UCAFANS.COM | GO UCA BEARS!

It may not be appropriate for me to comment but this all happened very fast and some of you might need some clarification. The true nature of Aramark's "business proposal" would have been eventually disclosed to the Board. I still do not understand why the Chairman and the President referred to it as a "Godsend" and a "gift". 6 of the 7 trustees thought this was a gift with no strings attached. Dr. Meadors and the Chairman for some reason (they say poor judgement) decided to do it this way. The Board, needless to say, thought is was inappropriate. Within 3 days of our discovery, we had the President's resignation. A little more efficient and decisive than the last fiasco. Alan did some good things for the school. I am just now discovering that many felt oppressed with his management style. HE HAD A CONTRACT AND HIS CONDUCT WAS NOT ILLEGAL. He should have insisted that the Board know the true nature of the contract. The Board's rule for him was "no surprises", this did not meet the test. His compensation is in this year's budget, he has tenure. Every tenured professor on campus expects their tenure to be honored. The payment of the balance of this year was for his tenure. THE OTHER MONEY WILL NOT COST THE SCHOOL ONE DIME. IT WILL BE GIVEN FROM THOSE THAT WANTED THIS TO BE BEHIND US AND NOT BE A DISTRACTION. The same people that will help the school with this will not reduce one dollar what else they do for the school in terms of scholorships or Purple Circle, etc. We did not need a prolonged investigation. For those calling for the Board's head, what did the trustees do?

Dr. Meador's came here to try and help his alma mater. It was a lateral move for him financially. He has helped us with our financial situation. When the DemGaz got after his parents, I think he lost his objectivity and got obsessed with their continual coverage. All of the sidewalks and renovations to the House became an unnecessary, huge distraction. I am sorry, but I don't see how this could have been handled much better. Not one penny will be taken from anything past this fiscal year. We need to pull together and get behind Tom. Tom will get to the bottom of the "whys" on the Aramark deal. Any further punitive action will be as swift and decisive I am sure. Most of you know that I am Rush Harding, just disclosing that for those that might not know. Again, I am sorry that the President and the Board Chair had a bad case of poor judgement but the Board was not a party to it.

And I worded that incorrectly. The DemGaz did not "get after his parents", DHS simply reported what she and her editors thought was newsworthy. A lady from Faulkner Co filed a complaint with the state ethics committee. I feel like the President's focus on all the news coverage got personal for him at that point. DemGaz and DHS, please accept my apologies for not wording that better.

My concern isn't with the Board as a whole, as far as firing Meadors. I think the Board did the right thing in getting rid of a president who committed fraud on the Board. I commend the Board on its swift action when it looked like things started to repeat.

But I am concerned with the Board's action as far as the huge buyout Meadors received (and the much bigger buyout Hardin received). Tenure or not, it's easy to put a "for cause" paragraph into any employee's contract. One of those things that should be included into the "for cause" paragraph is committing fraud on the board of trustees (there's a lot lesser evils that should be fireable offenses and included in the paragraph). Each of the last two presidents committed fraud on the board (negligently or intentionally, it doesn't really matter). Yet UCA paid half a million to make Meadors go away and way more to make Hardin go away. That's not right for UCA, that's not right for Arkansas, that's not right for the people who donate the private money to make the problems go away.

I don't know whether to blame the board for being afraid to fire a president without paying him off (if there was a "for cause" provision in the contract). Or, it's the school lawyers' fault for not taking care of the contract. It would be much worse from a lawyer's perspective if there was nothing in Meadors' contract to give UCA a way out after what happened with Hardin. If the contract was worth a damn, UCA could fire him for cause (without any buyout) and Meadors' would end up losing any lawsuit against the university.

Somehow Courtway looks golden right now. I don't know why, he's been here the whole time as the university's chief lawyer, and if the UCA presidents' contracts were written right, UCA wouldn't (or shouldn't) have to pay anyone to leave. When a president does what Hardin and Meadors did, they should be fired for cause without a buyout.

I don't doubt the private money for the buyout is completely extra money so that this buyout doesn't make a dent in UCA money. That doesn't make it right.

Finally, Roussel, the chairman, is just as guilty as Meadors. A chairman of the board who hides pertinent facts from the rest of the board should be run out of Conway just as fast as Meadors' wife decided her near mansion on campus was not suitable free housing.

And as much as everyone hates Debra Hale-Shelton, if it wasn't for her, our university would still be being run like the damn mafia. She's been a blessing as far as I'm concerned.

Idabear, not trying to avoid your question but morale at the university was very low for various reasons. I don't wish to get into any particulars because very little, if any, good would come of it. Cancer might have been a tad harsh but the morale was getting worse, not better. As I stated before, I think it had become evident that many people were dissatified with certain aspects of his direction concerning the school.

