Dive Brief:
- In a 60-page report, Massachusetts Inspector General Glenn Cunha accused former Westfield State University president Evan Dobelle of extravagant and wasteful spending on personal vacations and meals at the expense of the university and its foundation.
- Among Dobelle’s vacations were 10 trips to San Francisco — equaling nearly six months of his six years at Westfield — to spend time at a private, all-male social club.
- The bills on five school credit cards totaled more than $450,000 and included hotel stays, restaurant meals, air fare, limousines, concert tickets, 110 out-of-state trips, and nine international trips, to Cuba, Spain, Italy, Austria, England, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Thailand, and China.
Dive Insight:
The report is the most extensive account of the Dobelle case yet, and it raises the question of how this type of spending could have gone unchecked for so long. Five months into the Inspector General’s Office review of Dobelle’s spending, on Nov. 10, he resigned, the Republican reported. Dobelle claimed the trips were to promote Westfield State and its international exchange program outside of Massachusetts. Cunha said in his report that Dobelle “repeatedly made false or misleading verbal and written statements” to school officials, such as when he claimed his overseas trips helped to draw 123 international students to Westfield for the 2013-2014 school year, good for $1.2 million in revenues. But Cunha reported that most of those students were Massachusetts residents who paid the in-state tuition rate.