The president of the University of the District of Columbia yesterday defended the large expenditures on his campus residence and administrative offices while classrooms are in disrepair, and blamed the city’s tedious budget process for hamstringing building maintenance.
“In order for us to get capital improvement, we have to go through three layers of city processes, and we are at various stages of all those processes,” UDC President William L. Pollard said on “The Kojo Nnamdi Show” on WAMU-FM.
Mr. Pollard said taxpayer dollars spent on his university residence in the 3000 block of Rittenhouse Street NW and on the administration offices at the land-grant university did not follow the same budget process as capital projects for the rest of the campus.
The D.C. Office of the Chief Financial Officer was unable yesterday afternoon to verify whether there are different requirement for various programs within the capital budget for UDC, the District’s only public institution of higher education.
Mr. Pollard maintained that the decision to renovate the university residence was “a decision the board of trustees made to ensure the property of the university is maintained and that the citizens of the District of Columbia had a site that was representative of the university.”
On the radio show, Mr. Pollard fielded other questions about his spending priorities, such as what improvements he has made to academic programs and how he justifies adding several high-paid management positions to the administration.
Mr. Pollard, who became UDC president a year ago, said a strategic plan is being crafted to raise the school’s academic standing and public image, and that the management team he assembled would play a crucial role in implementing that plan.
He justified adding the layer of highly paid top administrators by saying he needed a new team to turn around the troubled university, which in past years has been plagued by financial mismanagement, poor academic performance and accreditation concerns.
Mr. Pollard said having five vice presidents — the school had as few as two in recent years — at a university with about 5,000 students is not a waste of money.
“The team brings an opportunity for the message of the leadership to be disseminated to the masses. It allows the leadership to be sure the agenda for the university is put out and articulated,” he said.
He voiced support for paying a $128,095 annual salary to Robert Robinson, who holds the newly created post of vice president of public safety. He said Mr. Robinson would oversee campus security and prepare the school for large-scale emergencies and hazardous-material spills. But Mr. Pollard declined to answer why Mr. Robinson’s salary for running security on a campus of 5,000 students is on par with police chiefs in cities with more than 500,000 people.
A series of callers to the radio show said Mr. Pollard seemed to be evading the questions, and one caller said the university president was “ducking and dodging questions related to fiscal responsibility.”
Mr. Pollard refused to answer questions about hiring his close friend, Wilhelmina M. Reuben-Cooke, as the school’s provost and vice president of academic affairs. Mrs. Reuben-Cooke apparently lacks the requisite education and experience for the $137,000-a-year job, The Washington Times first reported last month.
Mrs. Reuben-Cooke is the wife of District-based lawyer Edmund D. Cooke Jr., who a year ago helped Mr. Pollard secure his $200,000-a-year job at the university.
Mr. Pollard said an investigation by the D.C. Office of Campaign Finance as to whether he violated standards of conduct for public officials in making the hire prevented him from commenting on the matter.
“I expect to be fully exonerated,” Mr. Pollard said. “Because of that investigation, I shouldn’t say anything more at this time.”
As reported by The Times on Sunday, the school’s classrooms are cramped and shabby with worn-out furniture and outdated equipment. Most academic buildings suffer from lack of routine maintenance, while the administration is spending more than $100,000 to remodel the president’s home, and the administration and law school office accommodations are relatively lavish.
“With respect to the buildings and the classrooms on the main campus, we do have some serious problems,” said Mr. Pollard, who has declined repeated requests by the Times for an interview. He said the administration has spent more than $39 million in recent years fixing up the campus, including renovating the law library and building several interactive classrooms.
Mr. Pollard said he has taken steps to improve academics at the school, including pursuing an honors program, setting up a “student ambassador” program to provide mentoring, and conducting a couple of “town meetings” with students.
“I think more importantly was the opportunity to observe our young men and women in the athletic programs where our students excelled,” Mr. Pollard said. “We had an excellent year.”
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