Today - financial aid pot runs dry. And employee fringe benefits run wild. Please read Fact Checker:
Chronicle, you deserve another spanking.
Fact Checker had hoped the recent comprehensive essay offering evaluation and criticism of the paper would have shaken some boobs. (Not a sexual reference, the boobs are the editors).
Alas, some more whacks are due after reading the lead story on Friday:
The Academic Council, which is the faculty senate, got an update on university finances. It was ill-timed, with administrators forced to hold back information in order to groom the ego of the Trustees and present details to them first at their October 2-3 meeting. Even so, the Provost made some solid news talking about the deep hole that financial aid is in, and the Executive Vice President added to the swirl of confusion around him by putting out some new numbers on supposed budget savings.
And what did the paper lead with? Well two professors appeared at the same meeting and put forth one of the most imaginative suggestions for a new Ph.D. program that Fact Finder has ever encountered: study the environment and public policy at the same time and meld them into a five year degree! I would have thought that a large part of studying the environment all along involved public policy, and I would have thought that an important segment of public policy studies involved the environment. But that's only my guess.
This Ph.D. proposal, which now starts on an approval process, will take in four -- FOUR -- students a year if and when it gets going. What news judgment is shown when this is the lead of the day's issue (and the lead of Academic Council story) over the crisis in student aid that affects thousands.
Fact Finder was lazy this weekend, and did not try to find out all that Provost Lange said, for the Chronicle leaves us hanging. Without ever revealing how much is being spent on financial aid, we are told the money is exhausted -- including the special appropriation that the Trustees robbed out of the principal of the endowment, an amount never specified either.
I guess more undergraduates needed financial aid this year, and each package had to be larger? Wouldn't it be nice to find out how many prospective freshmen sought financial aid on their applications, how many people who were admitted required financial aid, and how many who actually showed up are being helped? That's for the freshmen, we'd need the same information for upperclassmen.
Wouldn't it be nice to update the pesky statistic revealed last summer that 70 percent of Duke's Caucasian students are from households earning more than $100,000 a year -- suggesting to Fact Finder that Duke is cherry-picking the richest families.
When Lange, according to the Chronicle, said that finding the money in the future may become more difficult, what precisely did he mean? Did he or did not he couple this with a ringing affirmative commitment that undergraduate financial aid is the highest institutional priority?
No matter what questions you conjure up, the paper owed its readers more than three brief sentences, a total of 54 words.
As for EVP Trask, he said the 295 employees who took early retirement will save the University as much as $20 million in this fiscal year. Whoa, T3!! (That's his e-mail and nickname)
1) the retirements did not take effect at the very start of the fiscal year, but they still saved as much as $20 milion? Does this mean annualized savings could approach $25 million? From these 295 people??? In other words, more than $80,000 a head?
2) Leave that aside, and go back to the $20 million. We know that at least 47 of these people have had to be replaced, albeit at lower wage scale in some cases. How is this factored into the savings?
We know that all 295 are getting pensions -- which is to say they are still getting Duke money, albeit from a different pocket. How is that factored into your $20 million claim of savings?
We now know too that because of this unexpected drain on the pension fund -- and massive investment losses -- Duke will have to appropriate annually far more money to keep "funded," that is to say to maintain the required actuarial reserve. How is this factored in?
3) Now we also know that a large percentage of the 295 were food service workers, janitors, housekeepers and groundskeepers -- people getting paid the least. We also know that all of the 295 were paid weekly -- which is to say their earnings were calculated by the hour -- and none of them on a high enough rung to merit monthly pay.
So, T3, explain to me precisely how you got to $20 million in savings? Come on, come on.
Fact Checker conclusion: At least the new retirement incentive program is targeted -- with the university first identifying expendable people and then asking them if they want to accelerate their retirement. Is this tacit admission that the first incentives -- available to anyone old enough with enough years on the job -- were a mistake, letting people in vital positions go with higher pensions collected earlier in their lives, even if they had to be replaced? It certainly seems so to Fact Checker! But do not expect anyone in the Allen Building to admit error.
-0-
Now, since the Chronicle's website and its beta version are so crapped out day after day, I am reproducing below Friday's essay (with appropriate update) for people who could not get access. I note also that the beta version of the website buries public comments (and one source says they may not be allowed at all). Is the Chronicle giving up this franchise or just trying to silence its pests? It seems to me far better to simply ignore a clearly identified essay, than to prevent its being posted.
----
Fringe Benefits
A mole in the Brodhead Administration -- concerned about the sluggish and secretive response to the fiscal crisis -- has provided Fact Checker with substantial information, including a confidential memo warning that the cost of Duke's fringe benefits is spiraling out of control.
This raises the specter of large-scale cuts in the spectrum of lavish benefits that faculty and employees enjoy -- most notably medical insurance. The benefits package was recently cited by the Chronicle of Higher Education in naming Duke one of the best colleges to work for.
The memo also discusses layoffs on a scale so significant that the rate Duke is charged by the state of North Carolina for participation in its unemployment insurance program (often called the experience rating) may leap, meaning an unforeseen expense may well hit the annual budget for many years. Up until now, administrators have dodged layoff questions, hoping furloughs would not be necessary and giving no hint of the magnitude that apparently is under discussion.
The memo says the outlook for the cost of fringe benefits continues to accelerate -- with numbers calculated just a few months old already outdated. Moreover, the projections show continuing year-to-year bumps consuming a bigger percentage of the budget at a time when there is competition for every precious dollar.
Officials have been holding meetings, which will continue in October, to consider the narrowing options.
Among other reasons given in the memo for the developing crunch:
A) the cost of medical care is rising.
B) on top of that, Duke's faculty, employees, their dependents and even students are making greater use of medical care -- more doctors visits, more tests, more procedures, more prescriptions per capita.
In addition to people currently working, Duke gives its retirees and their dependents continuing health insurance, very rare these days.
A prescription plan is included, even rarer. To show the dimensions of this, when Medicare started its first drug benefit two years ago, Duke calculated the federal government would be assuming a portion of Duke's cost valued at $100 million over ten years. $100 million. Just a portion of the cost.
Duke allows all people in its medical plans to get prescription drugs locally. Most plans require long-term medications to be generic, purchased from less costly mail-order pharmacies. Duke estimates this one change would save millions of dollars.
Another indication of the generous medical benefits was evident when employees were briefed ten days ago on a second round of incentives for early retirement. There was criticism, led by Executive Vice President Trask, when someone mentioned a plan circulating in Washington to tax medical benefits as income. Since the tax would only apply to the most generous medical plans, Trask's burst of mumbles established that Duke's plan is top tier.
It's not known if Duke has a separate executive-level medical plan as many corporations do -- granting reimbursement for every aspirin and Band-Aid.
So far in the financial crisis, Duke has only tinkered with its medical plan: minor increases in premiums and co-pays.
In retrospect, the answer to a question at the employee briefing seems ominous. An official said the framework of the medical plan is safe. For this year.
C) Because of massive losses through investment of its pension fund reserves, Duke faces the prospect of having to make bigger annual contributions in order to stay afloat ("funded") as required by federal law. There are not only investment losses to contend with; hundreds of people are tapping the pension fund unexpectedly through incentive programs, getting larger retirement checks, earlier in their lives.
Fact Checker has been warning about the pension crunch for months; one of the highest officials in the administration has denied twice that there is any problem. To see the denials contradicted by a direct and clear memo contemporaneously circulating in Allen Building is disheartening.
This memo establishes a great credibility gulf and yes, Fact Checker has all this in writing.
The list of fringes goes on and on. Faculty as well as all staff enjoy extra grants on top of their regular salary to help pay for their children's college education at any school they choose. The Children's Tuition Grant Program has been trimmed twice in recent decades, but anyone hired prior to 1975 remains in the top tier, eligible for an extra $37,486 per year for four years for every child. Duke's newest employees get this benefit after two years of service -- but unlike the open ended payments for earlier hires, the rate per academic year is lower and there is a cap of $225,216 for the entire family. If both parents work at Duke, the cap can be doubled.
Everyone gets this: from the President to the groundskeeper and food service worker.
There is nothing comparable outside academia.
Faculty and top staff also have access to a subsidized country club (family membership: $790 per year) with complete facilities tucked into Duke Forest near the Washington Duke Inn. There are three swimming pools, including an outdoor lap pool heated in the fall.
There is more Dukies.
The Chronicle did not cover, as one of its four university news and feature stories in its Wednesday edition, Dean George McLendon's annual report to the Arts and Sciences Council. He revealed the core budget for Arts and Sciences is $300 million -- with half of that exempt from any cuts because it is student financial aid. McLendon said out of the remaining $150 million, another $12 million must be cut this year, with more slices taken out in future years. That's a tough assignment.
McLendon also commented on faculty hiring. After a surge and splurge in the past few years, he said routine replacement of professors will not occur. Rather he said Duke will be looking for special opportunities to hire in a market where there is less competition for stars.
