While some students are struggling to pay their tuition bills and textbook fees, one University of Houston professor is living large — allegedly on the university's dole.
As KHOU details, Dr. Arthur Weglein's expense reports include lavish ticket items "from $50 filets to five-star accommodations to first-class air fare."
Weglein, a physics professor who runs the academic and petroleum industry consortium, Mission-Oriented Seismic Research Program, told KHOU, "I do things that are appropriate and serve this university."
But the news reporters disagree: Fancy dinners at Fogo de Chão? ("It's a churrascaria, it's not a steak house," retorted Weglein.)
More than $17,000 in Cullen Family Foundation dollars spent on alcohol over the past eight years?
Mont Blanc pens for "computation by hand written derivations" that have cost the university $8,000?
UH provost Dr. John Antel assured KHOU that the university has issued an ongoing investigation about Weglein's excessive spending.
"I'm not living high on the hog. Our funds do not come from tuition. They do not come from federal or state funds," said Weglein, who earns a salary of $198,954 per year.
He said the majority of the funds allegedly come from the private sector, and specifically from the big oil companies that fund the research program.
Watch KHOU's full report below:
