UofA Miscalculated $240M, Athletics in Jeopardy

[UALoco]

bumping this thread..this seems to have played a role in CJF leaving and Heeke getting fired...can't wait for the ESPN 30 for 30.

[PHXCATS]

bumping this thread..this seems to have played a role in CJF leaving and Heeke getting fired...can't wait for the ESPN 30 for 30.

Not at all but push all the false narratives you want

[pc in NM]

bumping this thread..this seems to have played a role in CJF leaving and Heeke getting fired...can't wait for the ESPN 30 for 30.

An Arizona fan on these boards "looking forward to" an ESPN report on an U of A Athletic Department scandal???

Be on the watch for flying pigs today!!!

[Postmaster]

30 for 30: The Robin that Wanted to be a Crow.

[UAEebs86]

Carl Lewis: Uh oh!

She's coming for you Bobby!

[Alieberman]

So it seems much of the debt seems to stem from the stupid acquisition of Ashford Univ…. Which was all Bobby’s idea

[dovecanyoncat]

Another fish-rots-from-the-head story?

[UAEebs86]

Another fish-rots-from-the-head story?

Sounds like it. Time to fire the women's studies department!

[CalStateTempe]

LMAO that online diploma mill?

MBA’s for 10K?

What a fucking jabroni

[Fishclamps]

Called the online diploma mill back in the Heeke thread. All the shit attached to that dumpster fire got rerouted to being Arizona's problem as soon as they acquired it.

[CalStateTempe]

Called the online diploma mill back in the Heeke thread. All the shit attached to that dumpster fire got rerouted to being Arizona's problem as soon as they acquired it.

OMG, I’ve been away for a while.

I remember reading about Ashford cause all these MD’s got their MBA there but where still dumb as shit for health system business…

Then I looked into it and was like, yup, that’s on brand

[CalStateTempe]

I guess Bobby buying them was on brand for MDs acting like they can run things outside their training/expertise/specialty

[Postmaster]

Still waiting to hear about lavish spending on wbb

[Merkin]

Still waiting to hear about lavish spending on wbb

History has shown that WBB is the biggest money loser in the UA AD, even before Adia's contract.

[UAEebs86]

[Postmaster]

So the teams made more than they cost. Where is the rest of the money going?


The other day someone posted that Heeke had spent an unusual amount on WBB and that was part of the mismanagement claim. I’m just looking to see what the excessive spending was on. I’m knot expecting WBB to produce income.

[TheCatInTheHat]

One item is servicing the debt on facilities projects. Fisch remodeled Lowell-Stevens when it was less than ten years old. Some things are covered by fund-raising, but a lot of time that seems to be seed money and then they issue bonds for the rest. They had to re-do the pool and various other things. Not saying facilities is all of it, but that's another line item that probably wouldn't be listed as a recurring expense for any specific teams. There was also a big revenue trough from COVID that's likely still part of the overall picture.

[pc in NM]

Will we, the public be able to see any details of the audit repot, or the ABOR corrective action plan requested by the governor?

[PHXCATS]

Will we, the public be able to see any details of the audit repot, or the ABOR corrective action plan requested by the governor?

Not sure on the audit if it was not done by the auditor General but yes on ABOR

[Merkin]

[AzCatFan2]

Robbins really miscalculated the Ashford deal. I work in the online higher ed industry for a UAGC competitor based on out San Diego, and know a lot of good people who used to work for Zovio, which was the operations arm of Ashford. The mistakes and missteps will make your head spin. In the industry, UAGC has become a blueprint for what not to do. Don't want to hash out all the details here, but if anyone is interested, feel free to PM me.

[arizonawildcats]

[Merkin]

$32M deficit for the AD this FY. Good luck getting Lloyd that raise through the ABOR.


"People ask me all the time, 'where did the money go,'" Arnold said. "It went to students through excessive discounting, wanting to retain and recruit faculty and staff largely though salary, and it went to athletics. Those are the big three."