McLendon said the Arts and Sciences faculty has increased by about 50 per year during his five years, the university-wide number is greater. Fact Checker discovered the actual count: 2477 regular faculty members five years ago, 2730 at the end of the 2008 fiscal year on June 30, 2008, and probably about 2800 today. That's growth that cannot be sustained.
McLendon challenged the faculty: "What old habits and approaches are we willing to give up?" He did not mention teaching loads, where Duke is dramatically under its peers, nor costly sabbaticals, or hint at what he has in mind.
McLendon's asking the question about faculty give-backs was brave. An old-line professor recruited from Princeton five years ago, McLendon had been viewed as an unlikely candidate to carry the torch for ending traditional perks that lard the faculty payroll.
Lastly McLendon said non-regular faculty -- adjuncts, professors of the practice -- will be relied on more and more. He said it is a trade-off to have such people teaching, but he said in many cases it is "unambiguously" a positive development. Translation: cheaper.
The supplementary faculty members typically do not get tenure or sabbaticals -- but there have been moves at Duke before the money meltdown to accord the near-faculty some degree of the Shibboleths of the ivory tower.
Upcoming in the days ahead: a flood of financial news. Translation: bloodbath.
With the trustees meeting October 2-3, all the results for the last fiscal year, ending June 30, 2009, should be publicly available. Fact Checker expects Duke to have lost 37 percent of its endowment in that period, with additional wipe-out since July 1 in this fiscal year. If my estimate holds, this would be the most severe of any college or university I know of.
The percentage loss applies not only to endowment, but to billions in other assets: pension plan, Health System reserves, and apparently money carried on the books as "funds functioning as endowment."
In dollar terms, The Fact Checker's overall estimate is $3.75 billion.
Chronicle -- you have not given one headline ever -- ever -- to the percentage or value of our losses in endowment and other assets. If someone donated $3.75 billion, I trust you would break out the big type. Wake the hell up.
The Trustee meeting will be the first plenary session presided over by the new chair, Daniel Blue. He has pledged "transparency," and it will be interesting to see what steps he takes, if any, to fulfill his pledge.
For example, will he resume briefings for the news media after Trustee meetings -- a vital source of information cut off by Bob "Wachovia" Steel except where he thought there was news that shined upon him.
The careful reader of Fact Checker will recall Steel's comments after the board meeting last December -- the first meeting after he imposed the blackout. Steel contended that Duke is not affected by the financial meltdown like other schools.
Read this and weep: "The good news is that Duke has been very prudently and conservatively managed from a financial perspective for quite awhile."
Fact Check!!!! 37 percent!!!!
Much of the financial trouble at Duke stems from aggressive use of private equity and hedge funds, and other fancy pants financial twists like derivatives. Far more aggressive than other schools, Fact Checker is preparing a report on this, probably for next semester.
And the careful reader will also recall President Brodhead's standing at Steel's side, smiling from his own assurance that our endowment is "secure" and "stable."
Poor Brodhead, he went on to list five alumni Trustees guiding our investments. Let's look at the list and the Fact Checker update since December:
Steel. Last job was chair of Wachovia. Kaboom!!! Now out of work.
Rick Wagoner. Last job was chair of GM. Kaboom!!! Now out of work.
Alan Schwartz, former chair of Bear, Sterns, the first Wall Street firm to collapse. Kaboom!! Out of work though recently he emerged somewhere.
John Mack, chair of Morgan Stanley, still in office but his replacement has just been selected.
Xiqing Gao, a top official of the Chinese government in Beijing, still in power.
Thank you for reading Fact Checker. The fan is whirling. Let's see what hits the blades.
9/28/2009
9/25/2009
9/25/2009 Fringe Benefits
Fact Checker!!!
A mole in the Brodhead Administration -- concerned about the sluggish and secretive response to the fiscal crisis -- has provided Fact Checker with substantial information, including a confidential memo warning that the cost of Duke's fringe benefits is spiraling out of control.
This raises the specter of large-scale cuts in the spectrum of lavish benefits that faculty and employees enjoy -- most notably medical insurance. The benefits package was recently cited by the Chronicle of Higher Education in naming Duke one of the best colleges to work for.
The memo also discusses layoffs on a scale so significant that the rate Duke is charged by the state of North Carolina for participation in its unemployment insurance program (often called the experience rating) may leap, meaning an unforeseen expense may well hit the annual budget for many years. Up until now, administrators have dodged layoff questions, hoping furloughs would not be necessary and giving no hint of the magnitude that apparently is under discussion.
The memo says the outlook for the cost of fringe benefits continues to deteriorate -- with numbers calculated just a few months old already outdated. Moreover, the projections show continuing year-to-year bumps consuming a bigger percentage of the budget at a time when there is competition for every precious dollar.
Officials have been holding meetings, which will continue in October, to consider the narrowing options.
Among other reasons given in the memo for the developing crunch:
A) the cost of medical care is rising.
B) on top of that, Duke's faculty, employees, their dependents and even students are making greater use of medical care -- more doctors visits, more tests, more procedures, more prescriptions per capita.
In addition to people currently working, Duke gives its retirees and their dependents continuing health insurance, very rare these days.
A prescription plan is included, even rarer. To show the dimensions of this, when Medicare started its first drug benefit two years ago, Duke calculated the federal government would be assuming a portion of Duke's cost valued at $100 million over ten years. $100 million. Just a portion of the cost.
Duke allows all people in its medical plans to get prescription drugs locally. Most plans require long-term medications to be generic, purchased from less costly mail-order pharmacies. Duke estimates this one change would save millions of dollars.
Another indication of the generous medical benefits was evident when employees were briefed ten days ago on a second round of incentives for early retirement. There was criticism, led by Executive Vice President Trask, when someone mentioned a plan circulating in Washington to tax medical benefits as income. Since the tax would only apply to the most generous medical plans, Trask's burst of mumbles established that Duke's plan is top tier.
It's not known if Duke has a separate executive-level medical plan as many corporations do -- granting reimbursement for every aspirin and Band-Aid.
So far in the financial crisis, Duke has only tinkered with its medical plan: minor increases in premiums and co-pays.
In retrospect, the answer to a question at the employee briefing seems ominous. An official said the framework of the medical plan is safe. For this year.
C) Because of massive losses through investment of its pension fund reserves, Duke faces the prospect of having to make bigger annual contributions in order to stay afloat ("funded") as required by federal law. There are not only investment losses to contend with; hundreds of people are tapping the pension fund unexpectedly through incentive programs, getting larger retirement checks, earlier in their lives.
Fact Checker has been warning about the pension crunch for months; one of the highest officials in the administration has denied twice that there is any problem. To see the denials contradicted by a direct and clear memo contemporaneously circulating in Allen Building is disheartening.
This memo establishes a great credibility gulf and yes, Fact Checker has all this in writing.
The list of fringes goes on and on. Faculty as well as all staff enjoy extra grants on top of their regular salary to help pay for their children's college education at any school they choose. The Children's Tuition Grant Program has been trimmed twice in recent decades, but anyone hired prior to 1975 remains in the top tier, eligible for an extra $37,486 per year for four years for every child. Duke's newest employees get this benefit after two years of service -- but unlike the open ended payments for earlier hires, the rate per academic year is lower and there is a cap of $225,216 for the entire family. If both parents work at Duke, the cap can be doubled.
Everyone gets this: from the President to the groundskeeper and food service worker.
There is nothing comparable outside academia.
Faculty and top staff also have access to a subsidized country club (family membership: $790 per year) with complete facilities tucked into Duke Forest near the Washington Duke Inn. There are three swimming pools, including an outdoor lap pool heated in the fall.
There is more Dukies.
The Chronicle did not cover, as one of its four university news and feature stories in its Wednesday edition, Dean George McLendon's annual report to the Arts and Sciences Council. He revealed the core budget for Arts and Sciences is $300 million -- with half of that exempt from any cuts because it is student financial aid. McLendon said out of the remaining $150 million, another $12 million must be cut this year, with more slices taken out in future years. That's a tough assignment.
McLendon also commented on faculty hiring. After a surge and splurge in the past few years, he said routine replacement of professors will not occur. Rather he said Duke will be looking for special opportunities to hire in a market where there is less competition for stars.
While McLendon said the Arts and Sciences faculty has increased by about 50 during his five years, the university-wide number is far greater. There were 2477 regular faculty members five years ago, 2730 at the end of the 2008 fiscal year on June 30, 2008, and probably about 2800 now.
McLendon challenged the faculty: "What old habits and approaches are we willing to give up?" He did not mention teaching loads, where Duke is dramatically under its peers, nor costly sabbaticals, or hint at what he has in mind.
McLendon's asking the question about faculty give-backs was brave. An old-line professor recruited from Princeton five years ago, McLendon had been viewed as an unlikely candidate to carry the torch for ending traditional perks that lard the faculty payroll.
Lastly McLendon said non-regular faculty -- adjuncts, professors of the practice -- will be relied on more and more. He said it is a trade-off to have such people teaching, but he said in many cases it is "unambiguously" a positive development. Translation: cheaper.
