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Poll: Majority of Faculty Want Oral Roberts University President Gone

by Associated Press , November 21, 2007

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TULSA Okla.

More than 80 percent of the faculty at Oral Roberts University 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 against ORU that accuses him of improper spending.

Roberts has been on temporary leave while an investigation into the school's finances continues.

Accusations of lavish spending were detailed in a wrongful termination lawsuit filed Oct. 2 by three former ORU professors.

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 as president, according to the survey.

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 believed Richard Roberts should not continue as president and about 16 percent were undecided.

After the first survey, tenured faculty discussed the three motions they passed last week: the "no confidence" vote against Richard Roberts; a vote of "confidence" in Mark 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 on how university leadership is selected.

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