ARCHIVE: Perhaps it's time for a change

Originally published in The Pow Wow, January 19, 2001

The University of Louisiana at Monroe’s public affairs office issued a year-in-review press release a few days before the year 2000 ended. The release’s first paragraph ended by stating, “2000 was a year that once again showed ULM’s ability to be a leader through the region and the country.” I’ll be the first to tell you that ULM has some good points and there are things we should be proud of. But when I read that sentence, I laughed out loud.

I can not see how anyone with any good sense could see 2000 as a year that the university showed its ability to be a leader through the region and the country. Granted, the year 2000 allowed a lot of people to get used to the school’s new name and to stop laughing at us for changing it. But by the end of the year, our university had another black eye. Yes, I am talking about the infamous legislative audit that wasn’t.

When I say that it was the “audit that wasn’t,” I mean that it was a no-finding audit. You see, when the auditor came to town, he was told by the university that the records were complete. However, it seems that ULM’s accounting records were not complete and contained inadequacies. Highlighting the list of problems, the auditor found financial statements that were not properly prepared, questionable allocation of costs for the athletic program, public funds deposited into the NLU Foundation and poor administration of scholarships. (Just think. Those were just the highlights. The actual list of foul-ups is much longer.)

A year ago, one of our neighbors to the west (Grambling) was in the same boat ULM is in now after receiving a no-finding audit. The University of Louisiana Board of Supervisors told then-president Steven Favors to get Grambling’s finances in order or else. Well, he was not able to do that and Grambling received another no-finding audit. Earlier this month, Favors resigned as president before the board had the chance to fire him.

What I do not understand is that the board was ready to fire Favors for Grambling’s problems. However, those problems were there before Favors was. The board of supervisors has been getting rid of Grambling presidents for mismanagement since 1994 when they fired Harold Lundy. Favors was asked to fix the university’s existing problems. He didn’t and he had to hit the road.

At ULM, however, Swearingen has been around for a while. He didn’t inherit any of the schools’ current financial trouble. Although I’m not saying he created the problems at hand, they did happen under his watch. Why didn’t the board fire Swearingen?

It seemed fishy to me that the board would want to fire someone for not being able to fix existing problems, but not for allowing them to happen in the first place.

At first, I thought the board wanted to get rid of Favors because this wasn’t his first no-finding audit. (Swearingen only had one.)

However, I did some reading and it seems that this isn’t the first time the university has screwed things up. According to the auditor’s report, “For the second consecutive audit, the University of Louisiana at Monroe submitted annual financial reports that were not properly prepared and contained numerous errors.” So, if the board was firing people based on continued negligence, Swearingen should be gone.
It seems other folks think the president should be out of here, too.

According to the university’s truthatulm.com site, an anonymous e-mail was circulated recently asking for Swearingen’s termination. In a letter on the site, ULM Vice President Richard Baxter claims the e-mail used bogus facts to support their position. According to Baxter, the e-mail claimed audits of ULM over the past 25 years only contained two findings needing corrections.

Baxter refuted that claim by saying the legislative auditor reported 23 findings between 1983 and 1991 (before Swearingen took office). Such a statement ranks up there with Pee Wee Herman’s famous comment, “I know you are but what am I?”

What Baxter is saying is there were only 23 findings over a total of eight years time then and a whopping 18 findings in the most recent report. It sounds like things are getting worse to me.

I have nothing personal against President Swearingen. However, the time has come for us to ask ourselves why he remains our university’s president.

Is he here to lead the educational aspect of our university? Not really. He has done some teaching in the past but he is a lawyer by trade -- not an educator.

Is he here to lead the business end of our university? After reading through the auditor’s report, I’m going to have to say no.

Of course, some would say that he brings political clout to the table. But does politics really need to sit at the head of the table at our university or at any institution of higher learning? I don’t think so.

With this said, maybe it’s time for Swearingen to cut his losses and move on to another phase of his life and allow ULM to move on to another phase of it’s life.

Perhaps it’s time for a change.