The supplementary faculty members typically do not get tenure or sabbaticals -- but there have been moves at Duke before the money meltdown to accord the near-faculty some degree of the Shibboleths of the ivory tower.
The faculty senate, the Academic Council, got an important briefing on finances yesterday (Thursday), not covered in Friday's Chronicle. I would say shame on you, but Fact Checker was also slacking last night, and has no word either.
(correction: the Chronicle buried a short account of this briefing in another story dealing with a proposal for a new PhD program that the Academic Council discussed. This program -- if eventually improved -- will embrace a max of four students a year. Fact Checker thinks the briefing -- no matter how repititious of past information -- should have been the lead.)
Next week will bring a flood of financial news. Translation: bloodbath.
With the trustees meeting October 2-3, all the results for the last fiscal year, ending June 30, 2009, should be publicly available. Fact Checker expects Duke to have lost 37 percent of its endowment in that period, with additional wipe-out since July 1 in this fiscal year. If my estimate holds, this would be the most severe of any college or university I know of.
The percentage loss applies not only to endowment, but to billions in other assets: pension plan, Health System reserves, and apparently money carried on the books as "funds functioning as endowment."
In dollar terms, The Fact Checker's overall estimate is $3.75 billion.
Chronicle -- you have not given one headline ever -- ever -- to the percentage or value of our losses in endowment and other assets. If someone donated $3.75 billion, I trust you would break out the big type. Wake the hell up.
The Trustee meeting will be the first plenary session presided over by the new chair, Daniel Blue. He has pledged "transparency," and it will be interesting to see what steps he takes, if any, to fulfill his pledge.
For example, will he resume briefings for the news media after Trustee meetings -- a vital source of information cut off by Bob "Wachovia" Steel except where he thought there was news that shined upon him.
The careful reader of Fact Checker will recall Steel's comments after the board meeting last December -- the first meeting after he imposed the blackout. Steel contended that Duke is not affected by the financial meltdown like other schools.
Read this and weep: "The good news is that Duke has been very prudently and conservatively managed from a financial perspective for quite awhile."
Fact Check!!!! 37 percent!!!!
Much of the financial trouble at Duke stems from aggressive use of private equity and hedge funds, and other fancy pants financial twists like derivatives. Far more aggressive than other schools, Fact Checker is preparing a report on this, probably for next semester.
And the careful reader will also recall President Brodhead's standing at Steel's side, smiling from his own assurance that our endowment is "secure" and "stable."
Poor Brodhead, he went on to list five alumni Trustees guiding our investments. Let's look at the list and the Fact Checker update since December:
Steel. Last job was chair of Wachovia. Kaboom!!! Now out of work.
Rick Wagoner. Last job was chair of GM. Kaboom!!! Now out of work.
Alan Schwartz, former chair of Bear, Sterns, the first Wall Street firm to collapse. Kaboom!! Out of work though recently he emerged somewhere.
John Mack, chair of Morgan Stanley, still in office but his replacement has just been selected.
Xiqing Gao, a top official of the Chinese government in Beijing, still in power.
Thank you for reading Fact Checker. The fan is whirling. Let's see what hits the blades.
A mole in the Brodhead Administration -- concerned about the sluggish and secretive response to the fiscal crisis -- has provided Fact Checker with substantial information, including a confidential memo warning that the cost of Duke's fringe benefits is spiraling out of control.
This raises the specter of large-scale cuts in the spectrum of lavish benefits that faculty and employees enjoy -- most notably medical insurance. The benefits package was recently cited by the Chronicle of Higher Education in naming Duke one of the best colleges to work for.
The memo also discusses layoffs on a scale so significant that the rate Duke is charged by the state of North Carolina for participation in its unemployment insurance program (often called the experience rating) may leap, meaning an unforeseen expense may well hit the annual budget for many years. Up until now, administrators have dodged layoff questions, hoping furloughs would not be necessary and giving no hint of the magnitude that apparently is under discussion.
The memo says the outlook for the cost of fringe benefits continues to deteriorate -- with numbers calculated just a few months old already outdated. Moreover, the projections show continuing year-to-year bumps consuming a bigger percentage of the budget at a time when there is competition for every precious dollar.
Officials have been holding meetings, which will continue in October, to consider the narrowing options.
Among other reasons given in the memo for the developing crunch:
A) the cost of medical care is rising.
B) on top of that, Duke's faculty, employees, their dependents and even students are making greater use of medical care -- more doctors visits, more tests, more procedures, more prescriptions per capita.
In addition to people currently working, Duke gives its retirees and their dependents continuing health insurance, very rare these days.
A prescription plan is included, even rarer. To show the dimensions of this, when Medicare started its first drug benefit two years ago, Duke calculated the federal government would be assuming a portion of Duke's cost valued at $100 million over ten years. $100 million. Just a portion of the cost.
Duke allows all people in its medical plans to get prescription drugs locally. Most plans require long-term medications to be generic, purchased from less costly mail-order pharmacies. Duke estimates this one change would save millions of dollars.
Another indication of the generous medical benefits was evident when employees were briefed ten days ago on a second round of incentives for early retirement. There was criticism, led by Executive Vice President Trask, when someone mentioned a plan circulating in Washington to tax medical benefits as income. Since the tax would only apply to the most generous medical plans, Trask's burst of mumbles established that Duke's plan is top tier.
It's not known if Duke has a separate executive-level medical plan as many corporations do -- granting reimbursement for every aspirin and Band-Aid.
So far in the financial crisis, Duke has only tinkered with its medical plan: minor increases in premiums and co-pays.
In retrospect, the answer to a question at the employee briefing seems ominous. An official said the framework of the medical plan is safe. For this year.
C) Because of massive losses through investment of its pension fund reserves, Duke faces the prospect of having to make bigger annual contributions in order to stay afloat ("funded") as required by federal law. There are not only investment losses to contend with; hundreds of people are tapping the pension fund unexpectedly through incentive programs, getting larger retirement checks, earlier in their lives.
Fact Checker has been warning about the pension crunch for months; one of the highest officials in the administration has denied twice that there is any problem. To see the denials contradicted by a direct and clear memo contemporaneously circulating in Allen Building is disheartening.
This memo establishes a great credibility gulf and yes, Fact Checker has all this in writing.
The list of fringes goes on and on. Faculty as well as all staff enjoy extra grants on top of their regular salary to help pay for their children's college education at any school they choose. The Children's Tuition Grant Program has been trimmed twice in recent decades, but anyone hired prior to 1975 remains in the top tier, eligible for an extra $37,486 per year for four years for every child. Duke's newest employees get this benefit after two years of service -- but unlike the open ended payments for earlier hires, the rate per academic year is lower and there is a cap of $225,216 for the entire family. If both parents work at Duke, the cap can be doubled.
Everyone gets this: from the President to the groundskeeper and food service worker.
There is nothing comparable outside academia.
Faculty and top staff also have access to a subsidized country club (family membership: $790 per year) with complete facilities tucked into Duke Forest near the Washington Duke Inn. There are three swimming pools, including an outdoor lap pool heated in the fall.
There is more Dukies.
The Chronicle did not cover, as one of its four university news and feature stories in its Wednesday edition, Dean George McLendon's annual report to the Arts and Sciences Council. He revealed the core budget for Arts and Sciences is $300 million -- with half of that exempt from any cuts because it is student financial aid. McLendon said out of the remaining $150 million, another $12 million must be cut this year, with more slices taken out in future years. That's a tough assignment.
McLendon also commented on faculty hiring. After a surge and splurge in the past few years, he said routine replacement of professors will not occur. Rather he said Duke will be looking for special opportunities to hire in a market where there is less competition for stars.
While McLendon said the Arts and Sciences faculty has increased by about 50 during his five years, the university-wide number is far greater. There were 2477 regular faculty members five years ago, 2730 at the end of the 2008 fiscal year on June 30, 2008, and probably about 2800 now.
McLendon challenged the faculty: "What old habits and approaches are we willing to give up?" He did not mention teaching loads, where Duke is dramatically under its peers, nor costly sabbaticals, or hint at what he has in mind.
McLendon's asking the question about faculty give-backs was brave. An old-line professor recruited from Princeton five years ago, McLendon had been viewed as an unlikely candidate to carry the torch for ending traditional perks that lard the faculty payroll.
Lastly McLendon said non-regular faculty -- adjuncts, professors of the practice -- will be relied on more and more. He said it is a trade-off to have such people teaching, but he said in many cases it is "unambiguously" a positive development. Translation: cheaper.
The supplementary faculty members typically do not get tenure or sabbaticals -- but there have been moves at Duke before the money meltdown to accord the near-faculty some degree of the Shibboleths of the ivory tower.
The faculty senate, the Academic Council, got an important briefing on finances yesterday (Thursday), not covered in Friday's Chronicle. I would say shame on you, but Fact Checker was also slacking last night, and has no word either.