[pc in NM]

$32M deficit for the AD this FY. Good luck getting Lloyd that raise through the ABOR.


"People ask me all the time, 'where did the money go,'" Arnold said. "It went to students through excessive discounting, wanting to retain and recruit faculty and staff largely though salary, and it went to athletics. Those are the big three."

Arizona Republic Report: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/lo ... 390244007/

Arnold said the budget reduction will not affect the university uniformly. Over the next several months, the administration will provide guidelines to departments for how to plan their spending, which will later be reviewed depending on needs.

Some departments will see decreases in spending while others will see increases, he said.

[Alieberman]

The UofA has over a 200% increase in VPs since Robbins took over...

If they don't chop from the top and instead from the bottom... this is all a sham

[UAdevil]

From Steve K's weekly city council newsletter

UA/Board of Regents


Late last week UA president Robbins off-loaded, sort of, yet another person he’d like to take the fall for the UA financial mismanagement. I told Paul Ingram from the Tucson Sentinel that I believe Dave Heeke (former UA athletics director) was in over his head from day 1. Here’s a link to Paul’s story:

https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/sports/r ... e-candrea/

Heeke’s ouster is ‘sort of’ that because he’ll stay on the payroll being paid roughly a million dollars through March, 2025. Now even the sports reporters at the Star are getting a little vocal about Robbins not being held accountable. The sports beat is a bubble that protects its own. The red ink Heeke/Robbins have amassed is historic at the UA. Interim AD former softball coach Mike Candrea should have had that job the day Greg Byrne left. I doubt Robbins will be able to manipulate him the way he has so many others.

Under Heeke transparency within the athletics department was always lacking. Last week the Tucson Agenda printed portions of a letter written by current UA cross country athletes that said this:

Tucson Agenda prints portion of a letter from the Arizona Cross Country Team
That seems to be a theme across campus these days.

Under Robbins’ ‘leadership’ the UA now has virtually every one of its top administrative positions unfilled. There are ‘interim’s’ at the Provost level, Senior VP for Research, CFO, Athletics Director and the Senior Vice President for Diversity Equity and Inclusion and the Vice President and Chief Safety Officer. That Diversity position is the one he couldn’t make a decision on who to hire, so he hired 2. Now they’re both gone. If ABOR doesn’t see the one common thread in the mess, then they’re asleep at the wheel.

Athletics is just one of the pain points for the UA. You’ll soon be hearing more about the UA Global Campus mess that Robbins’ inner circle brought to campus. One of the troubling parts of the investigation is that the guy ABOR put in charge of righting the financial ship has said this about the acquisition of UAGC: “To date, UAGC has been nothing but a positive financial impact on the university,” Arnold said. That’s lifted from an Inside Higher Education article that was published a while back - linked here:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/202 ... lying-woes

The information in that article was built upon by an Arizona Republic article that ran last Thursday. From that Governor Hobbs sent ABOR this letter:



Portion of the Letter from Governor Hobbs to ABOR


She goes on to request an outside 3rd party audit of the UA’s financial mess. But ABOR and Mr. Arnold should take this next point from her letter to heart, especially in light of Arnold’s now publicly stated support of the Ashford purchase, his role in putting together a financial plan and his clear conflict in simultaneously sitting on the ABOR.



Portion of the letter from Governor Hobbs to ABOR


Why would anybody of any quality or character come and join an institution that’s in the UA’s present ‘leadership’ condition. Multiple interim appointments, faculty voting no confidence in the president, and now the governor publicly calling for external audits. In Hobbs’ own words “To say the situation demonstrates that there is significant work ahead to restore the university’s financial health would be an understatement. This is no longer just about finances, this is about a lack of accountability, transparency, and at the end of the day, leadership. It is now apparent that we can no longer continue on the same course.”

