French trip. He was removed as dean in January and resigned from the university in April.

Arkansas State University this afternoon will announce the largest endowment gift in the school's history.

And Gus Malzahn hasn't coached a game yet.

Details shortly.

UPDATE: The gift of $5 million for a scholarship endowment comes from a 1948 graduate, Neil Griffin, a financier who lives in Kerrville, Texas. Scholarships will go to well-qualified entering freshmen from Arkansas or Missouri and also may be used to pay for study abroad by upperclassmen.

He's known as philanthropist. A building at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston is named for him.

• WILL HE STAY: UCA Trustee Scott Roussel has been urged to resign by faculty Senate. He had a chance today, but said nothing at board meeting.

Items of interest on the agenda included a proposed 2.08 percent tuition/fee increase that would, according to the UCA chart, put the school at $7,332 for TWO 15-hour semesters, about $11 less than UALR and $221 less than UAF. (PLEASE NOTE CORRECTION: I originally wrote that the amount was for a single semester.) The Board approved that increase.

Some interest attended a matter NOT on the agenda. That would be whether Trustee Scott Roussel will bow to the wishes of a faculty Senate resolution and resign his seat on the board. Roussel failed to tell the rest of the UCA community about the full details of a proposed loan from campus food service supplier Aramark to pay for presidential home improvements in return for a contract extension.

The hubbub eventually saw the departure of President Allen Meadors. Roussel has continued to vote on Aramark matters, to the official displeasure of faculty. There have been calls for Roussel's resignation. Gov. Mike Beebe, who hails from Searcy as Roussel does and who reappointed him to the UCA Board, had a private meeting with the trustee a few days ago, specifics not revealed. Might he have made a gentle suggestion that Roussel depart before his term expires? Not, of course, by way of admitting any error but by way of removing himself as a point of contention in the interest of continuing the rehabilitation of the school's image, tarnished beginning in the Lu Hardin era.

UPDATE: After participating in several hours of board discussions, Roussel departed for personal business without making any public statements about his service on the board. The board then met in executive session without him. Afterward, the board met in public and voted to increase President Tom Courtway's pay from $162,578 to $210,000. However, at his request, he'll continue to work without a contract, school-supplied car or other special benefit except the president's home.

John Barnes, a trustee of Pulaski Tech, sent along a batch of architectural drawings and plans for the college's culinary school, set to be built on the campus on Interstate 30 near the Pulaski-Saline line. You'll recall that there was some debate about putting the school on Main Street and sufficient space and parking were issues that arose during the debate. This is the shape of a building that could prove to be something of an I-30 corridor "landmark." The college has six acres available for parking at the site, he said.

Happy news from the University of Arkansas, which has not wholly jettisoned liberal arts studies for business, charter school propaganda and football.

A team from the UA won a national competition in classical studies. They won a rapid response contest on questions about Greek and Roman geography, language, literature and architecture.

Ego amare.

I might check in again. On the other hand, I might not. So let's call this the open line.

* But, first, a report from a conference of Arkansas college students and a public agenda they drew up. The full release is on the jump. They are products of their time and place. Raising the sales tax and providing more government support for private enterprise are examples of reflections of some fairly conventional thinking of their elders.

Since we are talking about university education, creating wealth and innovation: I highly recommend Ken Auletta's article in the New Yorker on Stanford University, or "Get Rich U." It's about the aim of higher education (do liberal arts matter?) and about one school and area's phenomenal success in research, business and job creation. Government had little to do with it. In fact, the story is in part about how New York government obstacles discouraged a Stanford expansion to New York city.

• DR. JOHNNY MOORE

A native of Old Washington, Ark. and a 1980 Philander gradute, Moore is currently executive vice president-student affairs at Tyler Junior College in Tyler, Texas. He is Philander Smith's 13th president.

More from the news release:

The Higher Education Coordinating Board today approved a rule change that will allow students who must take remedial course work because of below-par ACT scores to take those courses concurrently with for-credit classes in the subjects.

The rule change follows 2011 legislation.

Details follow in a news release:

• SCOTT ROUSSEL: Urged to quit UCA Board.

It shouldn't take a resolution.

Roussel misled his fellow board members and the public in several ways.

He said UCA had gotten a "godsend" gift from Aramark, the campus food service contractor.

It got no such thing. Rather, Aramark agreed to provide UCA $700,000 in return for a no-bid contract extension.

The $700,000 was no gift. It was a loan — at a very favorable interest rate to Aramark, a couple of percentage points above the prime lending rate.

It was to go to raise to more than $1 million the amount pumped into the presidential residence for the now-departed Allen Meadors. The Board hadn't yet approved additional work on the house.

Roussel, in short, was the pivot on a sweetheart deal for a campus vendor to do some sweetheart work avidly sought by the UCA president and his wife. He didn't favor anyone else with his knowledge. (Except, I should add, a campus vice president who handled the paperwork.)

All this is reason enough for Roussel to resign. But the motivation for the faculty vote was Roussel's decision to continue to vote on Aramark contract matters, including a new deal, despite his conflict of interest.

Some gubernatorial leadership is needed. Gov. Mike Beebe, who reappointed Searcy homeboy Roussel to a term running through 2015 in 2008, should give his appointee a call and ask him what's more important, the image of UCA or Roussel's seat on the board of trustees?

• DR. JOHNNY MOORE

UPDATE: Others being interviewed are Dr. Ronald Swain, senior advisor to the president at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, and Dr. Lora Bailey, vice president for academic affairs of Lane College.

I'll pass along a note I received today from the staff of Northwest Arkansas Community College about a subject they hope comes up today at the meeting of a legislative higher education subcommittee. Higher Education board.

Simply: Tuition is going up; staff pay isn't going up; legislature pleads poverty yet top officials got whopping big pay raises in a manner the staff finds secretive. They included a 20 percent-plus raise for the president's secretary, almost as much as the UA football coach's girlfriend made, if you want some idea how outlandish the pay is.

Welcome to Arkansas higher education, where a year rarely passes with a COLA-exceeding tuition increase for kids whilst another six-figure deputy/vice/assistant/chancellor/director/assistant football coach is added to the payroll.

The alert:

UALR completed a $75 million capital campaign with the announcement last night it had raised $103.6 million, led by contributions of $12 million from the Donaghey Foundation and $6 million from the Trinity Foundation.

I say as I have before: Been by UALR lately? It's not your grandmother's LRU. The residential community is growing. New buildings have popped up all over. It's tech programs truly are producing accomplished grads for the new economy.

Read on for UALR's full report.