SMU’s 21-Member Board of Governors Is Abolished

The trustees of Southern Methodist University voted Friday to abolish the board of governors and replace it with an interim executive committee in an effort to guard against further scandal.

The board of governors, itself, lost credibility in the aftermath of the NCAA’s sanctions against the school for illegal payment to athletes. Gov. Bill Clements, who resigned as chairman of the board of governors just before becoming governor of Texas in January, said that he and several other board members had known of the payments since 1984 and had decided to continue them.

The trustees abolished the 21-member board and replaced it with an interim executive committee of 12 members--selected from among the original board members. The interim committee will be replaced later this year by a permanent executive committee that will report directly to the trustees.

“We felt that basically, due to some actions and statements that had taken place, (the board of governors) had probably lost its credibility,” Dr. Leighton Farrell, chairman of SMU’s committee on governance and a United Methodist pastor, said.

But even as the trustees were seeking to restore respectability to the university, more negative publicity surfaced in the form of reports that SMU had hired a private detective to look into an anonymous tip that boosters provided not only money for recruits, but also paid young women at the school to provide sexual favors to high school players being recruited by SMU.

Leon Bennett, the school’s vice president for legal affairs, confirmed that a detective had been hired to conduct an internal investigation. The detective also has been asked to check out allegations that football players had other students take tests for them.

Asked if he thought the tip regarding sexual favors had any credibility, Bennett said: “Who knows? I just think the university is in such a vulnerable position at this point that we can’t just afford to ignore those kinds of allegations that have been reported.”

SMU has been vulnerable to criticism since Feb. 25, when the NCAA suspended football at SMU in 1987 and placed it on probation until 1990 because of a booster slush fund that paid $61,000 to 13 players even after the school had been put on its sixth probation in August of 1985.

Clements’ statements that several members of the board of governors were aware of the payments made matters worse. The interim committee announced Friday is just one of several steps in a total restructuring plan.

William Hutchison, most recently chairman of the board of governors, declined membership on the interim committee. But, Hutchison said, “I believe that this will ensure that SMU will never have to go through the agonies of recent months again.”

The board of governors had served as an executive committee of the 71-member board of trustees, which runs the university.

“The athletic part of it is a tiny piece of the university, and that’s one of the obvious tragedies,” said Dallas oilman Ray L. Hunt, chairman of the new interim committee and a member of the board of governors. “In effect, a relatively minor part of the university has generated a grossly disproportionate amount of negative publicity,” he said.

The trustees will meet May 8 to consider a permanent restructuring plan, which is expected to include a permanent executive committee of 12 voting members, with the presidents of the student body and alumni association serving as nonvoting members.

Farrell said that the plan also would reduce the number of trustees from 71 to 41, including 36 elected members, SMU’s provost and the presidents of the university, faculty senate, student body and alumni association.

Student body president Trevor Pearlman said: “A few months ago I was really skeptical about the leadership. The good ol’ network I think that has existed in the past has been dealt with.”

Also Friday, the trustees heard reports from the presidential search committee on its search for a permanent university president; the committee on intercollegiate athletics on its study of the role of sports in the university, and the bishops’ committee, which is investigating various allegations of wrongdoing in the football program.

Another panel studying the possibility of filing a lawsuit against those responsible for improper payments to athletes met but did not report to the board.