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November 18, 2008

Oral Roberts U. to Cut 100 Jobs

Spokesman says the cuts are mainly to offset the school's $17 million deficit.

Katelyn Beaty

Just days after Oral Roberts University announced that it will give former president Richard Roberts more than $440,000 in severance pay, the Tulsa school said it will be eliminating 100 jobs, about 10% of its workforce, in January 2009.

"Like any business, a university cannot spend more revenue than it collects," wrote board chair Mart Green and interim president Ralph Fagin in a letter to the ORU family. "We have a responsibility to all of you to be good stewards of our resources."

School officials have not decided which jobs to cut, but say former employees will remain on the payroll for 60 days and be given job placement support. ORU currently has more than 950 employees.

Last Friday, November 14, ORU announced it had officially severed ties with Roberts and will pay him $223,600 a year for the remainder of a three-term appointment that ends November 2009. The Roberts family moved off campus earlier this year but continues to work at the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association, which has been separated from the school.

The last year has brought the school several economic burdens, including a $55 million debt after Roberts's resignation last November, a lawsuit from two former professors, settled in October for an undisclosed amount, and several long-needed maintenance projects on campus, funded mainly by Hobby Lobby heir Green's $70 million gift. The school remains $17 million in debt.

While the larger U.S. economic downturn is certainly a factor in ORU's decision to cut jobs, school spokesman Jeremy Burton told CT that the decision was mainly about paying off that debt.

"One of our issues is deficit. . . . You can't spend more than you take in," Burton said. "We are doing this in light of everything that's going on economically. That affects everything across the board. But that is not the main reason."

See Christianity Today's prior coverage of ORU:
"Healing ORU" | $70 million and Mart Green's business acumen are repairing a scandal-scarred school. (Sept. 2008)

"Tulsa Dustup" | Lawsuit charges ORU president and his wife with fiscal, moral improprieties. (Dec. 2007)

posted by Katelyn Beaty | Comments (2)

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Oral Roberts is a joke and a man devoid of integrity just like Benny Hinn. Oral told his son Richard to divorce Patti because he didn’t like her complaining about how they were getting rich of the gifts of the poor.

Oral Roberts is a respecter of person who defended his friend Jim Bakker who was also a crook and then wondered why ORU went into debt and never recovered from it!

Down through the years Oral and Richard have supported other mega ministries that had no integrity including Ron Clark of Living Water Church in Tampa now defunct and the Karl Strader of Carpenter’s Home Church Lakeland which was sold to another thief Randy White of Church without Walls who is now struggling under a $ 23 million debt
http://www.tampabay.com/news/religion/article897217.ece

Posted By: brad | November 30, 2008 2:22 AM

Despite the current and immediate past problems at ORU, the school itself has some wonderful administrators, faculty, and staff. I spent the best five years of my professional life there, first as Manager of Word Processing Center and finally as an Assistant Professor in the English Department. My colleagues in English still remain some of my dearest friends, as do some of the people from WP. My memories of students and their respect for and love of their faculty members are among the many treasures of those years. Even after twenty years away from ORU, I remember fondly being appreciated as an individual, a professional, and a Christian member of the faculty. Had the university salary structure been sufficient to have allowed me to support my family, I might never have left. During the first two years after leaving there for another institution of higher learning, I had doubled my salary. Unfortunately, the lack of respect and appreciation in the secular academic world was a sore spot for the rest of my professional career. I pray that ORU will be able to heal and grow under its new leadership. My prayers are with all of the professionals and the students in that great university.

Posted By: Clyta F Harris, PhD | January 29, 2009 11:24 PM