UCA trip had a Cancun end

Meadors, aide spent 2 nights

— Former University of Central Arkansas President Allen Meadors and a longtime colleague spent two nights in Cancun, Mexico, at UCA expense during the time they had planned to visit a Mexican college more than 200 miles from the resort coastal town.

Meadors and Alex Chen, a UCA associate vice president who also worked with Meadors at two previous colleges, were scheduled to visit two colleges in Mexico in late June, according to emails and other documents released under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.

Instead, they visited one college, then spent two nights in Cancun before returning home, the records indicate. The trip occurred when Meadors was president of UCA. He remains on the UCA payroll through the academic year.

Asked if the Cancun tripis under review, interim UCA President Tom Courtway refused to say.

“I’m not going to say anything about that,” Courtway said. “No comment on that.”

Chen has not been working in his office this week.

UCA trustee Bobby Reynolds of Searcy said Courtway has suspended Chen with pay while officials investigate whether some international student workers under Chen’s supervision had been working more than visa regulations allow.

Chen previously worked with Meadors at Penn State-Altoona and at the University of North Carolina-Pembroke.

Chen, associate vice president for international engagement and a tenured professor,did not return phone or email messages seeking comment Monday or Tuesday. A woman answering the phone at his office said he would not be in the office “until next week at least.”

The Conway attorney believed to be representing Chen declined to comment.

Meadors resigned under pressure Sept. 2 after the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported about a food vendor’s offer of $700,000 to renovate his UCA-owned home. He and board Chairman Scott Roussel had told other trustees that the money was a donation rather than part of a proposed contract renewal.

After the newspaper’s story, the board and Meadors reached a buyout agreement totaling $563,312, of which $225,325 is publicly funded.

Meadors, who now lives in North Carolina, did not return phone and e-mail messages seeking comment Monday and Tuesday.

Asked if the Cancun trip came during the time the visit to the second college in Mexico had been planned but was canceled, UCA spokesman Venita Jenkins said, “Yes.”

Regarding what might have been the business purpose, if any, for the Cancun trip, Jenkins said in an e-mail that UCA had provided the documentation related to the Mexico trip, and added, “Any additional questions should be directed to Dr. Meadors and Dr. Chen.”

UCA has not asked Meadors or Chen to repay the school for the Cancun expenses, Jenkins said.

“As far as will they [reimburse UCA], we do not know at this point,” she said in an e-mail Monday.

MEADORS’ E-MAILS

Meadors defended the Cancun trip in a series of emails he sent to Jenkins and Courtway this week, all obtained under the state’s public-records law.

He did not, however, address what the business purpose of his visit to Cancun was.

Nor did he say why he and Chen had to stay there two nights.

“We did not cancel a portion of our trip so we could fly into and out of Cancun,” Meadors wrote. Rather, he said, they saved $450 per person on airfare by going round trip through Cancun. “The second college visit was canceled because it would have been an additional 7-8 [hour] drive from Merida.”

“We actually saved the University money by using these connections,” he added.

In another e-mail, he wrote, “We didn’t go to Cancun versus another College!! It was less money for air travel to fly into Cancun!”

Referring to e-mailed questions from the Democrat-Gazette to which he said he would not respond, Meadors also e-mailed Courtway, “I do not understand why if you saved $450, you would reimburse funds? What am I missing here?”

In a Sept. 14 letter to Jenkins in which Chen was responding to the newspaper’s first request for information about the Mexico trip, he wrote, “We cancelled the second school because it would increase eight hours travel time (four hours one way) and Dr. Meadors had to come back to Conway in the afternoon of Sunday.”

EXPENSES

According to expense forms obtained from UCA, Meadors and Chen spent a total of $1,755.75 in Cancun.

Meadors incurred $910.80 of that total, his forms show.

That includes two nights, June 24 and June 25, at a JW Marriott hotel totaling $554.44 and meals totaling exactly $102 each of the two days in Cancun. The men also rented a car for $152.34 for the drive to Merida from Cancun, where their plane first arrived in Mexico.

Meadors indicated on his form that the rental was justified because of an estimated $800 taxi fare for a four-hour drive to and from Merida, where they arrived June 23 and left June 24. Meadors’ hotel tab included one or more items from a poolside snack bar.

Chen’s UCA-billed Cancun expenses totaled $844.95, which included $489.80 for two nights in the JW Marriott hotel, $102 for meals on June 24 and $40.67 on June 25. He also spent $90 on taxi fare on June 24 and $75 on taxi fare June 25. He also had tolls and gasoline for the rental car totaling $47.48.

A comment on Meadors’ expense form said, “Visit our partner [schools] in Mexico.” The form had the word “schools” plural but spelled with a typo.

These expenses do not include the men’s airfare to and from Cancun for the visit to the Autonomous University of Yucatan in Merida, where they met with students, besides having other business, on June 23 or June 24.

THE TRIP

In addition to the Merida school, Meadors and Chen originally had planned to visit the University of Quintana Roo in Chetumal, Quintana Roo state.

A May 12 e-mail from Chen to Meadors said the trip’s purposes were “assessing [an international post secondary education] program, signing sister school, expanding student exchange and faculty exchange opportunity.”

On May 26, Chen got an email from the University of Quintana Roo saying it was pleased by the UCA officials’ interest in visiting and asking to know when they would be there. Chen then told Bridget Barcenas, UCA’s international admissions coordinator, in an e-mail to send more information about UCA to the Mexican school in Chetumal and to help make two-day travel arrangements.

But in a June 14 e-mail from Barcenas to an official at the university in Merida, Barcenas wrote that Meadors and Chen had found a flight “that satisfies their needs.

“Unfortunately, their schedules will not allow a visit to the Universidad de Quintana Roo, but they are still going to UADY” in Merida, Barcenas added, using the initials for the name in Spanish of the Autonomous University of Yucatan. “Depending on the UADY agenda, they plan to go to Cancun that night or on Saturday morning.”

Not until two days later, though, did Chen ask Barcenas how many flights there were daily from Cancun to Merida.

She advised Chen that the only airline flying directly from Merida to Cancun was Mayair once daily and that it was a one hour flight costing roughly $100 in U.S. currency. She also told him that “very comfortable” buses made various direct trips to Cancun daily for about $40 in “first class luxury.”

CHEN’S SUSPENSION

Reynolds, the UCA trustee, said he thought Chen’s suspension began about a week ago.

Reynolds said “some questions have been brought up about” the international programs.

“There were rumors that they were working more than they were supposed to,” he said.

Visa regulations allow international students to work a maximum of 20 hours per week.

Asked if the issue involved whether Chen had been working them too much, Reynolds replied, “That’s my understanding.”

“They wanted to follow up with this because you’re dealing with foreign students,” Reynolds said. “They thought it would probably be better ... if he [Chen] wasn’t there,” meaning on-campus.

Beyond the standard forms completed when Chen was hired in 2010, UCA Chief of Staff Jack Gillean, who also is acting general counsel, said he had no documents in response to a request about Chen’s employment status.

Gillean also cited a part of Arkansas Annotated Code 25-19-105 that says “all employee evaluation or job performance records, including preliminary notes and other materials, shall be open to public inspection only upon final administrative resolution of any suspension or termination proceeding at which the records form a basis for the decision to suspend or terminate the employee and if there is a compelling public interest in their disclosure.”

Courtway, who would not say whether Chen has been placed on any special employment status, said Chen remains a UCA employee with the same title and salary, which is $122,400 a year.

Told about the Cancun trip, Reynolds said, “I have not heard that.”

Front Section, Pages 1 on 10/26/2011

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