President of Oral Roberts University
On January 28, 2009, the Board of Trustees of Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, elected Rutland as the 3rd President of the institution. Rutland's selection came about after he was recommended by the university's presidential search committee to the Board of Trustees. The committee had been formed following the resignation of the school's former president, evangelist and son of the institution's namesake, Richard Roberts, in 2007. Roberts' resignation came on the heels of a financial scandal and a wrongful termination lawsuit filed by several former faculty members of the university, as well as numerous claims of misuse of funds and impropriety directed against his wife, Lindsay Roberts. Rutland's election marks the first time in the history of Oral Roberts University that a person not a member of the Roberts family will hold the office of president.
Rutland was selected from a pool of more than 130 applicants to lead the university and he assumed the office of the President on July 1, 2009, taking the reins of the institution from Interim President Dr. Ralph Fagin, who was appointed to the position following the resignation of Richard Roberts in 2007. Although Oral Roberts was not personally involved with the selection process, Rutland is reportedly the only person he seriously considered to take over the presidency of the university. Rutland initially told ORU he was not interested in the position, and would not even submit a resume, but was eventually persuaded to accept the post by ORU board chairman Mart Green. According to an Associated Press report, Rutland will be making a yearly salary of $275,000. Rutland has stated that his main goals as president will be to expand the university's enrollment, as well as work to restore trust between the university and the public with a "level of transparency, authenticity, and being straightforward as possible." In keeping with his goals for the university, Rutland decided to take on the responsibility for preaching at nearly all of the school's chapel services himself. It has been reported that Rutland hopes to be able to increase enrollment from its current level at just over 3,000 to as much as 6,500
Read more about this topic: Mark Rutland
Famous quotes containing the words president of, president, oral, roberts and/or university:
“Our age is pre-eminently the age of sympathy, as the eighteenth century was the age of reason. Our ideal men and women are they, whose sympathies have had the widest culture, whose aims do not end with self, whose philanthropy, though centrifugal, reaches around the globe.”
—Frances E. Willard 1839–1898, U.S. president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union 1879-1891, author, activist. The Woman’s Magazine, pp. 137-40 (January 1887)
“Taft, laughing, “What troubles [brother] Charles is, he is afraid Roosevelt will get the credit of making me President and not himself.” To Charles: “I will agree not to minimize the part you played in making me President if you will agree not to minimize the part Roosevelt played.””
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“The Americans are violently oral.... That’s why in America the mother is all-important and the father has no position at all—isn’t respected in the least. Even the American passion for laxatives can be explained as an oral manifestation. They want to get rid of any unpleasantness taken in through the mouth.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“Politics is still the man’s game. The women are allowed to do the chores, the dirty work, and now and then—but only occasionally—one is present at some secret conference or other. But it’s not the rule. They can go out and get the vote, if they can and will; they can collect money, they can be grateful for being permitted to work. But that is all.”
—Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958)
“In the United States, it is now possible for a person eighteen years of age, female as well as male, to graduate from high school, college, or university without ever having cared for, or even held, a baby; without ever having comforted or assisted another human being who really needed help. . . . No society can long sustain itself unless its members have learned the sensitivities, motivations, and skills involved in assisting and caring for other human beings.”
—Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)