Three weeks ago, I wrote an op/ed calling for Robbins’ dismissal. We may soon see if a golden parachute is right now being sewn for him.

Before the actual purchase of the online university was finalized Robbins was hosting private parties at ‘his’ house and sharing emails with others trying to preemptively do damage control. Here are a couple more quotes from that same story:

“Do you know the current retention and graduation rate at Ashford?” Brent White, one of the university officials responsible for the merger, wrote to another university official in a May 29, 2020, email. At the time, the six-year graduation rate was 9%.

“The Wikipedia page on Ashford reads like a hit job ... We really do need a PR firm immediately.”

The email thread was code-named antelope for the group of UA people involved with the acquisition. The Arizona Republic reported that the code name simply added another layer of secrecy to their exchanges. Those involved signed nondisclosure agreements.

Robbins was getting strong criticism from all over campus, and from some of his inner circle (some of whom are now gone) about moving forward with the purchase. So why did he decide to move forward? In another Inside Higher Education article:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/gov ... d-students

The speculation was purely trying to keep up with the Jones’. It’s exactly how he got in trouble with athletics. If ASU builds a practice facility so do we. I saw that dynamic from the inside for years. Heeke was just along for Robbins’ ride. Here are a couple more quotes from the article that make the point:


Ashford’s parent company was Zovio. In 2017 the California attorney general brought the hammer down on them with claims that Ashford had lied to students about what they’d gain from associating with the college:

But what seemed like a no-fail operation came crashing down in 2017 when Ashford and its then-parent company, Zovio, came under the scrutiny of the California Attorney General’s Office for using fraudulent sales practices to rope in vulnerable students. In 2022, a San Diego County Superior Court judge fined the school $22 million for luring in students with false promises and illegal tactics.

That’s what faculty and staff, and some of Robbins’ inner circle were advocating they not get involved with. There’s a part of federal law called the Browser Defense whereby students can seek redress if they feel the conditions of their enrollment were falsely presented. Here’s what the U.S. Department of Education is saying about Ashford:

The former Ashford University repeatedly lied to students over a decade about the cost, time requirement and value of its degree program, making the education they obtained “effectively worthless,” the U.S. Education Department found in an independent review.

As a direct result of the DOE review they’re forgiving $72M in student loans for over 2,300 former Ashford students. What’s in court now is whether the UA, since it purchased all of Ashford’s assets and liabilities is on the hook for that too.

When the UA deal was struck Zovio was providing enrollment and marketing services to the UA in exchange for a 19.5% cut in the tuition they brought in over the first 15 years of the relationship. The UA leadership has publicly told faculty and staff that the recruiting and enrollment methods would change under its leadership. Prosecutors alleged at the trial that they have not. Robbins’ mouthpiece Pam Scott simply said the UA has “full confidence in UAGC’s current marketing and recruitment efforts.” That sounds very much like John Arnold’s confidence in how things with Ashford are going financially.

Robbins denied receiving any ‘finder’s fee’ for the Ashford merger. But ABOR did give him a $45K bonus on top of his $816,000 annual salary for completing the merger before June 20th of last year.

Bob Shireman is the director of higher education excellence at the Century Foundation. That’s a think tank whose focus is on economic, racial and gender equity in education, health care and work. They’ve studied these online for-profit universities for years. It’s his opinion that the leadership at the University of Arizona overlooked allegations made against Zovio and Ashford, including the California case, because they wanted to better compete with ASU Online. Also from that same Inside Higher Education article he says this:

“What the California attorney general’s office alleges is exactly what UA faculty groups were concerned about, yet leadership claimed that those problems were in the past.”

The chair of the UA faculty senate simply says, ‘at this point I would say our vote-of-no-confidence meter is off the charts.” They have yet to take one and one has to wonder if ABOR should really need that nudge in order to hold Robbins accountable for this mess.

