Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
UA officials, spouses take trip to Rome
Lawmaker pans trip’s cost to college’s satellite campus
LITTLE ROCK — Five University of Arkansas System trustees and the president — and their spouses — are in the middle of a fiveday trip to Rome in hopes of expanding a study-abroad program, the system said.
The trip started Sunday and runs through Thursday, according to the UA System. The trip is for the board to learn more about the University of Arkansas Rome Center, a satellite campus for students at the Fayetteville campus wishing to study abroad. The center opened in the late 1980s for architecture students, but the university has since expanded course offerings there for other students.
Nate Hinkel, the system’s interim director of communications, said he didn’t have a cost estimate for the trip as each couple made their own travel arrangements. The board’s itinerary shows a range of meetings, from UA Rome Center students to friends of the program and local authorities, along with other visits, including ones to Rome’s Aquarium and another to the Basilica of Santo Stefano Rotondo.
Participants for the trip include: UA System President Donald Bobbitt and his wife, Susan; UA System board Chairman Ben Hyneman and his wife, Janet; Trustee Stephen Broughton and his wife, Cheryl; Trustee Cliff Gibson and his wife, Lisa; Trustee Morril Harriman and his wife, Susan; and Trustee Mark Waldrip and his wife, Janet.
Three from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville’s Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design and their spouses are also attending, along with the associate dean of graduate school and international education.
Spouses travel with trustees a number of times for occasions ranging from football games to board retreats. Some spouses went to the board’s annual retreat on Petit Jean Mountain in August.
“The University of Arkansas [System] may pay for the costs of travel and related expenses for Board members and their spouses to attend official functions of the University as designated by the Chairman of the Board,” the board’s 1994 policy states.
Each couple’s airfare, lodging, meals and transportation can be reimbursed, the policy reads.
When reached Monday, Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle, said the number of people on the trip was
“extravagant.” Lowery is leading the recently formed legislative task force studying realigning the state’s higher education institutions.
“I understand the need to do research,” he said. “I don’t know that there’s anything new under the sun. If you can find a program that someone else has implemented that you can replicate, it may be worth it to go take a look. But with the Internet and other ways of being able to, in real time, look at programs from around the country, from around the globe, I would just say it’s a bit excessive to send that many people.”
He said a couple of representatives from the architecture school and “maybe the president and the chancellor” would have been enough.
“These are the kinds of extravagant expenses that I believe drive up the cost of higher ed,” he said, adding that at times foundations pay the costs. “If the foundation picked up the cost, that’s just less money for them to put in for students.”
Rep. Nate Bell, I-Mena, also learned of the trip when reached Monday.
“There could be some value in it,” he said. “The question that always comes up is, ‘Is the value received worth the cost?’ I’ve found Dr. Bobbitt to be pretty fiscally responsible so far.”
In a May letter to the board about the trip, Bobbitt said he would like the board to “see and experience the Center” so they could “better understand the value it brings to the University and thus to our students.”
Bobbitt served as the dean of the University of Arkansas’ J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences in 2003, when the provost at the time told him to erase a $1 million deficit within three years. The Fulbright College and the Architecture School were investing in the Rome Center. At the time, Bobbitt said the funding the Fulbright College was devoting to the center would have addressed the deficit.
But before deciding to ax the program, Bobbitt took a tour of the Rome Center.
“Short story, after returning from the visit to Rome Center, not only did I not pull the funding, I actually increased it and looked to other sources to address the deficit,” Bobbitt wrote to the trustees in a May 11 letter.
“The Center is a true gem of the University and a source of almost immeasurable educational wealth for our students.”
His hope is to expand the center to allow students from all of the University of Arkansas System institutions, Bobbitt said in the letter. He later added he anticipated the UA System could provide “some support to help offset the cost of the trip” for the trustees.
Currently, the center is run by the Fayetteville campus’ Architecture and Design School and supported by the study abroad and international exchange office. The school has offered studyabroad opportunities in Rome since 1986, said Ethel Goodstein-Murphree, the school’s associate dean.
“Students of architecture and the allied design professions learn from direct contact with the built historical resources that are foundations of a design education; similarly, a deeply structured understanding of urban environments is essential to design thinking,” she said. “Through their study abroad, students discover new experiences, ideas and perspectives that will contribute to their academic and cultural growth, as well as cultivating
for them a comprehensive understanding of the places to which they travel.”
This fall, 15 architecture students are participating in the semester-long studyabroad program, she said, adding another 20 students will go to Rome in the spring.
And, for the last three years, the 26,754-student university has offered a studyabroad program during the first summer session, said DeDe Long, director of study abroad and international exchange. The summer program offers students a wider variety of courses, including economics and art history, she said.
Last summer, 53 students participated in that studyabroad program at a cost of $3,200 each, plus airfare and six credit hours of tuition, she said.
“Recently, there has been much discussion about expanding the offerings at the Rome Center to offer more core classes and to accommodate more of our majors during the semester and academic year as well as summer,” Long said. “Italy is a very popular destination for our students across campus so we are excited about the possibilities in the future.”