(correction: the Chronicle buried a short account of this briefing in another story dealing with a proposal for a new PhD program that the Academic Council discussed. This program -- if eventually improved -- will embrace a max of four students a year. Fact Checker thinks the briefing -- no matter how repititious of past information -- should have been the lead.)
Next week will bring a flood of financial news. Translation: bloodbath.
With the trustees meeting October 2-3, all the results for the last fiscal year, ending June 30, 2009, should be publicly available. Fact Checker expects Duke to have lost 37 percent of its endowment in that period, with additional wipe-out since July 1 in this fiscal year. If my estimate holds, this would be the most severe of any college or university I know of.
The percentage loss applies not only to endowment, but to billions in other assets: pension plan, Health System reserves, and apparently money carried on the books as "funds functioning as endowment."
In dollar terms, The Fact Checker's overall estimate is $3.75 billion.
Chronicle -- you have not given one headline ever -- ever -- to the percentage or value of our losses in endowment and other assets. If someone donated $3.75 billion, I trust you would break out the big type. Wake the hell up.
The Trustee meeting will be the first plenary session presided over by the new chair, Daniel Blue. He has pledged "transparency," and it will be interesting to see what steps he takes, if any, to fulfill his pledge.
For example, will he resume briefings for the news media after Trustee meetings -- a vital source of information cut off by Bob "Wachovia" Steel except where he thought there was news that shined upon him.
The careful reader of Fact Checker will recall Steel's comments after the board meeting last December -- the first meeting after he imposed the blackout. Steel contended that Duke is not affected by the financial meltdown like other schools.
Read this and weep: "The good news is that Duke has been very prudently and conservatively managed from a financial perspective for quite awhile."
Fact Check!!!! 37 percent!!!!
Much of the financial trouble at Duke stems from aggressive use of private equity and hedge funds, and other fancy pants financial twists like derivatives. Far more aggressive than other schools, Fact Checker is preparing a report on this, probably for next semester.
And the careful reader will also recall President Brodhead's standing at Steel's side, smiling from his own assurance that our endowment is "secure" and "stable."
Poor Brodhead, he went on to list five alumni Trustees guiding our investments. Let's look at the list and the Fact Checker update since December:
Steel. Last job was chair of Wachovia. Kaboom!!! Now out of work.
Rick Wagoner. Last job was chair of GM. Kaboom!!! Now out of work.
Alan Schwartz, former chair of Bear, Sterns, the first Wall Street firm to collapse. Kaboom!! Out of work though recently he emerged somewhere.
John Mack, chair of Morgan Stanley, still in office but his replacement has just been selected.
Xiqing Gao, a top official of the Chinese government in Beijing, still in power.
Thank you for reading Fact Checker. The fan is whirling. Let's see what hits the blades.
9/18/2009
9/18/09 Fact Checker estimates endowment losses -- approach 40 percent!!!!
The Fact Checker report on the economic briefing given university employees on Thursday.
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Four top officers of Duke University gave a bleak assessment of its finances yesterday --far darker than previously known -- during a Duke Conversations presentation in Bryan Center. One of the biggest shockers: endowment losses continued and now approach 40 percent. Presumably pension plans and massive Health System reserves fell as much, along with assets of The Duke Endowment, a separate entity that uses Duke University as its investment arm.
Read on Dukies. What a miserable Friday.
-- NEW BUDGET COVERED WITH RED INK
The four university officers revealed for the first time that the budget passed by the Trustees last May for the current academic year had $70 million in red ink. In other words, far more spending than anticipated income. One official said meekly only $25 million is "suppposedly covered" by cuts implemented so far. That raises the prospect of new, deep incisions ($45 million) into the spending plan before the fiscal year ends next June 30, or another dip into the principal of the endowment.
No one said a peep about why this was not disclosed in the original news release on the passage of the budget. And Provost Lange sat silently and did not reconcile this with the $50 million in savings for this period that he previously announced.
-- NEW RETIREMENT INCENTIVES, very limited
The officials announced a new incentive program for higher paid employees (on monthly salary) to retire early. But only about 100 people university wide will be offered a miserly deal, a one-time payment which will equal one week's pay for every year of service, to a maximum of 26 weeks. The amount of each person's monthly pension is not affected, as it was under an earlier plan aimed at Duke's lowest paid employees.
Each of the 100 must be in a position identified as expendable; they will not be replaced. This raises the specter that if the targeted people do not take retirement, they will be the first laid off anyway in the months ahead.
Officials revealed that of 295 people who took early retirement under the first incentives offered, 32 had to be replaced, meaning a net loss of 263.
They said another 52 jobs in the budget have not been filled, something they called Vacancy Management, the highly touted program whereby each new hire must be approved at the highest level.
And they said cuts in overtime have saved the equivalent of 57 jobs, which is a bullshit way that managers look at head-count when their targets are not being reached.
One official indicated a plan to push some faculty into retirement is also under consideration. Many have their own retirement accounts which have been diminished, and in a very surprising statement that was not developed in any way, an official said faculty may get money to replace what they lost.
Overall, the officials claimed a reduction of 372 jobs so far. If 100 are offered early retirement under the new incentive plan, officials said perhaps 20 would take it, meaning fewer than 400 jobs will have been eliminated -- far short of the goal of 1,000 that Tallman Trask has talked about for "a smaller Duke." Still, officials said they hoped to avoid layoffs, never reconciling this either.
Employees were put on notice to expect to pay higher premiums for medical insurance, while at the same time getting hit with higher co-payments. And their long term prescriptions will have to be generic, filled through a mail order pharmacy. Officials did say that services covered under the four Duke medical plans would not be cut. At least this year.
Trask drew laughs when he said another benefit would be continued -- lavish college education grants for children of employees at all levels. Must have been some sort of inside joke.
And as to the current wage freeze, employees were told they would not likely find out anything -- good or bad -- until next July 1. More anxiety and jitters.
-- ENDOWMENT SHRINKS SOME MORE
The officials did not disclose the current value of the endowment. But one said it stands below the value at the end of the 2008 fiscal year. According to a Power Point chart, the value then was approximately $3.9 billion.
This indicates an additional loss of hundreds of millions of dollars since since Executive Vice President Tallman Trask gave us his last, oblique accounting, saying in March the endowment stood "just north" of $4 billion.
Looked at another way: the endowment totaled at $6.1 billion at the end of the 2007-2008 year. It apparently was around $3.8 billion at the end of 2008-2009, that is, June 30, 2009.
That would point to an astonishing drop approaching 40 percent!!!!! Repeat: this is based upon a Fact Checker estimate of current value of $3.8 billion. Please note I used the word APPROACHING 40 percent. The actual loss may turn out to be 38 percent; in any event it will be far higher than interim figures from PR VP Schoenfeld who said Fact Checker estimates of 33 pct were too high, and at one time mentioned in the 20's percent.
Ah for the good old days. Less than a year ago President Brodhead said our endowment was "stable" and "secure." And chair Bob "Wachovia" Steel smiled and said our endowment wasn't collapsing like other schools!!!!
The endowment money is invested along side of pension funds and massive Health System surpluses. All must have suffered a similar decline. No one has ever given us the total -- only Fact Checker has estimated.
Trask took a bow for the investment practices that pushed the endowment to $6.1 at one point -- aggressive, risky practices that he conceded have now been abandoned to the extent possible. Many hedge funds and private equity situations do not allow withdrawals, and some even require new money to be put into the very investment that flopped. Fact Checker believes Duke was obligated to the tune of $2 billion in new money when the market fell apart.
Disappointing a questioner in the audience, officials said the four month old stock market rebound has not helped Duke, since it now has only 5 percent of its investments in US companies. The great majority is in hedge funds and private equity, which have continued their tumble.
-- TWO, THREE MORE YEARS OF CUTS
Because of a complicated formula involving the averaging of the value of the endowment at the end of three previous years, Duke is still spending from its endowment as if the principal were increasing -- as it was in 2006 and 2007 -- years embraced currently in the formula.
When the formula embraces years in which the endowment has lost value, like 2008 and 2009, the amount available to spend will also plunge. Fiscal 2012 and 2013 were identified as critical years.
There was no discussion of abandoning the formula -- spending more now at the expense of future generations. Some endowments, most notably at the Getty Art Museum, have done that.
-- FEDERAL MONEY - don't count on it
Another Power Point chart showed a significant amount of money coming to the university from grants. Questioned, one official said this reflected an influx of stimulus money -- he did not say how much of course -- and warned the gravy would run out.
There was no discussion of the level of giving, discussed in Friday's Chronicle lead. Congratulations Chronicle for getting a significant story!!!! I got no idea how gift giving was lest out, or why, of a review of Duke finances.
This Chronicle article needs a follow up to examine specifically the effect of cutbacks in donations by The Duke Endowment, a separate entity that is the university's largest contributor. In fact, the statistics in today's Chronicle do not reflect any of that coming cutback.
