A new survey of ORU faculty shows that most don't want Richard Roberts to remain as president.
More than 80 percent of the Oral Roberts University faculty do not want Richard Roberts to continue as president of the evangelical school, a new survey shows.
The 118-12 "no" vote was part of a larger, eight-question survey conducted twice during Monday's faculty assembly and obtained by The Associated Press. It included vote tallies for each question and the percentage of faculty members voting each way.
The survey comes a week after tenured faculty voted "no confidence" in Roberts as president, regardless of the outcome of a lawsuit that accuses him and his family of misusing ORU and Oral Roberts Ministries money
and resources.
Roberts is on a leave of absence as president while ORU's board and independent auditors investigate the allegations. After the investigations, the board will decide if Roberts returns to the presidency.
Accusations of lavish spending were detailed in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed Oct. 2 by three former ORU professors.
An ORU professor who wished to remain anonymous told the Tulsa World on Monday that faculty gathered for their monthly meeting and responded to survey questions regarding the issues that accreditation representatives raised this month: governance, fiscal accountability and leadership.
Although the faculty have met several times with ORU's regents, they wanted to provide the board with statistics on professors' views of how the university is doing, the professor said.
About 150 full-time faculty, including no one above the level of department chairman or chairwoman, completed the survey, the professor said. Roberts and Provost Mark Lewandowski asked to attend the meeting but were not allowed.
The professor declined to detail the survey's responses or even the questions, wanting regents to have a chance to process the results before the information was made public.
But according to the survey obtained by the AP, nearly 90 percent of the faculty thought the school's current procedures for financial disclosure and accountability were inadequate, and more than 74 percent of those polled did not believe that alumni would continue to support ORU if Richard Roberts remains president.
Additionally, a majority of faculty members thought university administrators, such as the president, deans and department chairs, should be evaluated yearly by the faculty and that faculty should be involved in determining the selection criteria for, and selection of, the school's president.
An ORU spokesman declined to comment on the results late Monday.
Two surveys were taken at the meeting. In the first "pre-survey," nearly 78 percent of faculty members said they believed that Richard Roberts should not continue as president, and about 16 percent were undecided.
After the first survey, tenured faculty members discussed the three motions they passed last week: the "no confidence" vote against Richard Roberts; a vote of "confidence" in Lewandowski, the school's executive vice president for academic affairs and provost, "with regard to his call for greater faculty governance and transparency of university finances;" and the desire of the faculty to have a greater role in how university leadership is selected.
After the discussion, the faculty were polled again.
The "post-survey" revealed that more than 80 percent of faculty members believed that Roberts should not continue as president, while nearly 12 percent were still undecided.
"When it's that overwhelming of a vote, when does Richard start thinking more about the needs of the university than his own needs?" asked Tulsa attorney Gary Richardson, who is representing the three professors in their lawsuit against ORU. "What does the vote have to be?"
The lawsuit against Roberts includes allegations of a $39,000 shopping tab at one store for Richard Roberts' wife, Lindsay Roberts; a $29,411 Bahamas senior trip on the university jet for one of the Roberts' daughters and a stable of horses for the Roberts children.
Richard and Lindsay Roberts have denied wrongdoing and Richard Roberts has said the lawsuit amounts to "intimidation, blackmail and extortion."
Last week, Lewandowski offered to resign in a letter to Regents Chairman George Pearsons, saying he cannot "in good conscience serve under (Roberts') leadership," and wants the board to vote on his offer at its Nov. 27 meeting.
Lewandowski's letter described a "culture of fear" promoted by Roberts' management style and said Roberts has not addressed ORU's increasing debt.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/artic..._A1_hAnew85470
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