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Lu's saga: greed, arrogance Thursday, Jul 24, 2008 By John Brummett Finally, after agonizing drips of information, resisted at every turn by supposed public servants at a taxpayer-underwritten university, we can develop a reasonably coherent narrative in this brouhaha about Lu Hardin and the University of Central Arkansas. The latest bits came Wednesday. Dr. Michael Stanton, a general surgeon in Conway and UCA board member, called and said he'd like to fax some documents, after which we could talk about them. He said the truth hadn't quite emerged fully. He was right. Here's that narrative, as best I can piece it: Most of the members of the UCA board were wholly enamored of Hardin's record of success as UCA's president in raising enrollment, enhancing the school's profile, increasing donations and securing state taxpayer dollars. They asked Hardin to look around and report to them on how other leading university administrators were compensated, because they sure wanted to keep him happy and on board. In March, Hardin compiled this report about what his supposed colleagues were getting. He compared his situation to that of the presidents of the University of Arkansas system, Ole Miss and Mississippi State University. With all due respect, he was probably not quite in that league, literally. He'd found - to his surprise, he wrote to his board members - that these other chaps got nice annual payments to deferred compensation packages payable if they remained at their schools through their contract periods or until retirement. Of the ones he could quantify, these deferred compensation packages, Hardin reported, were in the $150,000-a-year range. That's $150,000 in cold cash each year, sequestered for payment to him upon his departure. So Lu put down on paper what he wanted. He said he'd like $150,000 a year in deferred compensation. He said he'd like, right now, that $300,000 that had been promised after five years, still two years away, in a bonus. He said he'd pass on that million-dollar house that Rush Harding and other board members had talked about building him. He said that he and wife Mary were satisfied enough in the president's home across the street from the campus. He wrote that he didn't want any actual pay raise because faculty members were going without raises and students were getting hit with a tuition increase. Stanton, the aforementioned and document-sharing board member, went to Hardin and told him he thought all of that was a bad idea. He said the timing was bad. Paying no heed, Hardin sat by as the board majority decided in secret executive session May 2 to pay him the $300,000, from university balances in student expenditures for books and food, then not to say anything about it in public session, as required by law. Stanton voiced his objections in that private session, but said nothing publicly, until, that is, Wednesday. Apparently, the deferred compensation request - for $150,000 a year - was tabled. That's pending a subsequent agonizing drip. You know the rest. Someone tipped me that Hardin had been granted a raise, and Hardin dissembled and said he hadn't. Then he got caught taking the secret accelerated bonus. Then he said it had come from "private" money, which it hadn't. Then, after a couple of weeks of stuff all over the fan, he gave the bonus back. Hardin told me he'd had serious job offers, but that he'd made horrible mistakes throughout this affair and was uncommonly disappointed in, and mad at, himself. But he said he'd had a 30-year public record of openness and candor. He's a golfer. He was asking for quite a mulligan. He said he intended to publicly praise Stanton for having been prophetic. So it boils down to an age-old story, really. It was about greed and the arrogance of power. ------- John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699. |
