Provost wants Roberts out at university

Three professors sued,
alleging Roberts spent money improperly.

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — Oral Roberts University’s provost pressed the school’s Board of Regents Thursday to keep Richard Roberts from returning as president, saying he will resign if the panel reinstates the evangelist accused of improper spending.

Mark Lewandowski, who was named to ORU’s top academic post in May, offered to resign in a letter to board chairman George Pearsons. The provost said 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 states that many school leaders are concerned some regents are “waffling in their decision-making” and considering reinstating Roberts, “even in the face of overwhelming information of a management style that promotes fear and has done nothing to address the increasing debt of the university.”

“I have been waiting for the Board of Regents to make a decisive move that would endear the faculty to them and build confidence in the alumni,” Lewandowski told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview. “They have not done that.”

Jeremy Burton, a spokesman for Oral Roberts University, declined to comment on the letter.

Pearsons is supervising an outside probe of the school’s finances after three professors filed a lawsuit accusing Roberts, son of school founder Oral Roberts, of improper spending. Richard Roberts has been on temporary leave from the 5,700-student university, fighting accusations that he misspent university funds to bankroll a lavish lifestyle.

In a recent interview with The AP, Richard and Lindsay Roberts denied wrongdoing. Richard Roberts has said the lawsuit amounted to “intimidation, blackmail and extortion.”

Lewandowski’s letter came a day after Oral Roberts called an emergency meeting where Richard Roberts asked faculty members for a second chance. Tenured faculty gave Richard Roberts a no confidence vote Monday, but he told professors that if he stepped down now, the public would think he was admitting to wrongdoing.

Lewandowski admits in the letter that he began to be part of “the culture of fear” that had been at the school for years, and that faculty, students and alumni shouldn’t have to put up with it any longer.

When faculty gave Roberts the no confidence vote, they cast a separate vote in favor of Lewandowski’s “call for greater faculty governance and transparency of university finances.”

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

The lawsuit includes allegations of a $39,000 shopping tab at one store for Richard Roberts’ wife, Lindsay, a $29,411 Bahamas senior trip on the university jet for one of Roberts’ daughters and a stable of horses for the Roberts children.