TSU regents suspend Slade

Texas Southern University President Priscilla Slade is out of office — at least temporarily — after the school's regents held a nearly 10-hour meeting yesterday on her questionable use of university money.

Slade has been under fire since early February for her spendy ways, including $138,159 on landscaping and $85,000 furnishing her Memorial Park-area home (Slade did return the landscaping money after being questioned about it; she said it was an accident that the job was billed to the university). It later came out that Slade had used three university-issued credit cards to charge more than $94,000 worth of meals, hotel rooms, event tickets and other expendes last year, but her contract limits her to $50,000 a year for such expenditures.

The Chronicle reported that the regents placed Slade on paid leave, but KPRC and KHOU said it was a voluntary leave of absence — we suppose it might be one of those situations where she chose to take leave just as the regents chose to make her take it.

While Slade is out of office, a committee of TSU officials will run the university. The regents will meet again in May.