Kansas School Probes Use of Donated Money During Term of Current Brevard College President
It appears the money was used for operating expenses under former president Bradley Andrews, who is now at Brevard, Southwestern College's current president wrote in a letter apologizing to donors.
BREVARD — Southwestern College has launched an investigation into the apparent “misapplication” of more than $1.2 million in donated funds while the Kansas school was under the leadership of Bradley Andrews, the current president of Brevard College.
“Recently, I was informed that more than $1,230,000 in funds raised for the DeHaven (athletic) Center project were not deposited into a restricted account for use of the project,” Elizabeth Frombgen, Andrews’ successor as president of the small private college, wrote in a July 17 letter to donors announcing the investigation.
“My current belief is that the funds were used for payment of ordinary operating expenses during periods before I became the College's President.”
The letter said the investigation would be conducted by an independent law firm and concluded with Frombgen apologizing “on behalf of the College” and saying that the situation had left her “heartbroken.”
Andrews denied any wrongdoing, saying in an interview this week that all funds for the project were documented on his watch. He also said that he restored Southwestern’s financial health during his time as president of the school in Winfield, Kans., from 2015 to late 2021.
But less than a year after his departure, Frombgen cited “serious” financial conditions that required deep cuts in staffing and, later, the elimination of eight majors.
Also during Andrews tenure, the school was placed on a U.S. Department of Education list of schools subject to “heightened cash monitoring” because of concerns about “financial responsibility,” according to reports in the Cowley (Kans.) Courier Traveler newspaper.
The school was still on that list at the time of Andrews’ departure, according to a database updated by the department in March of 2022.
“They are in bad shape financially and if they survive they are going to be awfully g—d— lucky,” Richard Jantz, a major donor and the driving force behind the DeHaven project, said of the school.
Though Southwestern’s struggles have been years in the making, Jantz added, “Andrews was the one who took them into the toilet, in my opinion.”
Andrews provided a dramatically different narrative of his time at the school.
Because Jantz raised concerns about the use of DeHaven money shortly before Andrews’ departure, he said, he directed Southwestern’s chief financial officer “to identify where those funds were being invested and being held.”
“When I left Southwestern all the funds for the DeHaven Center were fully accounted for and available for use,” Andrews said. “I cannot speak to what has happened at the college since I left.”
Southwestern, like Brevard, has a small endowment that leaves it heavily dependent on the enrollment of tuition-paying students.
“When I arrived at Southwest in 2015, I was handed a budget that had a $4 million deficit due to enrollment issues,” Andrews said. “That year there was a record-low incoming class of 90 new students and historically low total enrollment of 465 students.”
In August 2022 — the start of the first school year after Andrews’ departure — the school said it had recruited 196 freshman and 47 transfer students and reported a total full-time enrollment of 579.
“When I left Southwestern, we were coming off an annual operating surplus in the most recent fiscal year,” Andrews said. “We had cash in the bank and we had recruited four of the five largest classes in college history.”
Heath Weldon, chair of the Brevard College Board of Trustees, said that news of the investigation had not diminished the group’s confidence in Andrews.
The search that led to his hiring, which Weldon led, “took several months to complete in order to allow a full vetting of the candidates,” he said. Since Andrews was hired, Weldon added, he “has not only met but exceeded our expectations.”
But Southwestern’s financial strains began to emerge soon after his departure.
In August of 2022, Frombgen said the school needed to implement cuts in staffing and benefits designed to save $2.4 million. And in November of that year, the school announced it would eliminate the eight majors and two minors.
“The college’s financial situation is serious and requires us to take urgent action,” Frombgen said, according to a Courier Traveler story she forwarded to NewsBeat.
The paper has described the DeHaven Center as a 16,000 square-foot indoor football training and practice facility. It is named after a close friend of Jantz’s from Southwestern, Bruce DeHaven, a longtime assistant coach in the National Football League, who died in 2016.
“Before he passed, I told him, ‘We’re going to build a new football complex and we’re going to name it after you,’ ” Jantz said.
He raised about $1.9 million for the project, an amount that included his personal donation of more than $1 million, said Jantz, who owns a crop insurance agency in Lawrence, Kans. He has given more than $4 million to the school in recent years, he said, including funds for a major renovation of the school’s football stadium, which now bears his name.
He frequently butted heads with Andrews over the DeHaven project, he said, including about its design. Jantz wanted a “simple . . . rectangular building” that he said could have been built for about $2 million. Andrews, who declined to comment on his interactions with Jantz, proposed a far more elaborate and expensive facility, Jantz said.
Jantz also repeatedly asked about the fate of the money he had raised and was never satisfied with the school’s explanations, neither during nor after Andrews’ presidency. That’s why, he said, he hired a lawyer earlier this year to inquire about the fate of funds — an action that he said led Frombgen to launch the investigation.
Otherwise, he said, “she never would have hired an attorney to go after it.”
Frombgen did not respond to a follow-up email seeking more details on the scope of the investigation or actions from the school it might prompt.
But Jantz said the announcement of the investigation already carries consequences.
Frombgen, in a message to donors following up her July letter, wrote that the college has begun to “replenish the restricted DeHaven Center Account to make the project fund whole and we have recommitted to fundraising to complete the project.”
Jantz doesn’t see how that can happen, he said, because donors “have lost all respect for the college.”
Andrews recently announced the public phase of a capital campaign to build a new $12-million student center at Brevard as part of a long-term strategy to boost enrollment.
Told of this initiative, Jantz advised prospective donors here to keep a close eye on any money they give.
“Make sure it goes into the fund where it belongs and he (Andrews) can’t touch it,” Jantz said.
Email: brevardnewsbeat@gmail.com