There is also need for a follow up on a key number: how much was donated for permanent endowment (as opposed to current spending for projects). That will tell us a great deal about the strength of the University that today's Dukies are leaving for their successors.
-- SUMMATION
VP for human resources Cavanaugh said every one at Duke is working harder. He did not specifically explain how this is apparent among faculty, since Fact Checker does not know of any who have added to their teaching load, which is very very light when compared with other universities.
Once again, this briefing was conducted by five white men. A moderator from the administration and the four ranking officials: Trask, Lange, Cavanaugh and Treasurer Hof Milam. When Professor Henry Gates (of Harvard fame, in a misunderstanding with a police sergeant this summer) was at Duke, he said he felt like he was on a "plantation." At the time Fact Checker scoffed; now Gates has my apology.
Milam, whose name appears only once in the past several years in Chronicle archives, gave the most detailed financial explanations, often saying more than was known. Get the hint, Chronicle?
Once again, Duke proved it could not run a program in an auditorium and put it on the internet simultaneously. It ought to hire some 4th or 6th grader who gets his U Tube videos and their audio tracks nice and clear. Trask, who seemed to mumble anyhow, could not be understood on line. Others had the same problem with their microphones. All this has been previously reported to university administrators at the very highest level.
And all this focused anew on a question Fact Checker raised a few days ago, after President Brodhead related no new information and was left dangling, looking weak and indecisive, in an "interview" that consisted of questions about Duke's financial health submitted in advance by employees, filtered by the PR people. He deserves better staff work, including an opportunity to release information -- however incomplete -- like his subordinates related yesterday.
Thank you for reading and supporting Fact Checker. GO DUKE.
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Four top officers of Duke University gave a bleak assessment of its finances yesterday --far darker than previously known -- during a Duke Conversations presentation in Bryan Center. One of the biggest shockers: endowment losses continued and now approach 40 percent. Presumably pension plans and massive Health System reserves fell as much, along with assets of The Duke Endowment, a separate entity that uses Duke University as its investment arm.
Read on Dukies. What a miserable Friday.
-- NEW BUDGET COVERED WITH RED INK
The four university officers revealed for the first time that the budget passed by the Trustees last May for the current academic year had $70 million in red ink. In other words, far more spending than anticipated income. One official said meekly only $25 million is "suppposedly covered" by cuts implemented so far. That raises the prospect of new, deep incisions ($45 million) into the spending plan before the fiscal year ends next June 30, or another dip into the principal of the endowment.
No one said a peep about why this was not disclosed in the original news release on the passage of the budget. And Provost Lange sat silently and did not reconcile this with the $50 million in savings for this period that he previously announced.
-- NEW RETIREMENT INCENTIVES, very limited
The officials announced a new incentive program for higher paid employees (on monthly salary) to retire early. But only about 100 people university wide will be offered a miserly deal, a one-time payment which will equal one week's pay for every year of service, to a maximum of 26 weeks. The amount of each person's monthly pension is not affected, as it was under an earlier plan aimed at Duke's lowest paid employees.
Each of the 100 must be in a position identified as expendable; they will not be replaced. This raises the specter that if the targeted people do not take retirement, they will be the first laid off anyway in the months ahead.
Officials revealed that of 295 people who took early retirement under the first incentives offered, 32 had to be replaced, meaning a net loss of 263.
They said another 52 jobs in the budget have not been filled, something they called Vacancy Management, the highly touted program whereby each new hire must be approved at the highest level.
And they said cuts in overtime have saved the equivalent of 57 jobs, which is a bullshit way that managers look at head-count when their targets are not being reached.
One official indicated a plan to push some faculty into retirement is also under consideration. Many have their own retirement accounts which have been diminished, and in a very surprising statement that was not developed in any way, an official said faculty may get money to replace what they lost.
Overall, the officials claimed a reduction of 372 jobs so far. If 100 are offered early retirement under the new incentive plan, officials said perhaps 20 would take it, meaning fewer than 400 jobs will have been eliminated -- far short of the goal of 1,000 that Tallman Trask has talked about for "a smaller Duke." Still, officials said they hoped to avoid layoffs, never reconciling this either.
Employees were put on notice to expect to pay higher premiums for medical insurance, while at the same time getting hit with higher co-payments. And their long term prescriptions will have to be generic, filled through a mail order pharmacy. Officials did say that services covered under the four Duke medical plans would not be cut. At least this year.
Trask drew laughs when he said another benefit would be continued -- lavish college education grants for children of employees at all levels. Must have been some sort of inside joke.
And as to the current wage freeze, employees were told they would not likely find out anything -- good or bad -- until next July 1. More anxiety and jitters.
-- ENDOWMENT SHRINKS SOME MORE
The officials did not disclose the current value of the endowment. But one said it stands below the value at the end of the 2008 fiscal year. According to a Power Point chart, the value then was approximately $3.9 billion.
This indicates an additional loss of hundreds of millions of dollars since since Executive Vice President Tallman Trask gave us his last, oblique accounting, saying in March the endowment stood "just north" of $4 billion.
Looked at another way: the endowment totaled at $6.1 billion at the end of the 2007-2008 year. It apparently was around $3.8 billion at the end of 2008-2009, that is, June 30, 2009.
That would point to an astonishing drop approaching 40 percent!!!!! Repeat: this is based upon a Fact Checker estimate of current value of $3.8 billion. Please note I used the word APPROACHING 40 percent. The actual loss may turn out to be 38 percent; in any event it will be far higher than interim figures from PR VP Schoenfeld who said Fact Checker estimates of 33 pct were too high, and at one time mentioned in the 20's percent.
Ah for the good old days. Less than a year ago President Brodhead said our endowment was "stable" and "secure." And chair Bob "Wachovia" Steel smiled and said our endowment wasn't collapsing like other schools!!!!
The endowment money is invested along side of pension funds and massive Health System surpluses. All must have suffered a similar decline. No one has ever given us the total -- only Fact Checker has estimated.
Trask took a bow for the investment practices that pushed the endowment to $6.1 at one point -- aggressive, risky practices that he conceded have now been abandoned to the extent possible. Many hedge funds and private equity situations do not allow withdrawals, and some even require new money to be put into the very investment that flopped. Fact Checker believes Duke was obligated to the tune of $2 billion in new money when the market fell apart.
Disappointing a questioner in the audience, officials said the four month old stock market rebound has not helped Duke, since it now has only 5 percent of its investments in US companies. The great majority is in hedge funds and private equity, which have continued their tumble.
-- TWO, THREE MORE YEARS OF CUTS
Because of a complicated formula involving the averaging of the value of the endowment at the end of three previous years, Duke is still spending from its endowment as if the principal were increasing -- as it was in 2006 and 2007 -- years embraced currently in the formula.
When the formula embraces years in which the endowment has lost value, like 2008 and 2009, the amount available to spend will also plunge. Fiscal 2012 and 2013 were identified as critical years.
There was no discussion of abandoning the formula -- spending more now at the expense of future generations. Some endowments, most notably at the Getty Art Museum, have done that.
-- FEDERAL MONEY - don't count on it
Another Power Point chart showed a significant amount of money coming to the university from grants. Questioned, one official said this reflected an influx of stimulus money -- he did not say how much of course -- and warned the gravy would run out.
There was no discussion of the level of giving, discussed in Friday's Chronicle lead. Congratulations Chronicle for getting a significant story!!!! I got no idea how gift giving was lest out, or why, of a review of Duke finances.
This Chronicle article needs a follow up to examine specifically the effect of cutbacks in donations by The Duke Endowment, a separate entity that is the university's largest contributor. In fact, the statistics in today's Chronicle do not reflect any of that coming cutback.
There is also need for a follow up on a key number: how much was donated for permanent endowment (as opposed to current spending for projects). That will tell us a great deal about the strength of the University that today's Dukies are leaving for their successors.
-- SUMMATION
VP for human resources Cavanaugh said every one at Duke is working harder. He did not specifically explain how this is apparent among faculty, since Fact Checker does not know of any who have added to their teaching load, which is very very light when compared with other universities.
Once again, this briefing was conducted by five white men. A moderator from the administration and the four ranking officials: Trask, Lange, Cavanaugh and Treasurer Hof Milam. When Professor Henry Gates (of Harvard fame, in a misunderstanding with a police sergeant this summer) was at Duke, he said he felt like he was on a "plantation." At the time Fact Checker scoffed; now Gates has my apology.
Milam, whose name appears only once in the past several years in Chronicle archives, gave the most detailed financial explanations, often saying more than was known. Get the hint, Chronicle?
Once again, Duke proved it could not run a program in an auditorium and put it on the internet simultaneously. It ought to hire some 4th or 6th grader who gets his U Tube videos and their audio tracks nice and clear. Trask, who seemed to mumble anyhow, could not be understood on line. Others had the same problem with their microphones. All this has been previously reported to university administrators at the very highest level.
