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http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/01/13/beebe-appoints-two-to-uca-board-of-trustees

Brad Lacy and Elizabeth Farris should be great additions. I do not know Brad well but I have served on boards for several years with Elizabeth. She is no-nonsense, a very capable banker, a clear thinker and understands the importance of our university and its traditions, reputation and possibilities. Both are big advocates for UCA and loyal alums.

Also, noted Bob McCormack was appointed to State Ethics Commissions. Bob has sevred on the UCA Foundation Board and has been very active in support of College of Business.

Brad and Elizabeth are both excellent choices by Gov Beebe. Both care immensely about UCA. Brad brings unique insight in that he will have the pulse of everything going on in the community. Elizabeth is smart and business saavy and she loves the University more that any single person on the planet.

Good choices indeed. Should have made it a trifecta by replacing Roussell.

We have known Elizabeth and family for years, she is a worthy addition to the Board.

Excellent choices.

From the front page of today's ADG:

UCA faculty senate to trustee: Step down

Failure to tell board about food vendor’s contract tie-in prompts 18-2 vote


CONWAY — The University of Central Arkansas’ faculty senate voted Thursday to ask trustee Scott Roussel to resign over his failure to tell other board members in August that a $700,000 offer by food vendor Aramark to renovate the president’s house was contingent upon a contract extension.

Good for the faculty senate. Arrogance is not very becoming to any trustee's demeanor while serving the taxpayers and manipulating our hard-earned money for the right reasons much less for the wrong reasons.

Mr. Roussel admitted a mistake was made, no funds were accepted from the vendor, he just told that the offer had been made but did not not say that the board would have to consider a 7 year extention(they ended up giving a 10 year extention earlier this month) at a later date to receive the funds which would not be required to be paid back unless UCA terminated the contract (same wording that is in the new contract).

From another post:

"The offer from the food vendor was to renew the old contract for 7 additional years, the $700,000 was just like most funds used by universities via vendors "grants' would not be required to be paid back unless UCA terminated the contract just as the new 10 year contract requires. The new 10 year contract has a small increase, the renewal proposal had no new increases. Mr. Roussel was trying to find funds to prepare the University house for a potential future president that might have two children. The intent was not for the former president, who would probably been retired by the time any major renovation would have been accomplished."

"costly mistake', what was the cost? Not one penny was spent from the Chair's failure to mention the renewal part of the offer.

“you should be held accountable in your job. We would be.” Ask anyone who has attended college (especially UCA) how many times a professor forgot to tell the class that this or that was going to be on the test or that they were expected to do this or that on a paper. I don't remember the faculty senate asking for any of their resignations from the faculty. And it did cost us points on our grades.
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"But even if that was the case, Browne said, it was “an egregious, costly mistake” and one for which “you should be held accountable in your job. We would be.”

My guess is that Roussel is accountable in his job but his servce to BOT is hardly a job....exactly what is the pay for a BOT member?

The professor (tenured???) implies that profs are held accountable.....can someone illuminate me on how that works? Doubt he means ratemyprofessor.com

The "costly " is the bad PR Roussel and UCA received from such stellar adg reporting.

This entire affair seems very odd to me. The whole question seems to be about whether to spend the contract money on the house which would have been approved by the BOT as would any large capital expenditure.

POWER Payment for a job doesn't always come in the form of greenbacks.

If you know Mr. Roussel, you know he cares deeply for the University and would not intentionally ever do anything to harm it. The fact that Aramark got an even better contract (10 years versus 7 years and a slight increase versus no increase) than the one offered back in August shows that the August offer was a good one. He just did not communicate the full details in August probably thinking (correctly) that all the details would come before the board when they were ready to discuss the Aramark contract (which is normal procedures). He was just sharing the offer not asking for a vote to renew the contract.

Fortunately, players, fans, recruits and parents could care less about this
misfortunate incident. We had a great football season and recruiting class and a great Sugarbears basketball season. From all fronts that matters, UCA is doing great. Lets get back to discussing sports and not issues that don't matter as the boards giving the food vendor an even better contract than the renewal one offered last year shows.

http://uca.edu/news/uca-remains-an-educational-value/

Parents do care about cost of college and the comparison linked to in the above is very interesting.

The Log Cabin

He officially resigned today.

Hopefully, this will satisfy those who were upset with Mr. Roussel's voting on the Aramark contract at the April board meeting and UCA will be allowed to focus on our students not something that was apparently as pointed out in the post below as "What we have here is a failure to communicate" as Cool Hand Luke said so many years ago.

"Mr. Roussel is a good man who cares deeply about UCA. It is to bad that this communication issue was blown out of proportion. Mr. Roussel misstakenly (apparently) thought that the appropriate time for the specific details to come forward would have been when the food vendor contract was formally presented to the entire board as it was in April of this year. At the August meeting, he was only noting the offer. He provided UCA with over 10 plus years of dedicated service and should be remember for that."