UCA chief orders look in detail at scholarships

— University of Central Arkansas President Tom Courtway on Wednesday ordered a comprehensive review of all scholarships offered at UCA.

Acting almost a week after an internal audit on scholarships revealed a lack of documentation and checks and balances, Courtway also moved responsibility for institutional scholarships out of the division that has come under scrutiny recently.

The steps came one day after an administrator’s memorandum defending beleaguered scholarship workers became public. The lengthy memorandum blamed the awarding of some undue scholarships in part on past UCA administrations that had pushed for more scholarships and on a lack of staff members, training and resources.

In an e-mail to all UCA employees Wednesday, Courtway wrote, “Effective today, the Office of Financial Aid and responsibility for institutional scholarships has been transferred to the Division of Finance and Administration.”

These scholarships have been handled in the Enrollment Management Division, headed by Robert Parrent, a vice president at UCA since July 2011.

“In addition, I have asked the Office of Institutional Research to conduct a comprehensive review and analysis of all scholarships offered at UCA,” Courtway wrote. “This will include all institutional scholarships, including those funded through the UCA Foundation.”

Courtway said the institutional-research office will compile a report listing scholarship funds, budgeted amounts and scholarship criteria, “both when it [an award] is made and any renewal requirements.” That report also will include “which division or department makes the determination concerning the scholarship” and any appeals process, he wrote.

“Once this report is prepared, it will be presented to the Board of Trustees for discussion,” Courtway added. “If changes are warranted at that time, they will be made.”

An institutional scholarship is one that UCA awards with university funds. Other kinds of scholarships would include lottery scholarships, or some type of scholarship funded by the state rather than UCA, spokesman Jeff Pitchford said in an e-mail.

“Of course, there are also privately funded scholarships, Pell grants, etc. for financial aid to students,” Pitchford added.

It wasn’t clear when Courtway decided to make the changes. He declined to comment beyond his e-mail released under an Arkansas Freedom of Information Act request.

He sent an e-mail to trustees late Tuesday afternoon, though, to say he intended to move the financial-aid office and the scholarship responsibility to the division headed by Diane Newton, vice president for finance and administration.

“Until a couple of years ago, that [division] had responsibility for financial aid,” Courtway wrote. “Scholarships were awarded in various places. ...

“I will send an e-mail out to the campus and we will get to work making sure that all students (current and prospective) get scholarships awarded promptly and efficiently if they are entitled to them,” he added.

Later Tuesday, Courtway sent trustees another e-mail in which he mentioned the memorandum that Julia Winden-Fey, associate vice president for enrollment management, had sent Parrent about scholarships.

“We saw it [the memorandum] for the first time this afternoon,” Courtway wrote, adding that it had been released to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette under the public-records law..

Courtway noted that Larry Burns, project director in the Enrollment Management Division, attached Winden-Fey’s memorandum to his e-mailed letter of resignation when he quit, effective immediately Tuesday.

Winden-Fey and Burns were among those in the division who UCA’s Office of Internal Audit found had incorrectly awarded some scholarship funds.

In Burns’ case, one of those receiving money he awarded was Cameron Stark, a former student now at the center of a test-stealing scandal that has led to felony charges against former university Chief of Staff Jack Gillean. Stark has limited immunity from prosecution.

Burns said he was not pressured to resign and said he believes he acted properly.

In the memorandum,Winden-Fey wrote: “Under previous administrations, staff were often directed by the Administration to create new scholarships ‘by tomorrow’ (Leadership II), ‘review carefully’ whether a student had actually not met the maintenance criteria for a scholarship ... and to make awards for which no awarding criteria nor maintenance criteria nor even set amounts were given.” ‘MAKEOVER’ SCHOLARSHIPS

Winden-Fey also mentioned the now-defunct discretionary presidential scholarships, which mushroomed during Lu Hardin’s presidency, and “Extreme Home Makeover” awards, which were established during Hardin’s tenure.

UCA spokesman Fredricka Sharkey said in an e-mail interview Wednesday that the makeover scholarships “were offered to the children of two families featured on ABC’s ‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’” during Hardin’s presidency.

In 2007, she said, six onetime scholarships were offered to one of the families “in the amount of $144,000 if they met admissions requirements and decided to attend UCA. In 2008, two [one-time] scholarships were offered to the ... children [of the other family] in the amount of $80,000 if they decided toattend UCA.”

Sharkey said one of those prospective students is scheduled to attend school in the fall.

“If the student attends, this would be the first of any of the scholarships that were offered,” she added.

Scholarship problems cited by internal auditors have included the scholarship Burns renewed for Stark, 24, even though Stark did not have enough credit hours the previous semester to qualify. Burns has said he gave Stark a medical exception, but no documentation of it is in Stark’s file.

In her memorandum, Winden-Fey also wrote, “None of the Enrollment Management staff working with scholarships has ever had any training in regards to the processing of scholarship renewals.

“Processes and procedures have been adapted from what has gone before, or developed by staff on an ‘as needed’ basis in response to shifts in the information technology aspects of the University and changes in Administration and administrative directives,” she added.

Winden-Fey also said the Enrollment Management Division staff had “never been directed to compile written procedures for scholarship awarding or renewal processing by past administrations.”

Further, she wrote that “scholarship awarding and processing at the University during the past decade has been simultaneously located under a number of divisionsand Vice Presidents (and sometimes the Office of the President), causing significant confusion and lack of clarity for both students and staff.”

Gillean, 56, resigned within days of a June 2012 drug theft that brought the purported test-theft scheme to light. He later was charged with four felonies, including three counts of commercial burglary.

He has pleaded innocent and faces a pretrial hearing Monday.

Police said Gillean had given two keys and a key card to Stark with the knowledge that Stark planned to use them to steal tests.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/28/2013

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