And all this focused anew on a question Fact Checker raised a few days ago, after President Brodhead related no new information and was left dangling, looking weak and indecisive, in an "interview" that consisted of questions about Duke's financial health submitted in advance by employees, filtered by the PR people. He deserves better staff work, including an opportunity to release information -- however incomplete -- like his subordinates related yesterday.
Thank you for reading and supporting Fact Checker. GO DUKE.
9/17/2009
9/17/2009 The Chronicle: A Vision
For our football team, aka the Blue Devils, we tally carefully the wins and losses, but until this moment there's been no such score for our journalism team, aka The Chronicle.
Introducing PUNTS and TOUCHDOWNS, an every-once-in-a-while public service from Fact Checker. (I like the word PUNT; others may prefer FUMBLE)
1) Duke has eliminated housekeeping in dorm bathrooms on Saturdays. Combined with the traditional lack of service on Sundays, it means puke that lands on Friday night ripens until Monday.
The Chronicle wrote about this before it occurred. It had an editorial after the first weekend that speculated "this policy change will have disgusting consequences." In fact the editorial reeked from lack of reporting about what had actually happened.
Chronicle, it's been three weeks. How many toilets have you checked? No, seriously. That's the way you get a first down, you go out there and push.
Tolerable? Filthy?
SCORE: PUNT
2) Has Kevin White (he's the the athletic director, for my readers buried deep in Perkins Library) moved out of Few Quadrangle and has another member of the faculty or administration arrived? Fact Checker is unable to locate anything in Chronicle archives beyond a January editorial with glancing reference to White's moving in -- the first to be nestled among Few undergraduates.
He had no experiences worthy of a story while there? PUNT
3) It's time to come to grips with K-Ville.
A) should the swine flu make a difference in allowing large numbers of students, most of them freshmen, to live in tents in compromised, unsanitary conditions for a prolonged time. Notice this past weekend, graduate students spending just 36 hours camped out for basketball tickets were given hand sanitizer.
B) Precisely the same irresponsible, unfettered conduct that has drawn criticism and correction during Tailgate exists in K-Ville. It's time to start talking about a consistent policy for these two events, and Last Day of Classes too.
It's time for the Chronicle, too, to hold President Brodhead to the promise of leadership. Remember the Amethyst Initiative and his call for a national dialogue on the legal drinking age? August, 2008. What has he done since to bring about that dialogue?
C) On June 24, the Chronicle sports blog carried part three of an exclusive four-part interview with Coach K. His comments included:
"What is Krzyewskiville. Is it a plus? Is it a minus? It's probably a little of both."
This just cries out for further explanation. Fact Checker can only speculate what Coach had on his mind.
4) The university's PR website buried what it called an "interview" with President Brodhead last Wednesday -- and posted it again in the lead spot on Saturday. Curious.
"Interview." Employees were asked to send in e-mail questions in advance. These were filtered by the PR staff, and as usual there was no chance for a follow up. To the University Flack: let me assure you this is not what you or Mr. Brodhead will experience in an "interview" with Fact Checker!
Laughably, given his cloistered appearance, Brodhead assured everyone of "transparency."
This was one of the few occasions Brodhead has broken silence on the financial crisis, and his comments -- though weak -- did merit Chronicle attention.
He dodged an employee who asked if the wage freeze would continue into a second year, saying "I can't make promises..."
Brodhead also visited employee and faculty fringe benefits. (One of the most important and costly -- tuition grants from Duke enabling children of faculty and employees to attend any college -- was very nicely profiled by Andrea Patino in a fine column in the Chronicle last week. Fact Checker would have posted praise, but the website has been off and on for days). From Brodhead, a parry:
"This is certainly not an area where we want to cut, but it is still too early to determine whether changes will need to be made later to address our financial challenges.”
Brodhead's staff ill-served him. They should not have allowed this "interview" to go forward until he could bring certainty and solace to employees.
Brodhead put aside the lacrosse hoax and the fiscal crisis when asked about the greatest challenge he has faced. His waffle: "The greatest challenge of the university is to look into the future and figure out how to advance the excellence in education, the excellence in professional training, the excellence in the research and all the social benefits that flow from that. The greatest challenge of any university is always to live up to its real potential, not just to continue doing what you are doing."
Chronicle: PUNT
At Harvard, the university has officially announced that it lost 27 percent of its endowment through investments in the 2008-2009 fiscal year ending June 30th.
The university said it transferred another 3 percent out of endowment to cover red ink in the annual budget, in part caused by a 7 percent decline in gifts.
Together, 30 percent of Harvard's endowment went poof between July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009. Official figures.
Is there a particular reason why the Duke Management Company cannot add up our results as fast, instead of keeping us waiting and waiting? Our investment losses, and how much we spent from endowment or "reserves functioning as endowment" to cover the operating deficit.
We need numbers not only for the endowment, but for other Duke investments: the pension fund, the huge Health System surplus. What was the total bloodbath?
Chronicle, have you been chasing those numbers? How many times have you asked for them, and what specifically were you told? Fact Checker has not seen ANY news story, editorial nor column focusing on the financial crisis in MONTHS.
At Yale, Brodhead's close friend, the president Richard Levin, had even grimmer news: the endowment lost $1 billion more than anyone had been estimating. A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon the Elis are talking real money.
Levin: "We want to alert you to the fact that another round of reductions will be necessary." A flat, direct statement; contrast that, please, to wishy-washy Duke projections.
Warning flag for Duke: Harvard and Yale both said private equity and hedge funds continue to bleed while direct stock holdings have risen slightly in recent months. Duke has a far greater concentration in private equity and hedge funds -- so we have buckled our seat belts.
The Yale Daily News also reported that Levin's base salary leaped above $1 million for the first time in the 2007-08 academic year. President Brodhead currently receives about 2/3rds as much; friends, we should be keeping pace! Fiscal crisis or not.
Faithful (intense?) Chronicle readers will undoubtedly recall that last winter Executive Vice President Trask said Duke's endowment had dropped from $6.1 billion to "just north" of $4 billion. Readers, that's 33 percent. Replete with questions: was it investments, was it transfers covering deficit -- all we've heard is bullshit ever since.
Two relevant items from earlier Fact Checker posts:
Status of the pension plan. Almost 300 people took early retirement -- preferring this to the uncertainty of layoffs. These retirees will receive bigger checks earlier in their lives, for longer periods of time, than actuaries calculated. Combine this with the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in pension investments. Chronicle, did you ask for a reconciliation of these facts?
How much is Duke "saving" by this early retirement offer? The numbers have bounced around -- and it's about time for this newspaper to pin them down.
Have we had layoffs as a result of the financial meltdown? The Herald-Sun listed two; the Chronicle never chased the people named: two low paid employees in the lemur center, out of 33,000, the fulcrum to solve our problems.
Not to mention that cuts so far have only affected lower-level employees. This is immoral. Administrators have been allowed to shift gears repeatedly about a plan for shedding well paid people; recall please that the Chronicle's favorite source said flatly that we'd have a plan by August.
Readers, note that no flab has been cut from the battalion of administrators.
A newspaper's job is to pursue relentlessly, to wade through the obfuscated, to challenge authority particularly when it puts a veil over its activity, to understand the facts, to report and to interpret.
This is not just for the curious and the pesky: it is to empower all Duke's stakeholders -- faculty, staff, students and alumni -- to participate effectively in the governance and fulfillment of the promise of this place.
Fact Checker is not obsessed with numbers. This is the vitality of Duke and its future.
PUNT.
5) Duke University's largest donor, The Duke Endowment, which is a totally separate entity that is often confused with the university itself, has posted its annual report -- repeating an unreported, ominous statement that came in late spring from its president: while it will honor commitments, The Duke Endowment will accept no new requests for education grants in 2009. And there's a question mark hanging over 2010 too. (A warning also went out to grant recipients in other areas beyond education).
Boy is this important at this university!! Remember the Financial Aid Initiative? The Duke Endowment forked over an extra grant of $75 million, fully 25 percent of the total effort. Are you anticipating the new education building for the Medical School? The Duke Endowment chipped in $50 million, much of the cost. DukeEngage? A special gift of $15 million, half of the initial funding. You get the idea, the list is long.
The only Chronicle mention of The Duke Endowment since last March has been editor Will Robinson's routine disclosure of possible conflict of interest -- a proper sensitivity handled correctly -- because of the role of his grandfather, the Endowment chair. Surely the newspaper can find someone in Allen Building to say "ouch" at the lack of new money.
PUNT
6) In one of its more fact-filled stories of recent vintage, The Chronicle told us that the new Cross-Continent MBA Program drew only 120 students, not 180 planned for. Tuition $115,000 each for 16 months. Yes that price is correct.
Zap: $7 million less in tuition than we counted on, a calculation the newspaper never made for us.
Moreover, the revenues (translation: sales) from long-standing Fuqua executive education programs have dropped 35 percent. Another Zap: although Fact Checker could discover how much revenue is being lost, but Fact Checker can be lazy too.
