The Arkansas Project

Hardin: It Coulda Been Worse….

By David Kinkade - August 29, 2008 3:00 pm

Scandal-tainted University of Central Arkansas President Lu Hardin resigned yesterday, and he’ll take with him a buy-out package that, along with his current salary, will amount to nearly $1 million, according to this story by John Lyon at the Arkansas News Bureau. I think the word you were looking for was “ka-ching.”

I'm contractually obligated to post at least one bikini photo per week.

But..it coulda been worse. Here’s a story out of Iowa about a community college president who resigned this week and carried off a $400K walk-away package after photos surfaced of him, shirtless, “aboard a boat with a group of young people, holding the spigot of a small beer keg suspended over a young woman’s open mouth.”

The now-former president is in the photo there at top left. I think we can all agree that the additional $600K paid out to Hardin is worth it if it means he keeps his shirt on.

Decline and Fall: Hardin Calls It Quits

By David Kinkade - August 28, 2008 12:53 pm

Lu Hardin: Cut and Run

Beset by scandal and having lost the crucial support of Arkansas newspaper columnists Kane Webb and John Brummett, University of Central Arkansas President Lu Hardin resigned today, the AP reports.

Thus ends the LHSDTSMTWHFW, not with a bang, but with a whimper….But weep not for Hardin, who has four years remaining on his contract and can expect a sweet, sweet pay-out to ease his pain.

LHSDTSMTWHFW: Clock is Ticking

By David Kinkade - August 27, 2008 7:25 pm

Lu Hardin: Clockwatcher

The Lu Hardin Steps Down to Spend More Time With His Family Watch (henceforth, the “LHSDTSMTWHFW,” because I’m really tired of typing “Lu Hardin Steps Down to Spend More Time With His Family Watch”) is now kicking into overdrive.

In fact, it now appears that the LHSDTSMTWHFW can be measured not in weeks, not in days…but in hours.

The Arkansas Times is reporting that an unnamed University of Central Arkansas faculty member tipped them off that the embattled UCA president will resign Thursday and take a $1 million buy-out. There’s a previously unscheduled Board of Trustees Thursday at 11 a.m., the AP reports.

Meanwhile, over at the Under the Dome Denver Edition blog, incoming Speaker of the House Robbie Wills guest blogs that he’s hearing the same rumors. We have confirmation! Now that’s what I call reporting. Arkansas Project blog, you’ve done it again!

Brummett: Hardin Must Go

By David Kinkade - August 26, 2008 6:49 am

Add columnist John Brummett to the growing list of those calling for University of Central Arkansas President Lu Hardin to resign in the wake of his secret bonus/forged memo scandal. Brummett says it’s about institutional integrity, based upon a simple test:

In the end, fabricating a document might be forgivable somewhere else, though I’m not sure where, but can never be excused at a college where tuition-paying students get flunked for that very thing.

On Sunday, columnist Kane Webb said much the same thing in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The Arkansas pundit class is moving toward full-scale revolt, and the clock is ticking on the Lu Hardin Steps Down to Spend More Time with His Family Watch….

“If I’ve Lost Kane Webb….”

By David Kinkade - August 25, 2008 5:51 am

I seriously need to track down a different Lu Hardin photo.

So the story goes that when iconic newsreader Walter Cronkite declared the Vietnam War a lost cause, Lyndon Johnson knew he was sunk: “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America,” the embattled president is said to have declared. I have no idea if that actually happened, but what am I, LBJ’s biographer?

Anyway, I was put in mind of that hoary anecdote in reading Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Kane Webb’s Sunday take on the Lu Hardin/secret $300K bonus/forged memo/fall-from-grace story at the University of Central Arkansas.

Let’s skip to the juicy part, Webb’s conclusion in an open letter to Hardin:

Just a couple months ago, it all must have seemed so clear. You’d serve out the next six years as president of UCA, then succeed Mike Beebe as governor of Arkansas. That seemed like the perfect plan. You know who laughs at plans, Lu. He might have other plans for you now. It’s never the wrong time to do right. I think Martin Luther King Jr. said that, Lu. It’s time to do right—by your family, by your health, by your university, in that order. It’s time to resign. Godspeed.

