Nearly a year after former President Lu Hardin resigned in controversy; the University of Central Arkansas says it's moving forward.
Introducing the new president of the university to faculty and staff Friday in Conway.
Before starting a new chapter, the UCA board of trustees publicly ended the last one.
"I would personally like to apologize for the pain, the embarrassment that you've had to suffer through over these last ten months," Rush Harding III said.
With that, the UCA community and board of trustee Rush Harding III, looking forward welcoming their new president.
"I welcome you to strong, transparent leadership from this man here Allen Meadors," Harding said Friday afternoon.
Meadors, a 1969 UCA alum, comes from the University of North Carolina-Pembroke. He wasted no time reinforcing the need for transparency.
"Every decision we make, will be made on honesty and on what we think is the best interest of the university and our students," Meadors said.
The new university president says he likes what he sees on the outside academically from the 13,000 student campus but there's work to do on the inside.
"I think we've got to work on getting our finances worked out well so we're healthy financially. As best I understand, we're not in bad shape but I like to be healthy," Meadors says.
He says letting people know what is going, good and bad, something UCA has struggled at recently, is his top priority.
"If we make a mistake, we'll say we made a mistake," Meadors says.
Meadors says that transparency will renew people's faith in the leadership of the state's second largest public university.
