When faculty, staff and students at South Carolina State University returned this month from their winter break, it did not take long for another shoe to drop in the ongoing saga of woes confronting South Carolina’s only public historically Black college.
The U.S. Attorney for South Carolina announced that former SCSU chairman Jonathan Pinson, who resigned from the university board during the holiday break, had been indicted on criminal charges. Pinson, an SCSU alumnus who has become a well-connected Columbia, S.C., businessman, was charged in connection with a kickback scheme in which he would get paid money and merchandise for his efforts to influence the university board to purchase land from a Florida businessman.
On the same day, late last week, the U.S. Attorney said former SCSU chief of police, Michael Bartley, pleaded guilty to charges he conspired with another unidentified SCSU employee to arrange the university’s purchase of a tract of land in exchange for a cash kickback and an all-terrain vehicle. The guilty plea means Bartley faces a maximum penalty of $250,000 and imprisonment for five years, the U.S. Attorney said.
Bartley was among eight university employees terminated by former SCSU President George Cooper in 2010, a move that sparked Cooper to hire an outside attorney to conduct an internal investigation of university business practices. Others included a university vice president, university attorney, athletic department official and student affairs official.
Today, nearly two years after that action, Cooper’s firing and rehiring in 2011, his resignation in April 2012, and two interim presidents later, the university is still awaiting the next move by the U.S. Attorney and moves by a few state lawmakers unhappy with the university.
Meanwhile, SCSU is scrambling to clean up its financial back shop operations on the heels of disclosure that the strength of its financial condition has been exaggerated for years. Millions of dollars in revenue, including federal funds, had been incorrectly classified, according to a report by the university’s new vice president of finance. In reality, the school has been running an operating deficit, he found.
“We’ve got to get this presidency right this time,” said Walter Tobin, the veteran retired education administrator who is chairman of the SCSU board and is leading the search for a new president. “I admit I’m worried,” said Tobin, a 1964 grad of SCSU who has seen the university churn nearly 10 presidents (permanent and acting) in the past decade.
