In Brief

John W. Swails, one of three faculty members who sued Oral Roberts University for wrongful termination, was reinstated last Thursday, Tom Bartlett reports on The Chronicle’s News Blog. Barlett also notes that I.V. Hilliard, a co-founder of a church in Texas, and Benny Hinn, a televangelist, resigned from ORU’s Board of Regents last week. Read more.
The U.S. Department of Labor has ordered Florida A&M University to reimburse 352 employees who were underpaid by a total of $273,000 because the university failed to accurately tally their overtime work, Lawrence Biemiller writes elsewhere on the News Blog. Read more.
Biemiller also reports that Texas Southern University’s governing board has unanimously picked John Rudley, interim president of the University of Houston, as the only finalist for the job of TSU president.
Meanwhile, on Chronicle Careers, Dennis M. Barden, senior vice president and director of the higher-education practice at the executive-search firm Witt/Kieffer, explains that while there’s no way for hirers to ensure that they’re getting reliable information from references, there are ways to reduce the risk of getting burned. Read more.