Ladner Suspended During AU Audit

Claudio Grossman, dean of AU's Washington College of Law, also declined to comment on the developments.

"We have full confidence that Dr. Kerwin and the experienced and talented cabinet and senior management in place at American University will carry out their duties in as excellent a manner as they always have," Bains said in the statement.

Some students reached by telephone last night said they would reserve judgment until more information surfaces.

"We're really not going to comment at this time. No one in the student government is," said Joe Vidulich, secretary of the AU student government.

Referring to Ladner, Vidulich added: "We're not going to jump to any conclusions. He's done a lot of good for this university over the past few years."

Vidulich said Ladner, who became university president in 1994, helped to improve the school's prestige and its rankings in a recent U.S. News and World Report survey of colleges and universities. He also said Ladner helped guide the opening this summer of an arts center on the school's upper Northwest Washington campus.

Megan Slack, editor in chief of the campus newspaper, the Eagle, said that word of the probe this month seemed to have little effect among students and professors who were around campus this summer. The university has about 11,000 students, evenly split between undergraduates and professional and graduate students.

"It's not a shocking reaction from anyone," Slack said. "He's helping the school, and I think those things are positive. But there has always been this underlying feeling [that] he makes a lot of money, and I think that makes most people skeptical."

Ladner, who had been an administrator of a national association of university professors and a college professor in North Carolina, took the reins at AU at a time when the school had experienced a stretch of instability, with five leaders in less than five years. Most notoriously, Richard E. Berendzen had resigned as president in April 1990 and later admitted to placing obscene calls from his office.

Ladner was credited with improving AU's academic standards and fundraising. According to Internal Revenue Service records, his base salary was $633,000 for 2003-04. The university also provided him with campus housing.

His biography on the university Web site said his "academic diplomacy" initiatives helped nurture understanding and trust between nations "when political strategies have stalled or failed" and mentioned North Korea, Cuba, Iraq and Iran, among other countries.

Mary Crom, a resident adviser in an AU dormitory, said last night that she remained confident that Ladner's suspension will have little effect on the value of her degree or the overall operations of the school.

"He doesn't have a huge hand in the day-to-day operations," she said. "The professors are still here. . . . Freshman week is still going on. We're still going to have convocation on Friday."

Staff writers Valerie Strauss and Susan Kinzie contributed to this report.