http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/12/03/ua-must-fill-4-million-gap-in-advancement-budget Comments On: UA must fill $4 million gap in advancement budget by Leslie Newell Peacock en-us Copyright 2013 Arkansas Times. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, Arkansas Times readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact Arkansas Times. robert@arktimes.com (Arkansas Times Webmaster) Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:01 -0500 Thu, 23 May 2013 20:45:00 -0500 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2012/de…)

Transparency and oversight needed

The University of Arkansas' Division of University Advancement has mismanaged $3.1 million - a story that cries out for in-depth journalistic research and critical analysis. Unfortunately, all the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has to offer is a cheap diatribe laden with anti-academic resentment.
The blame heaped on Brad Choate, the administrator at the center of the scandal, is clearly deserved but the editors' attempt to use his case as an ideological attack on public service in general is dishonest. If you believe the editors, financial mismanagement would never happen at a private for-profit corporation and if it did, the people responsible would be immediately fired. This fairy-tale version of capitalism - tough but fair - would have been laughable ten years ago. Today, after the financial meltdown caused by the reckless mismanagement of trillions of dollars by Wall Street's failed financial wizards, the editors' world view is outright grotesque. They must live in a parallel universe where they have never heard of multi-million dollar golden parachutes for incompetent corporate managers, not to mention "bonuses" paid out to executives at financial companies saved from bankruptcy by a massive tax money bailout. The editors must have been too busy lambasting "big government" to pay attention to the news of a two billion ($2,000,000,000) dollar loss caused by a single JP Morgan Chase trader earlier this year, unnoticed by a host of accountants and managers at the mega corporation.
The editors have it exactly backwards: the University doesn't need to become more like a corporation - it needs to act more like a public University dedicated above all to academic integrity and the common good and governed with transparency and openness. The recent tendency of chasing after the money of super-wealthy donors and hiring ever more ever higher-paid administrators (not to mention athletic directors) is not a healthy one.
As for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, it needs to act like a newspaper offering journalistic reporting instead of ideological rants. It could start by researching the University's pay structure. This year, when the University awarded merit pay raises, most faculty members got about $2,000 per year more, based on a performance review. Yet dozens of individuals, including Mr. Choate, were awarded raises in the tens of thousands, according to the openUA portal (http://openua.uark.edu/Default.aspx). While this may still be a far cry from the most outrageous corporate practices, the question must be raised whether there is adequate oversight over these disbursements of public money.
Posted by TM]]> Sun, 09 Dec 2012 19:18:19 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Ricky Booby]]> Wed, 05 Dec 2012 10:34:00 -0600 Arkansas Times
Are the FOIAs already filed?
Posted by TM]]> Tue, 04 Dec 2012 00:02:11 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by YossarianMinderbinder]]> Mon, 03 Dec 2012 22:10:06 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by plainjim]]> Mon, 03 Dec 2012 19:39:06 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by Lady Liberty]]> Mon, 03 Dec 2012 19:01:29 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by TM]]> Mon, 03 Dec 2012 17:36:59 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by DeathbyInches]]> Mon, 03 Dec 2012 14:42:25 -0600 Arkansas Times