Believing that Ohio University’s investigation was not enough, more than 50 faculty members are asking that the university pursue an external review of the Coventry Lane agreement.
More than 50 Ohio University faculty members signed a letter calling for a third-party investigation into the recent negotiations for 31 Coventry Lane, the president’s temporary new residence.
The letter was posted Monday to the Ohio University chapter of the American Association of University Professors' website.
Stephen Golding, vice president for Finance and Administration, recommended on April 13 that both the OU Foundation, the university’s fundraising entity, and the Board of Trustees not purchase the property after finding out about a verbal agreement between the home’s owner and Ohio Athletics officials.
The letter, written in response to an editorial from Athens News editor Terry Smith, said a “neutral investigation that includes testimonies under oath from the parties involved would help to settle these doubts.”
“A large part of the administration’s claim to have been acting in good faith while simultaneously negotiating a lease-purchase agreement and donation agreement with the same individual is based on ignorance: One office didn’t know what the other was doing," Kevin Uhalde, secretary of the OU AAUP and one of two faculty members to pen the letter, said in an email.
OU documents showed that John Wharton, a local real estate broker and prominent donor to Ohio Athletics, verbally agreed to Director of Athletics Jim Schaus that he would pay the rest of the money he pledged to the Walter Fieldhouse — and an additional $100,000 — as a part of OU’s lease-to-buy settlement for his house.
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Ohio University officials say they did not know of this exchange and only discovered the content of those conversations while they compiled records to fulfill a public records request.
“The timing and substance of exchanges over both home and gifts are troubling,” the letter said.
Golding recommended that the university and OU Foundation not purchase the property in order to “avoid even an appearance of impropriety.”
But that recommendation and the university’s decision to release Wharton’s donor contact report is not satisfactory, the faculty letter said.
“The best outcome for the university would be to exonerate the administration from lingering doubts about whether malfeasance took place, something that an internal investigation, however well-intentioned, can never satisfy,” the letter reads.
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Officials from the president’s office were not able to provide a comment by press time.
The letter is not the first to come from OU’s faculty in regard to the lease agreement for 31 Coventry Lane.
In late March, more than 100 faculty members signed a letter asking the university to reconsider the lease and possible purchase of the new home for OU President Roderick McDavis and his wife, Deborah.
Of the faculty members who signed that first letter, at least 40 of them have also signed the letter posted Monday.
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"A third-party investigation can be objective in a way that the administration investigating itself cannot,” Uhalde said. “This is a public university and it must be accountable to us all: faculty, staff, and students, as well as parents, alumni, and citizens of Ohio.”
The letter cites either the Ohio Inspector General or the Ohio Ethics Commission as appropriate bodies to investigate any possible "ethical violations and financial malfeasance."
The group will also consider sending the letter to state representatives if action is not taken.
@dinaivey
db794812@ohio.edu
