Twisted meaning

LITTLE ROCK — Like many readers, I am disappointed with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s editorials regarding the budget shortfall and corrective action involving the University of Arkansas’ Division of University Advancement. The editorials have been particularly mean-spirited and distorted the very facts that the newspaper itself reported.

Here are the facts which both the university and the Democrat-Gazette have shared.

In early July, the university discovered that its advancement division-one of several large administrative units within the UA-over spent its budget for the fiscal year that ended June 30. A detailed review of the division’s expenditures followed, eventually determining that the division’s expenditures exceeded its budgeted revenue by 31 percent.

The review found no evidence of any misuse of funds, no fraud, no private benefit, no misappropriation of budgeted dollars, nor illegality. It did find that the division was, in effect, borrowing on anticipated revenue to pay current bills.

Furthermore, the review determined that the division was on course to an even larger shortfall in the current budget year unless it took immediate steps and made long-term changes in the way it manages and monitors its budget.

Upon learning of the division’s shortfall, I ordered immediate changes to its spending practices and authority. I also ordered a financial and administrative review, which ultimately led me to remove the division’s senior administrator and its budget director from their respective leadership roles.

In addition, I notified the various university stakeholders of the changes I was making and the reasons behind them. This process began with the Board of Trustees and the University of Arkansas System president, and included campus personnel, external stakeholders, volunteers, staff of the University of Arkansas Foundation and board members and others indirectly affected by the actions.

I held two briefings with deans and development personnel, with over 40 people in the room in an effort to be transparent. In all, I spoke with about 150 members of the UA community in more than 50 meetings that were well-documented to Democrat-Gazette writers. I then issued a lengthy public announcement about this situation, which was shared on the university’s website and emailed to hundreds of alumni leaders, benefactors, friends and volunteers.

All of these actions occurred before the Democrat-Gazette contacted me or anyone else at the university about this matter. These developments were documented in the email and spreadsheets the university provided to the newspaper. All of this account was confirmed in the Democrat-Gazette’s own reporting.

Inexplicably, the newspaper’s editorials about this matter largely ignored those facts, supplanting them with distortions and fabrications. For whatever reason-perhaps Paul Greenberg’s personal animus against me, or perhaps convenience-the editorials strained to equate the university’s review, process and pronouncements with completely dissimilar events at other institutions in Arkansas.

One must wonder how the newspaper reconciles its editorial page’s mischaracterization of facts with its own front-page reportage.

More disturbing, however, was the attitude the editorials directed toward the advancement division’s former senior administrator and budget director. By failing to fulfill their respective duties, both individuals are paying a heavy price personally and professionally. They made a mistake, pure and simple.

One of those individuals had a distinguished career at several leading institutions around the country before joining the UA. The other individual joined our university as an employee nearly 40 years ago and worked her way up through the ranks. I see no civil or constructive reason to mock either of them-and by extension, their loved ones-at this difficult point in their lives.

The editorials’ verbal piling-on calls to mind the ad hominem attacks that Sen. Joseph McCarthy leveled to advance his own agenda, to which Army counsel Joseph Welch angrily replied, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

I understand an editorial writer’s desire to be provocative. However, that writer risks his or her credibility-and ability to shape public discourse-when he or she ignores or distorts the facts. That likelihood of losing credibility and influence grows greater when writer and reader can find those facts just a few pages away.

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G. David Gearhart is chancellor of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.