Now, as a pundit, Kane Webb is not the type to go about calling on public officials to resign willy-nilly—he’s the measured type, not overly excitable, nor inclined to grand, sweeping gestures. In fact, at one point he almost ditched journalism to go to work for Hardin….

And now Lu Hardin’s lost him.

Could it be that the Lu Hardin Steps Down to Spend More Time With His Family Watch is coming closer to fruition?

Lu’s Blues

By David Kinkade - August 22, 2008 10:16 am

Hardin: "And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids and their dog!"

Poor Lu Hardin. It looked for a while as if the University of Central Arkansas president would weather the storm after finding himself the center of controversy when it was learned that he had received a hush-hush secret bonus of some $300,000.

Then it was revealed that he’d produced a memo to the Board of Trustees, “signed” by three UCA vice presidents, justifying the act. Except, whoops, those vice presidents had never seen, much less signed, the memo, and they disagreed with much of the content.

Hardin was pretty bruised up after all his blundering came to light, as well he should be. The villain in any given episode of “Scooby Doo” has a more airtight scheme than what Hardin tried to hatch.

But in true Arkansas fashion, it looked more and more as if he was a lock to survive.

But not so fast. The UCA Faculty Senate is considering what action to take in Hardin’s case—which actions may include calling for his resignation.

Does Lu make it out alive? Is it time to re-launch the Lu Hardin Steps Down to Spend More Time with His Family Watch?

Hardin Back in Circulation Soon

By David Kinkade - August 20, 2008 7:40 am

UCA President Lu Hardin

University of Central Arkansas President Lu Hardin will likely be back on the job soon, according to an e-mail circulated to UCA staff by his assistant. Hardin had surgery last week to address a cancerous tumor behind his eye. The story notes that determining the success of the surgery may take some months.

College Honchos: Lower the Drinking Age

By David Kinkade - August 19, 2008 3:49 pm

It had been at least a week since I'd had a bikini shot on the site, and frankly, I was starting to get a lot of complaints.

College presidents from 100 institutions have signed on to an initiative urging lawmakers to lower the legal drinking age from 21 to 18, arguing that the higher drinking age leads to surreptitious binge drinking on campus, the AP reports.

I don’t see any Arkansas colleges on the list of signatories, but nearby Rhodes College in Memphis is represented:

The statement the presidents have signed avoids calling explicitly for a younger drinking age. Rather, it seeks “an informed and dispassionate debate” over the issue and the federal highway law that made 21 the de facto national drinking age by denying money to any state that bucks the trend.

But the statement makes clear the signers think the current law isn’t working, citing a “culture of dangerous, clandestine binge-drinking,” and noting that while adults under 21 can vote and enlist in the military, they “are told they are not mature enough to have a beer.” Furthermore, “by choosing to use fake IDs, students make ethical compromises that erode respect for the law.”

“I’m not sure where the dialogue will lead, but it’s an important topic to American families and it deserves a straightforward dialogue,” said William Trout, president of Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., who has signed the statement.

Say, could this be just the thing that University of Central Arkansas President Lu Hardin needs to rebuild his shattered popularity in the wake of last month’s secret bonus scandal? Quick, get Hardin’s signature on that list!

P.S. Any inferred relationship between this post and Greenberg’s “Is College a Waste of Time?” rumination below is strictly coincidental.

Arkansas Project Friday Odds and Ends

By David Kinkade - August 8, 2008 4:31 pm

Just a couple of notes on things to see us out of this week and into the weekend:

Dobbins: Why so serious?

Item: The big news out of the Arkansas legislature this week was that the House of Representatives voted to adopt a new rule that will, in effect, bar handsy plea bargaining sex offender Dwayne Dobbins from serving in the House again. Legislators were patting themselves on the back, but I, for one, am disappointed, since I was really looking forward to seeing the production crew from NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” camped out in the Capitol Rotunda.

Item: Should have pointed this out earlier, but columnist David Sanders has a nice reflection on meeting Robert Novak, the conservative Washington D.C. journalist and TV personality who announced his retirement this week after being diagnosed with cancer.

Hardin: Why is this man smiling?

Item: From here, it’s looking like University of Central Arkansas President Lu Hardin—who accepted a $300,000 hush-hush secret bonus and produced a forged memo to the Board of Trustees to justify it—is probably going to skate on the whole thing and will most likely keep his job. If you’re sitting at the office reading this, keep in mind that you would get fired for much, much less than what Hardin did. Just sayin’.