Do I think he is a bad man? Nope, sure don't. Just not the right person for the job at hand but we don't have to worry about that any longer. The board did their job well and made the right decision in my opinion.

WOW, now I know why the pepsi's was served HOT at the last thurs. game IMO

I honestly can't believe you people who are defending this crook and his leech wife. He wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars just as we were warned. Do a search for someone named Ranger Sgt that posted some stuff here back in 2010 on what Meadors did at his old school. The moron came here and did the same thing. We needed those stupid sidewalks and all that work on a perfectly good house like we needed a hole in the head. And everyone feels sorry for the elderly parents - well your hearts in the right place but as much as Meadors was getting paid he could have rented or bought anything they needed - and they had their pensions as well. He was hardly worth even one of the dollars wasted on him and her while here. Go back and look here and also at the Dem blogs from the old Pembroke employees who posted and tried to warn everyone about his behavior there. Died in the wool crooks don't change. They just move on to new marks when the old ones get sucked dry.

You all should send Hale-Shelton a bouquet of roses. She has saved you all from yourselves and hopefully gotten us a better president. At least one who can hopefully control his wife who will also hopefully not be a drunk harpie like the former.

They have a house back in NC in Pinehurst that's already paid of (check it out - google Moore County register of deeds and look up their names - house paid off after five years in the resort town of Pinehurst). Wonder who paid it off? Wonder how much of your stuff from the mansion has made its way to that house. Why do you think they needed all those damn storage units?

Wake up and face the true UCA - we have been had, and had but good. And here he walks off with a huge payoff. If someone is out there with that much money to donate, it should go to the school and not to a red handed crook who got caught and lied to the board, the students and faculty and staff.

I truly hope that for a change you remove the tunnel vision glasses and start seeing the favor Hale-Shelton has done for you and start demanding the payoff be rescinded and also demand a full investigation of all of the expenditures that passed through his hands. If you do this, you will find some amazing things. And if you were to get some candid interviews with Physical Plant workers, you would indeed find out that they were treated like plantation slaves by Babs. She woudn't even let them in the house unless they were toiling away. She was much too good to share their company and they had to come and go silently, like the victorian help or the olf time slaves.

Believe what you want, but please try to recover some dignity by repudiating this man and his sorry wife as strongly as you can and try to get this money back. A man who can't control his own wife is not much of a man, and ultimately she arranged this whole thing, and thereby cost him is job. I hope she's happy. I guess she'll get the Pinewild house in the divorce and perhaps he can sleep out in a shed somewhere, like he used to do at Pembroke in the guesthouse.

Go back and look at the blogs on the Log Cabin from around 2010 from an employee from Pembroke named "happy lumbee" who prediced this all for us. but yet we didn't listen, and now we reap the rewards.

Cheers. blast away at me, but you know I'm write. Now jump on the band wagon for a full investigation and recinding this buy out.

I really don't see where anyone is specifically defending Meadors and his wife. You need to remember that WE did not put him in office. You also need to remember that WE cannot take him out of office.

Therefore, I suggest that you address your diatribe to the BOT and not the posters of this board. They have phone numbers by the way.

Gov. Beebe weighs in. From today's ADG:

Asked if Roussel should resign from the board, Beebe said, “I’ll express my opinion to him and the board privately. I don’t want to publicly comment” on that matter “at this juncture.”
When told that The Echo, UCA’s student newspaper, said in an editorial this week that Roussel should have resigned and that others also have said he should, Beebe said, “Confidence in leadership is an important part of leadership. And when you get the student newspaper and students and other people that have lost confidence, it certainly creates a concern for all involved, and that’s as far as I’ll go.”

The Echo editorial, published Wednesday, said in part: “Roussel had every opportunity to tell the board of trustees as well, but chose not to. Roussel apologized, but chose to stay on the board of trustees, instead of resigning like he should have. If nothing else, he should not serve another term on the board of trustees when his time is up.”

Beebe, commenting on whether he had concerns about the Meadors presidency before the Aramark deal surfaced, said, “There were concerns because there had been a number of issues — the house, the parents, the transportation, the cosmeticconstruction expenditures.”
“You’d have to be in a silo somewhere not reading the paper not to not have some trepidation about all the stuff that has been reported,” Beebe added.

Time to grab a bat and step up to the plate Governor.

Hopefully, after they have their private meeting he won't be around any longer...

It is not the adg's coverage of news at UCA that is "negative" that I object to but that they give so little effort to cover anything remotely positive which there is much.

HB is right that we do not select any president nor do we remove. We can (and I'll bet at least several do) make our views known to BOT members and others.

Not being in the know on details of this episode, it does appear the BOT did act quickly once they learned of the situations details. This might be a sign lost in the shuffle of an improved governance process. There seems to be more for the BOT to dig into.