A top official at the University of the District of Columbia mishandled a $3.6 million job-training grant, allowed underlings to pay themselves for training programs with no students and sat on millions in federal funds until they had to be given back, investigators have been told.
As provost of the university, Wilhemina Reuben-Cooke has nearly unlimited authority over millions of dollars in academic programs and grants. She has become the focal point of federal and local investigations into mismanagement at the 5,700-student college, sources told The Examiner.
Reuben-Cooke did not respond to requests for comment.
The university Senate, an elected advisory body, already called for her firing in a Sept. 27 letter to Mayor Adrian Fenty. The letter lays out general allegations of cronyism and misappropriation. But The Examiner has learned that the inspectors general of the city and the U.S. Department of Education are also looking into the matter.
According to sources, authorities have been told that Reuben-Cooke diverted the $3.6 million “work force development” funds and spent most of it on lavish receptions and on “entertainment.” She also tried to steer at least $500,000 in a no-bid contract to a friend, sources said. Separately, a teacher-training grant required the university to train at least 75 teachers over three years. Only 33 completed the training, and no one enrolled in its last year. Despite the poor showing and strict restrictions on salaries for the staff that administered the grant, Reuben-Cooke’s aides paid themselves more than $113,000 on top of their regular salaries, sources said.
Earlier this year, the university had to return $1.6 million to the federal government after Reuben-Cooke failed to spend the appropriated money, sources said. Former university President William Pollard, who gave Reuben-Cooke the provost job, was fired by the university trustees in June. Sources say Pollard asked an aide to investigate allegations of abuse in the teacher-training grant last year, but pulled the plug after the aide told him about the salaries Reuben-Cooke’s staffers were paying themselves.
The university was chartered in 1974 to give poor and working-class D.C. residents an affordable but quality education. It’s the city’s only public college but has been hobbled by mismanagement for decades. On Monday, The Examiner reported the university would have to return up to $18 million in unspent funds — at the same time the university is raising tuition more than 40 percent over two years.
Examiner columnist Jonetta Rose Barras contributed to this report.
