Senator calls governor's remarks unfounded

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- A state senator is taking issue with Gov. Frank Keating's oft-repeated story about a Fortune 500 company executive criticizing the quality of Oklahoma's college graduates.

Tuesday, February 29th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- A state senator is taking issue with Gov. Frank Keating's oft-repeated story about a Fortune 500 company executive criticizing the quality of Oklahoma's college graduates.

In separate radio interviews in Tulsa last month, Keating said the "CEO of a Fortune 500 company" told him that eight of 10 Oklahoma college graduates could not pass the company's employment test. The governor has repeated the story several times.

On Monday, state Sen. Kevin Easley, D-Broken Arrow, produced a letter from Southwestern Oklahoma State University President Joe Anna Hibler that rebuts Keating's story. The letter was sent to Gene Nelson of Duncan, a member of the Board of Regents of Oklahoma Colleges.

Keating did not identify the CEO or the company used to illustrate his story, although Hibler said it was a reference to Imation, which operates a plant in Weatherford. Keating recently toured the plant.

Hibler said that during the tour, a low-level local plant manager made the statement Keating quoted. The statement was not made about the graduates of all Oklahoma colleges and universities, as Keating stated, but was limited to Southwestern State University, Hibler's letter said. She also said the statement was about applicants for one specialized technical position, not job applicants in general, as Keating implied. She said the plant manager in Weatherford volunteered to write a letter to Keating explaining the situation.

"I can't understand why the governor would go out of his way to invent a story that unjustly criticizes state colleges and the graduates they produce," Easley said. "It hurts our economic development efforts and destroys his credibility."

He said Keating knows his story is false but refuses to retract it. "He's ignored the facts and created the false perception that Oklahoma college graduates are incompetent," Easley said.

Keating press secretary John Cox accused Easley of "political grandstanding." His response to Easley's allegations avoided using "Fortune 500" or "CEO," substituting, instead, "a western Oklahoma company" and "management."

"Governor Keating was told by management of a western Oklahoma business that eight out of 10 graduates from a specific Oklahoma college failed to pass that company's entrance exam," Cox said. "The governor forwarded that information to state higher education officials and asked them to get to the bottom of it.

"As a result, higher ed officials found that the company's entrance exam stood room for improvement," Cox said. Hibler said that the first time Imation gave the test, only 6 per cent of the applicants passed, including Southwestern and non-Southwestern applicants. The university's applicants for the maintenance technician job included music majors, recreational leadership majors and computer science majors, she said.

"When these applicants were eliminated, the pass rate for Southwestern graduates improved to 80 per cent," she said. She said the test clearly stated it was an auto mechanic exam, which she said a person normally would be trained for in a vocational-technical program. She also said many of the questions on the test were outdated.