According to this Chronicle article, State Representative Harold Dutton chose the keynote address at the summer commencement ceremonies of Texas Southern University to declare who is truly responsible for the recent scandal involving former TSU president, Priscilla Slade:
Along with the usual advice and good wishes for graduates, State Rep. Harold Dutton delivered some pointed criticism of Texas Southern University’s Board of Regents during his keynote address at the school’s summer commencement ceremony Saturday.
“You (regents) are directly responsible for the unsuccessful management and government of TSU,” Dutton said in his speech, with the regents arrayed on the platform behind him.
In an interview later, Dutton, D-Houston, said he was referring to the “dark clouds” looming over TSU because of the regents’ handling of the investigation, dismissal and subsequent indictment of former university president Priscilla Slade and their current dispute with the school’s radio station. [. . .]
Dutton, an alumnus of the university, said that although the controversy centered on Slade, he felt that the regents were just as much to blame because it is the board’s responsibility to oversee TSU’s fiscal management. He said the regents acted so poorly he considered them “co-conspirators.”
“I don’t think you just look to Priscilla Slade for the reason why, I think you have to look at all the board members,” he said. “She may be in the spotlight, but I don’t think she’s the only one responsible for the mess we’re in.”
H’mm, let’s see here. The TSU regents hire Slade, who by all accounts did a good job as TSU president, except for that little problem with managing her expense accounts, which is hardly something that regents of a university should be using their time to oversee. Yes, TSU has chronic financial and related management problems, but this and this has a lot more to do with those problems than the efforts of regents who donate their time to deal with the mess.
In short, Representative Duncan, you and the parochial nature of Texas education politics are much more responsible for TSU’s problems than the TSU regents or even Ms. Slade.
OK, Bishop College went under in the 1980’s due to fiscal mismanagement. Texas College nearly went under in the same decade. And Prairie View had to discontinue football due to fiscal mismanagement. Simply put, Historically Black Colleges and Universities do not have good systems of checks and balances to monitor for fraud. In TSU’s case, one of the main culprits had been convicted of writing bad checks, and I believe he had a financial position at the university.
It’s a real shame.
Kenneth, you are certainly correct that the traditionally black colleges have had their fiscal and management problems. However, apart from the somewhat separate issue of whether these colleges are largely anachronisms, my sense is that the fiscal and management problems are a symptom of the true problem, which is the poorly-coordinated and financed system of college education in Texas.
For example, there really is no reason for there to be two open admission universities (TSU and UH Downtown) in Houston. There is little question that TSU’s chronic management problems would be largely solved by combining the institution with UH Downtown and bringing it under the UH system umbrella. However, the UH system could not afford taking on TSU without financial assistance from the legislature, which would almost certainly not provide it. Politicians such as Dutton would oppose such a consolidation by advocating the importance of maintaining TSU as an “independent” institution, whatever that means. The UT and A&M systems would also probably lobby against such a consolidation, just as the A&M system has recently opposed the opening of a UH satellite campus in northwest Houston.
Look soon for a longer post that attempts to tie these threads together.
Lack of state funding has always been an issue for these colleges. And it is an issue in other states, too. My mother attended Ft. Valley State College (now University) in Georgia because it was close and available to her. FVSU is still a good school with a nice campus and in good shape financially. PV and TSU have been underfunded. They accept students who are poorer, whose families can’t make large donations. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that employees of these universities have embezzled and hurt the universities.