People attending executive education typically stay in the 111 room hotel called the Dave Thomas Center. (Yes, the Wendy's guy, Fuqua's next door neighbor). It's gotten so bad that the Thomas Center is now hawking $99 bed and breakfast rooms to try to fill up. Chronicle, did you know that?
The point is: Fuqua must be bleeding bad and someone better ask the Dean if he's sending fewer faculty to the next stop, Dubai, on his MBA merry-go-round. And ask the Dean how many faculty he's cutting, or what trick he has up his sleeve. PUNT
While you're at it, ask the Dean what class of air travel his people are using. London. Dubai. Remember Duke's specific pledge to cut the travel budget. PUNT
7) The bean counters in Allen Building have decided to save by making buildings warmer in summer, cooler in winter, all over campus. We were never told what the new targets are, and the Chronicle apparently never asked.
While the weather has not been extreme of late, Fact Checker still has not seen any story about anyone's experience with this. PUNT
8) Three Duke Police lieutenants took early retirement, along with 2 officers. Were they superfluous? Were they replaced? Have patrols been hurt, or do we wait until another Duke sophomore is shot in the stomach or Duke grad student killed to find out. PUNT
(Interesting sidebar: there are 75 security cameras in the Yale complex where the body of graduate student Annie Lee was found. 75. Chronicle, does Duke have as much protection?)
9) The Chronicle story about the upcoming Page Auditorium speech by the book-pedaling New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof should have had another paragraph: Last academic year Times columnist Thomas Friedman (also with new book) spoke in Page, capacity 1,232, while black Times columnist Bob Herbert was consigned to Griffith Theater, capacity 490. Chronicle should have noted that we're running out of male columnists from this paper to invite and we better reach a little farther. Or is it further. PUNT
10) More on swine flu, in addition to the K-Ville discussion above. At Duke, we saw a call for volunteers to deliver food to sick classmates; Chronicle, what has been the response?
And employees have been given extra sick days so they stay home and not infect co-workers. Coverage?
Anyone who thinks this is not serious stuff, check out the news from Cornell: one student dead on Saturday.
At UNC, read the words of Law School Dean Jack Boger: "We will stock all classrooms, the library, the lounges, and other public areas with pumps of hand sanitizer and boxes of tissue, and all restrooms with antibacterial soap. We urge you to make use of these supplies, and to notify an administrator if any of these products run low."
Either UNC is wasting money or Duke is negligent, and it is a newspaper's job to find out. PUNT
Footnote: a year ago after goading, the Chronicle finally did a story on the lack of contributions from Dukies to the city of Durham. Another drive is underway. Hint!
11) Another scoop for the Durham Herald-Sun and its education reporter Neil Offen. This one snapped from right under the Chronicle's eyes.
Did you see the ad that the athletic department's been running in the Chronicle for the last couple of weeks, looking for a student manager for men's basketball. Unpaid job.
Offen reveals 150 applications so far; 215 total applied last year. Chronicle, your tally?
TOUCHDOWN for the athletic department for its outreach with the ads, and for making sure everyone understands what the job entails and what the application process is.
12) Has the university, its $2 million dollar-a-year law firm, and its $17 million dollar-a-year legal team decided if they will appeal their latest loss: the unanimous decision from a three-judge court of appeals favoring Coach Pressler and allowing him his day in court on slanderous words from a Duke potentate? Chronicle, please update, it's time.
12) Shortly after his arrival five years ago, President Brodhead told the freshmen they'd be using the new Central campus before they graduated. Move the clock forward three years. Just weeks before breaking ground, Brodhead and his administrators tore up the plans and started anew. Forward again. Just months before we were to start digging, the money crisis began.
Under the radar, important decisions are being made about new Central Campus. Architects are at work -- even though there likely will not be any construction for a decade. Fact Checker has learned that on June 9, Brodhead briefed the Executive Committee of the Trustees on his meeting with one architect, Renzo Piano. Chronicle, do you think we deserve a peek?
There should be a website providing this information, with all the latest from our New Haven (read Yale) architects.
Coverage of the most important Duke building project since the 1920's -- PUNT.
13) With the Trustees meeting in two weeks, their new chair has promised "transparency." A good newspaper would go after him: Sir, tell us what is now in the open because of this pledge, what would not have been out if you had not made the pledge.
Sir, do you intend to hold the traditional news conference after the meeting, or will the suspension that Bob "Wachovia" Steel instituted be kept in effect.
PUNT
++
The Fact Checker scorecard tallies what a campus newspaper should be covering, based upon Fact Checker's philosophy:
-- the amount of space devoted to filler from the Washington Post and "Diversions" with its cartoons and crossword, should be cut. A substantial enterprise effort could appear in that precious space.
-- opinion pages should bring credit to a university in the Top Ten, with heavily researched, thought-provoking essays about our own community, not travelogues and blather.
GO DUKE!
Introducing PUNTS and TOUCHDOWNS, an every-once-in-a-while public service from Fact Checker. (I like the word PUNT; others may prefer FUMBLE)
1) Duke has eliminated housekeeping in dorm bathrooms on Saturdays. Combined with the traditional lack of service on Sundays, it means puke that lands on Friday night ripens until Monday.
The Chronicle wrote about this before it occurred. It had an editorial after the first weekend that speculated "this policy change will have disgusting consequences." In fact the editorial reeked from lack of reporting about what had actually happened.
Chronicle, it's been three weeks. How many toilets have you checked? No, seriously. That's the way you get a first down, you go out there and push.
Tolerable? Filthy?
SCORE: PUNT
2) Has Kevin White (he's the the athletic director, for my readers buried deep in Perkins Library) moved out of Few Quadrangle and has another member of the faculty or administration arrived? Fact Checker is unable to locate anything in Chronicle archives beyond a January editorial with glancing reference to White's moving in -- the first to be nestled among Few undergraduates.
He had no experiences worthy of a story while there? PUNT
3) It's time to come to grips with K-Ville.
A) should the swine flu make a difference in allowing large numbers of students, most of them freshmen, to live in tents in compromised, unsanitary conditions for a prolonged time. Notice this past weekend, graduate students spending just 36 hours camped out for basketball tickets were given hand sanitizer.
B) Precisely the same irresponsible, unfettered conduct that has drawn criticism and correction during Tailgate exists in K-Ville. It's time to start talking about a consistent policy for these two events, and Last Day of Classes too.
It's time for the Chronicle, too, to hold President Brodhead to the promise of leadership. Remember the Amethyst Initiative and his call for a national dialogue on the legal drinking age? August, 2008. What has he done since to bring about that dialogue?
C) On June 24, the Chronicle sports blog carried part three of an exclusive four-part interview with Coach K. His comments included:
"What is Krzyewskiville. Is it a plus? Is it a minus? It's probably a little of both."
This just cries out for further explanation. Fact Checker can only speculate what Coach had on his mind.
4) The university's PR website buried what it called an "interview" with President Brodhead last Wednesday -- and posted it again in the lead spot on Saturday. Curious.
"Interview." Employees were asked to send in e-mail questions in advance. These were filtered by the PR staff, and as usual there was no chance for a follow up. To the University Flack: let me assure you this is not what you or Mr. Brodhead will experience in an "interview" with Fact Checker!
Laughably, given his cloistered appearance, Brodhead assured everyone of "transparency."
This was one of the few occasions Brodhead has broken silence on the financial crisis, and his comments -- though weak -- did merit Chronicle attention.
He dodged an employee who asked if the wage freeze would continue into a second year, saying "I can't make promises..."
Brodhead also visited employee and faculty fringe benefits. (One of the most important and costly -- tuition grants from Duke enabling children of faculty and employees to attend any college -- was very nicely profiled by Andrea Patino in a fine column in the Chronicle last week. Fact Checker would have posted praise, but the website has been off and on for days). From Brodhead, a parry:
"This is certainly not an area where we want to cut, but it is still too early to determine whether changes will need to be made later to address our financial challenges.”
Brodhead's staff ill-served him. They should not have allowed this "interview" to go forward until he could bring certainty and solace to employees.
Brodhead put aside the lacrosse hoax and the fiscal crisis when asked about the greatest challenge he has faced. His waffle: "The greatest challenge of the university is to look into the future and figure out how to advance the excellence in education, the excellence in professional training, the excellence in the research and all the social benefits that flow from that. The greatest challenge of any university is always to live up to its real potential, not just to continue doing what you are doing."
Chronicle: PUNT
At Harvard, the university has officially announced that it lost 27 percent of its endowment through investments in the 2008-2009 fiscal year ending June 30th.
The university said it transferred another 3 percent out of endowment to cover red ink in the annual budget, in part caused by a 7 percent decline in gifts.
Together, 30 percent of Harvard's endowment went poof between July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009. Official figures.
Is there a particular reason why the Duke Management Company cannot add up our results as fast, instead of keeping us waiting and waiting? Our investment losses, and how much we spent from endowment or "reserves functioning as endowment" to cover the operating deficit.
We need numbers not only for the endowment, but for other Duke investments: the pension fund, the huge Health System surplus. What was the total bloodbath?
