Audit reveals study-abroad woes at ASU

Disorganization prompts look for full-time director

JONESBORO -- The Arkansas State University System will hire a new study-abroad director after an internal audit revealed overseas trips were unorganized, there were no contracts for some instructors abroad, and students often paid for trips to a PayPal account.

The audit was given to the ASU board of trustees after Jo LunBeck, assistant vice president for administration at ASU, presented it to ASU System President Charles Welch on Monday.

Deidra Hudson, the wife of ASU-Jonesboro Chancellor Tim Hudson, resigned her part-time position as the study-abroad director earlier this month but will remain as the director until summer study-abroad programs are concluded, Welch said.

"Hopefully, we can get this disorganization resolved by hiring a full-time person," Welch said.

The president said he will turn the internal audit's findings over to the Arkansas Legislative Audit, which is a routine procedure.

LunBeck wrote that the ASU System office of internal audit received a telephone call March 15 about concerns involving two ASU study-abroad trips to Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Sweden and Spain as well as "the overall management of study abroad."

The audit investigated the program's operations between July 1, 2013, and April 30, 2016.

Deidra Hudson was hired as the program's part-time director May 1, 2013, and earned $28.36 an hour. According to the ASU human resources office, Hudson worked 4,367 hours as the director during the period the audit investigated.

Welch said Hudson was hired because she had earned a doctorate in educational leadership and wrote her Ph.D. dissertation on study-abroad programs.

Tim Hudson advocated last fall that the position be made full time and paid a yearly salary of $50,000, an increase of $12,858 over what was budgeted for the job.

ASU Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Len Frey met with Tim Hudson on Feb. 16 after Hudson's wife applied for the full-time position as director to discuss the university's policy that prohibited Hudson from hiring his wife because he is in charge of the department for which she was applying.

Welch told Tim Hudson later that day that the university could not hire Deidra Hudson as a full-time employee, but she could remain employed as an "extra help position."

Tim Hudson then asked ASU Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Research Lynita Cooksey on Feb. 17 to cancel the posting for a full-time director of the study-abroad program. Fourteen people had applied for the job, the audit reported.

Welch said Wednesday that Tim Hudson was "still in good standing" with the university.

"There were some mistakes made," Welch said. "Hindsight is 20-20. All we can do now is to make sure it doesn't happen again."

The audit noted that the instructor for the university's Nordic study-abroad trip had no contract with ASU-Jonesboro. If the university did enter into a contract with Marko Kokeakoski, an instructor with Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences in Helsinki, it would violate state law because of the way the university would pay him.

The audit also found that Multisense, a third-party vendor in Lanjaron, Spain, has worked with ASU but has no written agreement with the university.

The audit also questioned the use of PayPal, an online site that accepts and transfers payments for goods and services.

On March 14, an assistant to Cooksey asked Deidra Hudson why the practice was used.

"Can you help me, please," the assistant wrote in an email to Deidra Hudson. "Is this something being handled out of Study Abroad? If so, why are students paying on a pay pal account and not through the University Finance account as other trips. ..."

Deidra Hudson responded: "Ok. We are working on this. Should have been set up through ASTATE account. Will talk to professor and see where we are and get back to you."

Later on March 14, Kokeakoski admitted in an email to Deidra Hudson that he set up his own PayPal account so students could pay for the Nordic study-abroad trips.

According to the audit, 10 ASU students made PayPal payments to Kokeakoski for the Nordic study trip totaling $19,100.

"The reason why I asked students to either use my PayPal (which is very secure and it has insurance against fraud) or send the check to my bank ... was that there are around 30 different entities that I need to pay, and many of them do not accept credit card payment ... some things like public travel passes, etc., will be paid in cash when I pick them up."

Deidra Hudson later sent an email to Cooksey's assistant saying they were working on correcting the matter.

"It seems a situation of a faculty member [Kokeakoski] taking lots of ownership with out pursuing the proper channels," she wrote. "He is aware to be more communicative with his ideas and aware of appropriate protocol."

Welch said Wednesday that no money was lost through the PayPal account.

"It's not the way we would normally do business," he said. "All the money has been recovered. There is no missing money."

In a July 12 letter to Deidra Hudson, Cooksey thanked her for her work as the part-time director, saying she created a "new vision" for the university's study-abroad program.

"Through your leadership, more students than at any other time in the university's history are engaging in life-changing international experiences," Cooksey wrote.

"Your commitment to making study abroad at A-State one of the university's greatest assets for investing in the personal and professional growth of our students has now reached beyond what can be managed through a part-time leadership program."

Welch said he hopes to hire a full-time study-abroad program director by the fall semester.

State Desk on 07/28/2016

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