Earlier in the week, and for nearly a month, Save HSU has asked questions regarding the honors program at Hardin-Simmons. We now have more updates and additional questions regarding the Honors program money. The HSU family needs financial transparency from the Trustees because the CFO is refusing to answer questions.
The 1.9M mentioned in the original post from last Friday regarding the June Frost Leland gift was only what was drained in the last year. The program started with 7.2M. So, the situation is even worse unfortunately.
See this article regarding the establishment of the Honors program and related gift from 2005:https://www.christianpost.com/news/record-bequest-to-endow-hardin-simmons-university-honors-program.html
“Trustees from Hardin-Simmons University voted to use a significant portion of a recent $10 million gift to endow its honors program, announced the Baptist-affiliated institution on Thursday.
Of the estimated $10 million that was bequeathed to HSU after the passing of HSU graduate June Frost Leland in September, an expected corpus of $7.2 million will be dedicated to the Honors Program beginning with the 2006-2007 academic year.”
Questions for the Board of Trustees:
- If the Board of Trustees voted in 2005 to dedicate $7.2M to the Honors program, when did the Trustees then later vote to undo the previous board action?
- If the Board did not recently vote to undo the previous Board action from 2005, what are the potential consequences of spending dedicated Honors program money in a way that was contrary to the Board action from 2005?
- It is our understanding that a Board can un-dedicate what was previously dedicated by a Board, but, in this particular situation, did the administration start spending the money in a contrary way to the original 2005 dedication without ever having a Board vote to change the designation thus, breaking the agreement from 2005?
- Trustees, is there anything the HSU administration doing and hiding from you that you will ultimately be responsible for?
- If the CFO and Board have nothing to hide, how come they have continued to meet our requests for transparent financial details the last four weeks with silence?
We are awaiting response from the CFO and Board of Trustees. We seek transparency from the Board regarding answers to these questions surrounding the Honors gift. For the last ten months, the administration and Trustees have continually refused to answer our questions directly and give transparent financial information. Despite their silence, we will keep asking because the financial future of HSU is at stake.
The core of a liberal arts education is the pursuit of truth. We want the truth. We will ask questions seeking the truth. Trustees, will you please tell the truth?
