Back from the brink

Charity | Oral Roberts University has undergone a financial and leadership transformation as dramatic as any healing ever claimed by its founder | Rusty Leonard & Warren Smith

Associated Press

In the last three months, Tulsa-based Oral Roberts University (ORU) has undergone a financial and leadership transformation as dramatic as any healing ever claimed by its founder.

Triggered by a financial crisis, the reformation of the university has been both broad and rapid. Until recently, the university's finances were largely secret and intertwined with those of the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association (OREA). Now, motivated by the promise of a $70 million donation, the university's financial affairs are separate from those of the OREA and open to donor inspection. The school wants to join the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, a well-known Christian ministry accountability group.

ORU also has created a completely new (and much smaller) board of trustees than it had, rewritten its corporate by-laws, appointed an interim president, formed a search committee for a new president, and settled the lawsuit with one of the three whistle-blowing faculty members—even restoring him to his former position. On Jan. 31 the new board announced it had met the conditions to receive the $70 million gift from Mart Green and his family, founders of the Hobby Lobby retail chain.