Meanwhile the United Campus Workers of Arizona did release a statement of no confidence last week in which they called for Robbins’ resignation – I believe they meant that in the commonly understood meaning of the word. Here’s their letter:

The Letter from the United Campus Workers of Arizona calling for resignation of President Robbins & Senior Advisor Rulney
They hit the nail on the head – what’s lacking is a culture of transparency, accountability and honesty. There’s still no official statement coming from the faculty senate – a body that purports to be closer to the administration and representing faculty more broadly. But the governor has now weighed in. If the board of regents is to retain any public credibility, and if the UA is going to fill its many high level vacancies with quality applicants, Robbins needs to go.

[dovecanyoncat]

IMPEACH THE PROFESSORS!!

[PHXCATS]

1) Lloyd's raise and extension are going to happen. Nothing to worry about there

2) Absolutely wild that U of A as a whole made $79 Million from 7/1/22-6/30/23 but is losing that much now

Now there are certain ways to frame it to make things look better or worse depending on your motive

[AZCatGirl]

What does a review of assignments mean? Are they finally firing Robbins' ass?

[Fishclamps]

I would take a wild guess and say it's probably nothing good for him

[84Cat]

[Fishclamps]

Boooooooooo this man should be getting fired

[UAEebs86]

Boooooooooo this man should be getting fired

Well he won't get extended so we will just have to ride it out a few more years unfortunately.

[PHXCATS]

Now is not the time to fire Robbins

He needs to be held accountable for sure. But right this moment is not the right time

[dovecanyoncat]

Now is not the time to fire Robbins

He needs to be held accountable for sure. But right this moment is not the right time

Throw some professors down the well while we sort this out.

[Alieberman]

Just like its never the right time to talk about gun control after a mass shooting....

[PHXCATS]

Just like its never the right time to talk about gun control after a mass shooting....

Who said that?

[UAEebs86]

Just like its never the right time to talk about gun control after a mass shooting....

Who said that?

Are you seriously saying you haven't heard that from Republicans right after every mass shooting?

[dmjcat]

Just like its never the right time to talk about gun control after a mass shooting....

Who said that?

Are you seriously saying you haven't heard that from Republicans right after every mass shooting?

Moderators: Move this political crap to the lower boards

[UAEebs86]

Just like its never the right time to talk about gun control after a mass shooting....

Who said that?

Are you seriously saying you haven't heard that from Republicans right after every mass shooting?

Moderators: Move this political crap to the lower boards

This whole thread should be in the lower boards. Upper boards are for sports only and this is way beyond sports.

[Alieberman]

Just like its never the right time to talk about gun control after a mass shooting....

Who said that?

Are you seriously saying you haven't heard that from Republicans right after every mass shooting?

Moderators: Move this political crap to the lower boards

This was my bad... But I wasn't really trying to make a political statement... just saying there is never a "better time" to deal with big problems.

[Chicat]

Just like its never the right time to talk about gun control after a mass shooting....

Who said that?

Are you seriously saying you haven't heard that from Republicans right after every mass shooting?

Moderators: Move this political crap to the lower boards

This whole thread should be in the lower boards. Upper boards are for sports only and this is way beyond sports.

I agree. Off we go down the page…

[Postmaster]

I’m confused why the track team sent a letter to somebody.

Still waiting to find out what Heeke did. And what he did that wasn’t approved by Robbins.

[Carcassdragger]

Look for Robbins to get a huge sum of money and let go after he signs a nondisclosure agreement.

[GlobalCat]

ABOR members are hiding stuff too

[Merkin]

Nice get.

[84Cat]

[PHXCATS]

1) Lloyd's raise and extension are going to happen. Nothing to worry about there

2) Absolutely wild that U of A as a whole made $79 Million from 7/1/22-6/30/23 but is losing that much now

Now there are certain ways to frame it to make things look better or worse depending on your motive

Bump

[84Cat]

[GlobalCat]

The sharks are circling a couple ABOR members and Robbins right now…