More this weekend as the urge strikes. You’re dismissed.

More on Lu Hardin

By David Kinkade - July 31, 2008 10:36 am

Hardin: Down, but not out

A Friendly Correspondent (FC) e-mails with thoughts on yesterday’s Lu Hardin post, suggesting that those who would write Hardin off based on his recent travails are way off-base. It’s been speculated that Hardin aspires to the governorship in 2014, and FC points out: “Six years is a few thousand political lifetimes, as you know, so I wouldn’t totally count Hardin out of anything.” So true! Hardin strikes me as a wily old dog, and while the current scandal is bad, the damage may not be enduring.

FC, who I take to be something of a Hardin fan, notes that “while there’s no doubt this story deserved the coverage it got, sometimes the stories and editorials did have a certain breathless quality to them. I wonder how big this scandal would have gotten if it had happened in late October, with a presidential campaign in its final days and football in full force.”

Again, FC is correct: Timing is everything in these matters. I would add that the Arkansas media has been spoiling for a fight. Media abhors a vacuum: In the Mike Beebe era of good feelings, without Mike Huckabee to kick around, it was getting to be about time to knock someone down. And Hardin, with the secret bonuses, disregard for transparency and general shiftiness, delivered. Boy, did he ever deliver.

More: Commenter “A Little Much” chides my tongue-in-cheek Lu Hardin Deathwatch reference from yesterday, given Hardin’s recent bout with eye cancer. Hm. Good point. We certainly wish Lu Hardin all the best in winning that fight, so on second thought, let’s call it Lu Hardin Steps Down to Spend More Time With His Family Watch.

Sanders’ Pool Report

By David Kinkade - July 30, 2008 9:09 am

The “Who’s Up/Who’s Down” framework is a favorite of newspaper columnists everywhere: You pull out a few boldfaced names from recent news stories, assign an up or down designation, write up a quick blurb to justify your case and then call it a day. It’s an easy crutch for the harried writer, which is why I’ll probably start doing something like that on The Arkansas Project someday.

"Come on in! The water's fine!"

These columns are also fun to read, because we all like keeping score, and part of the fun is watching the contortions that writers go through to freshen up the concept. That’s what Arkansas News Bureau columnist David Sanders does nicely today in his pool party column, where he assesses recent Arkansas political events based on who’s swimming, who’s sinking and who’s treading water.

Notably sinking: University of Central Arkansas President Lu Hardin, the target of a recent bonus scandal that somehow just keeps getting worse and worse. Secret bonuses! Forged memos!

Remember when Lu was popular? Of course you do. That was last month. But not anymore. Anyone laying odds on length of Hardin’s tenure at this point? Is it time to launch the Lu Hardin Death Watch?

“Delusions of Invincibility and Invisibility”

By David Kinkade - July 26, 2008 2:06 pm

If you’ve picked up an Arkansas newspaper in the last month, you’re well aware of the UCA bonus scandal, in which formerly popular UCA President Lu Hardin was discovered to have received a nice $300,000 secret bonus from the Board of Trustees. (That’s a very short version of what became a very complicated story). Because $300,000 is chump change, and who’s gonna notice that, right?

Beebe: He doth bestride the Arkansas River like a colossus....

Arkansas News Bureau columnist John Brummett extracts a few lessons from the recent flap. I liked this useful reminder, which he directs to Gov. Mike Beebe and his fans:

It’s simply that this lesson - to be ever aware of those roundly applauded for spectacular job performance, especially in the public arena - would apply powerfully to [Mike Beebe], or at least his office. Our term-limited legislators don’t keep a check on him. He dominates them.

Beebe has had scant detractors and, in fact, no substantive or significant ones. He seems by every reasonable and quantifiable indication to be performing the governorship with great and positive command. For that very reason, he should be ever vigilant not to deem himself invincible or invisible, and the rest of us ought to keep our eyes on him skeptically even as he appears clearly to excel.

It’s just something to keep in mind, not that there’s anything there. It’s an abiding principle of the news business, but one worth reminding ourselves - and our public servants - of. Like the old news media adage says: When your mom tells you she loves you, seek a second source.

A healthy admonition, that, in this era of Arkansas Democratic triumphalism.