Editorial

Time for university officials to own up

Friday’s article, “University funds misdirected,” which addressed the issue of more than $600,000 in diverted donations, demonstrates how reluctant university officials are to reveal serious errors that directly or indirectly affect students.

We are concerned that the university insisted on working in secret to try and correct the issue of the aforementioned misdirected donations.

We are also concerned that nobody in the administration seems to be taking complete responsibility for the initial mistake. President Welty’s statement to the community says, “In part, the university was responsible for this series of errors.”

We believe this response is overly-dismissive, with the university only willing to accept a minimal amount of responsibility. We also believe that the statement deliberately skirts issues of the repayment of the misdirected donations.

Where would the $350,000 from “non-state, discretionary funds” have gone if not to correcting this blunder? What was the $336,754 redirected from athletics intended for?

Friday’s article quotes Dean of Student Affairs Paul Oliaro as saying that “Students were not affected.” This is precisely our problem — how might we have been?

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