Arkansas Blog

Have you noticed that every thing at UCA started going to crap when our friend Warwick joined the syndicate? *grin*

The sunlight will sh\ine on both the private as well as the public institutes of learning. Computers have opoened up a new meanring for paper trail, thought, as well as learning that provide with a greater access to expressioni. Trying to address poor decison-making and the consequences that impact monetary value in our system of law requires a different game. One might wish to have a refresher course with Fog Allen and Zuppke, but I think the idea here that is challenging the community is a question of integrity in the deeper way of being human. Teaching is about the love and currency of the idea. Transparency will assure the light shines in the diamond state.

There's more truth to that than you probably know. That story leaves out a big part... SoftWyre, the company that UCA had contracted to do the website design, is run by a friend of Sabin. It certainly doesn't smell too well when they continue to use, and overpay, a company that he has close ties to...

If Hardin was the Republicon gubernatorial Wet Dream I'm glad they were spared that wet sheet.

That man could fuk up a steel ball!

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Not to in any way to impugn Warwick's integrity or professionalism, but can there be much wonder Kelley Erstine and Kane Webb were so quick to abandon the job Warwick now holds?

Personally, I have my doubts about any institution whose CFO goes by the name "Bunny."

Where is Victor E. Bear now singing the praises of UCA?

Every time a fresh bit of the UCA mess comes tolight, usually through the Dem-Gaz, the thought arises -- where was the board of trustees. This notion is not original with me. Lu Hardin and his staff operatives may have concealed some or most of the shenanigans from attorney Tom Courtway, but I doubt they could have hidden everything from the trustees. Reporters who cover the trustees say that the board is really two people, Rush Harding mainly and Randy Sims. Frequent dissenter Mike Stanton was not reappointed by Governor Beebe, and the other members are bumps on a log. Warwick Sabin? Don't really know him but know of him and don't trust him.

A side note. Oldtimers in Conway or connected with UCA remember a series of scandalls in the early 1950s, mostly little unpleasantries, but they culminated in a president "retiring" and one of the trustees, who campaigned hard for it, being named the new president. That was Silas Snow, later to receive an honorary doctorate from Hendrix and to insist everyone refer to him as "Dr." Snow.

Dr.ringding,
UCA as an institution still has plenty of which to be proud. It is/was a few of the people in charge that caused ALL the problems!

Lu's trajectory very closely resembles that of the national Repuklican party. He entered office on a cloud with everyone bowing to his greatness and there was no one to rein in his appetites. Now he's gone and we're finding how deep in it his stables actually were.

Sadly, for a long time I was an admirer of Lu, even defended him in public and on this blog saying he wasn't personally aggrandizing himself. No more. The only difference in the corruption of the national Repukes and Lu is scale.

Bye Lu, hope you don't follow Nick.

Doesn't UCA continue to receive the largest chunk of general imporvement dollars from its Senator and Representatives? Baker and Wills? Why? Are they not aware of the audits?

"Silas Snow [received] an honorary doctorate from Hendrix and [insisted that] everyone refer to him as "Dr." Snow."

I was a friend of Sue and Si Snow, Jr., and was a frequent guest in their family's university home. Their down-to-earth, southeastern Arkansas-born mother, Mary Snow, never referred to her husband as anything other than "Mr. Snow," not only in the presence of juveniles, but also throughout the community and state. Thus, "Mr." was the only honorific many of us ever affixed to his name. He seemed perfectly content with it, even when I last visited him three weeks before he died.

As to Si Snow and his honorary doctorate: (not that anyone cares) as I recall, the Lege voted to require that all state college presidents have a PhD. Several didn't. So Hendrix bailed out all those presidents without a terminal degree. Dr. Snow wasn't the only one.

Good ol' Hendrix. Not only the best academic institution in the state, but also full of Christian charity (and, back then, political savy as well).

"require that all state college presidents have a PhD."?

Really? If so, there are violators out there in academia.

I need to crawfish a little on my mention of Si Snow "insisting" on people calling him doctor. After Durangokid's comment, i phoned a close friend now retired from the UCA staff. He said Snow never gave such orders "but it was expected that we call him doctor. The media referred to him as doctor."

And Lu Hardin does not have a doctorate either.

Lu has a JD or LLD (never could shush out the difference) but of course PhDs call those degrees 'trade certificates'.

Olefishbait alludes to a good point; if this isn't enough for the UCA board of trustees to resign en masse, I don't know what it would take.

Rush Harding, you reading this?

Yes, Dr. RingDing I am reading. I am on the record that my resignation is available upon request if the Faculty Senate, the Student Body, or the Staff Senate should request it, and, of course, the Governor's office. In part, thanks to people like you, I have learned, at a high cost to my alma mater and to my own reputation, that the academic world does not mesh with the world of politics and business always. Higher education is a world committed to ethics and integrity and to character building and you can not sacrifice your core values in the name of enrollment, and endowment growth, and prestige built on fluff and temporary successes that don't really matter in the long run. I have learned my lesson and I think I best serve UCA my letting my better focused way of thinking help us find the right person to lead us out of this abyss that I have helped hurl us into. Once that is done, I agree that my position as a trustee needs to be re-evaluated. I understand that my effectiveness has been greatly impaired by these past events and I may best serve UCA by simply being a caring alumnus that stands ready to help us go forward in whatever way I can help. Thank you for your comments and your insightfulness thru these arduous months.