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Green targets the ‘four Ds’ in his resurrection of ORU
Journal Record
May 13, 2008
TULSA – Mart Green showed none of the weariness one might expect of someone completing his first 100 days in a $70 million effort to save the embattled Oral Roberts University.“This is my 20th trip to Tulsa this year,” said the founder of Mardel Christian Book Store, who after Thanksgiving headed a family effort to resurrect a campus rocked by wrongful termination lawsuits, allegations of poor fund allocations and the resignation of former president Richard Roberts.
“I go home more excited every time. I am more excited by ORU today than I was when we made the gift.” His enthusiasm bubbled out as Green told a Tulsa Press Club Page One Luncheon audience that he now hoped to remain a part of ORU for a “long, long time.” But he holds to his initial objective to correct several perceived problems and then step back.
“I will be less and less visible as this goes forward,” said the board of trustees chair. They started by targeting goals the Green family outlined when it gave $8 million to the Tulsa university and proposed a conditional gift of $62 million more: replacing the existing board of regents with a board of trustees, separating the school from the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association, establishing longtime ORU administrator and staff leader Ralph ***in as interim president, and beginning the search for his replacement.That allowed them to begin their most important task, rebuilding trust and economic stability in Tulsa’s troubled religious school.
Green targeted “four Ds:” debt of about $55 million, deferred maintenance of $55 million or more, declining enrollment over the last five years, and overturning an operating deficit.
Under ***in’s leadership, ORU has started taking steps to overcome those handicaps, from launching a $10 million campus improvement package to earmarking $1.9 million for staff retention raises. The school also has engaged students, faculty and alumni in a “Renew the Vision” funding campaign, which Green sees as a way to gage support for their activities.
To this point 2,800 participants have donated $3.8 million. Green has targeted 20,000 volunteers.“That’s the phase we’re in now,” he said. “Are people going to vote to be involved in ORU?”Green foresees hiring a new president next summer from a candidate pool of 100 or more. ***in, who said he does not want the job, hopes to have all the lightning-rod issues settled well before then, including replacing staff infrastructure lost with the break from OREA and ownership of the Citiplex office buildings and KGEB Channel 53 television station.“There’s a lot of things we’ve got to do before we can bring a president in,” said Green. “We are a university. Wholesome, quality education is our ministry. That’s all we do.”
His better understanding of ORU’s quality schooling fuels some of his enthusiasm. Over the past 100 days Green said he has seen how ORU succeeds with its student outcomes, helping them become spiritually alive, intellectually alert, socially adept, physically disciplined and professionally competent. That realization, he said, vindicated their efforts. “I know a good apple when I see it,” he said of the student body.
With only a third of ORU’s 3,166 fall enrollment from Oklahoma, the rest originating from 49 states and 60 countries, Green said the campus injects a diversified environment to the Tulsa community, one he hopes to grow in a continuing bid to make the campus self-sustaining. That projected two- to three-year effort to attract more students and donors starts with alumni making statements of support by sending their own children there.“My own daughter will be coming to ORU next year,” said Green, who himself left college to start Mardel, and never graduated. “I called 17 students myself last week. I’m going to call 17 more this week.“This group of freshmen coming in, it’s going to be exciting to see them in four years, to see what God has done in their lives,” he said.
http://journalrecord.com/article.cfm?recid=88810
Mart Green, board chairman of Oral Roberts University, speaks at the Tulsa Press Club Monday about his first 100 days at Oral Roberts University and its progress under the new board governance. (Photo by Rip Stell)
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