Chronicle, have you been chasing those numbers? How many times have you asked for them, and what specifically were you told? Fact Checker has not seen ANY news story, editorial nor column focusing on the financial crisis in MONTHS.
At Yale, Brodhead's close friend, the president Richard Levin, had even grimmer news: the endowment lost $1 billion more than anyone had been estimating. A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon the Elis are talking real money.
Levin: "We want to alert you to the fact that another round of reductions will be necessary." A flat, direct statement; contrast that, please, to wishy-washy Duke projections.
Warning flag for Duke: Harvard and Yale both said private equity and hedge funds continue to bleed while direct stock holdings have risen slightly in recent months. Duke has a far greater concentration in private equity and hedge funds -- so we have buckled our seat belts.
The Yale Daily News also reported that Levin's base salary leaped above $1 million for the first time in the 2007-08 academic year. President Brodhead currently receives about 2/3rds as much; friends, we should be keeping pace! Fiscal crisis or not.
Faithful (intense?) Chronicle readers will undoubtedly recall that last winter Executive Vice President Trask said Duke's endowment had dropped from $6.1 billion to "just north" of $4 billion. Readers, that's 33 percent. Replete with questions: was it investments, was it transfers covering deficit -- all we've heard is bullshit ever since.
Two relevant items from earlier Fact Checker posts:
Status of the pension plan. Almost 300 people took early retirement -- preferring this to the uncertainty of layoffs. These retirees will receive bigger checks earlier in their lives, for longer periods of time, than actuaries calculated. Combine this with the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in pension investments. Chronicle, did you ask for a reconciliation of these facts?
How much is Duke "saving" by this early retirement offer? The numbers have bounced around -- and it's about time for this newspaper to pin them down.
Have we had layoffs as a result of the financial meltdown? The Herald-Sun listed two; the Chronicle never chased the people named: two low paid employees in the lemur center, out of 33,000, the fulcrum to solve our problems.
Not to mention that cuts so far have only affected lower-level employees. This is immoral. Administrators have been allowed to shift gears repeatedly about a plan for shedding well paid people; recall please that the Chronicle's favorite source said flatly that we'd have a plan by August.
Readers, note that no flab has been cut from the battalion of administrators.
A newspaper's job is to pursue relentlessly, to wade through the obfuscated, to challenge authority particularly when it puts a veil over its activity, to understand the facts, to report and to interpret.
This is not just for the curious and the pesky: it is to empower all Duke's stakeholders -- faculty, staff, students and alumni -- to participate effectively in the governance and fulfillment of the promise of this place.
Fact Checker is not obsessed with numbers. This is the vitality of Duke and its future.
PUNT.
5) Duke University's largest donor, The Duke Endowment, which is a totally separate entity that is often confused with the university itself, has posted its annual report -- repeating an unreported, ominous statement that came in late spring from its president: while it will honor commitments, The Duke Endowment will accept no new requests for education grants in 2009. And there's a question mark hanging over 2010 too. (A warning also went out to grant recipients in other areas beyond education).
Boy is this important at this university!! Remember the Financial Aid Initiative? The Duke Endowment forked over an extra grant of $75 million, fully 25 percent of the total effort. Are you anticipating the new education building for the Medical School? The Duke Endowment chipped in $50 million, much of the cost. DukeEngage? A special gift of $15 million, half of the initial funding. You get the idea, the list is long.
The only Chronicle mention of The Duke Endowment since last March has been editor Will Robinson's routine disclosure of possible conflict of interest -- a proper sensitivity handled correctly -- because of the role of his grandfather, the Endowment chair. Surely the newspaper can find someone in Allen Building to say "ouch" at the lack of new money.
PUNT
6) In one of its more fact-filled stories of recent vintage, The Chronicle told us that the new Cross-Continent MBA Program drew only 120 students, not 180 planned for. Tuition $115,000 each for 16 months. Yes that price is correct.
Zap: $7 million less in tuition than we counted on, a calculation the newspaper never made for us.
Moreover, the revenues (translation: sales) from long-standing Fuqua executive education programs have dropped 35 percent. Another Zap: although Fact Checker could discover how much revenue is being lost, but Fact Checker can be lazy too.
People attending executive education typically stay in the 111 room hotel called the Dave Thomas Center. (Yes, the Wendy's guy, Fuqua's next door neighbor). It's gotten so bad that the Thomas Center is now hawking $99 bed and breakfast rooms to try to fill up. Chronicle, did you know that?
The point is: Fuqua must be bleeding bad and someone better ask the Dean if he's sending fewer faculty to the next stop, Dubai, on his MBA merry-go-round. And ask the Dean how many faculty he's cutting, or what trick he has up his sleeve. PUNT
While you're at it, ask the Dean what class of air travel his people are using. London. Dubai. Remember Duke's specific pledge to cut the travel budget. PUNT
7) The bean counters in Allen Building have decided to save by making buildings warmer in summer, cooler in winter, all over campus. We were never told what the new targets are, and the Chronicle apparently never asked.
While the weather has not been extreme of late, Fact Checker still has not seen any story about anyone's experience with this. PUNT
8) Three Duke Police lieutenants took early retirement, along with 2 officers. Were they superfluous? Were they replaced? Have patrols been hurt, or do we wait until another Duke sophomore is shot in the stomach or Duke grad student killed to find out. PUNT
(Interesting sidebar: there are 75 security cameras in the Yale complex where the body of graduate student Annie Lee was found. 75. Chronicle, does Duke have as much protection?)
9) The Chronicle story about the upcoming Page Auditorium speech by the book-pedaling New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof should have had another paragraph: Last academic year Times columnist Thomas Friedman (also with new book) spoke in Page, capacity 1,232, while black Times columnist Bob Herbert was consigned to Griffith Theater, capacity 490. Chronicle should have noted that we're running out of male columnists from this paper to invite and we better reach a little farther. Or is it further. PUNT
10) More on swine flu, in addition to the K-Ville discussion above. At Duke, we saw a call for volunteers to deliver food to sick classmates; Chronicle, what has been the response?
And employees have been given extra sick days so they stay home and not infect co-workers. Coverage?
Anyone who thinks this is not serious stuff, check out the news from Cornell: one student dead on Saturday.
At UNC, read the words of Law School Dean Jack Boger: "We will stock all classrooms, the library, the lounges, and other public areas with pumps of hand sanitizer and boxes of tissue, and all restrooms with antibacterial soap. We urge you to make use of these supplies, and to notify an administrator if any of these products run low."
Either UNC is wasting money or Duke is negligent, and it is a newspaper's job to find out. PUNT
Footnote: a year ago after goading, the Chronicle finally did a story on the lack of contributions from Dukies to the city of Durham. Another drive is underway. Hint!
11) Another scoop for the Durham Herald-Sun and its education reporter Neil Offen. This one snapped from right under the Chronicle's eyes.
Did you see the ad that the athletic department's been running in the Chronicle for the last couple of weeks, looking for a student manager for men's basketball. Unpaid job.
Offen reveals 150 applications so far; 215 total applied last year. Chronicle, your tally?
TOUCHDOWN for the athletic department for its outreach with the ads, and for making sure everyone understands what the job entails and what the application process is.
12) Has the university, its $2 million dollar-a-year law firm, and its $17 million dollar-a-year legal team decided if they will appeal their latest loss: the unanimous decision from a three-judge court of appeals favoring Coach Pressler and allowing him his day in court on slanderous words from a Duke potentate? Chronicle, please update, it's time.
12) Shortly after his arrival five years ago, President Brodhead told the freshmen they'd be using the new Central campus before they graduated. Move the clock forward three years. Just weeks before breaking ground, Brodhead and his administrators tore up the plans and started anew. Forward again. Just months before we were to start digging, the money crisis began.
Under the radar, important decisions are being made about new Central Campus. Architects are at work -- even though there likely will not be any construction for a decade. Fact Checker has learned that on June 9, Brodhead briefed the Executive Committee of the Trustees on his meeting with one architect, Renzo Piano. Chronicle, do you think we deserve a peek?
There should be a website providing this information, with all the latest from our New Haven (read Yale) architects.
Coverage of the most important Duke building project since the 1920's -- PUNT.
13) With the Trustees meeting in two weeks, their new chair has promised "transparency." A good newspaper would go after him: Sir, tell us what is now in the open because of this pledge, what would not have been out if you had not made the pledge.
Sir, do you intend to hold the traditional news conference after the meeting, or will the suspension that Bob "Wachovia" Steel instituted be kept in effect.
PUNT
++
The Fact Checker scorecard tallies what a campus newspaper should be covering, based upon Fact Checker's philosophy:
-- the amount of space devoted to filler from the Washington Post and "Diversions" with its cartoons and crossword, should be cut. A substantial enterprise effort could appear in that precious space.
-- opinion pages should bring credit to a university in the Top Ten, with heavily researched, thought-provoking essays about our own community, not travelogues and blather.
GO DUKE!
9/09/2009
9/9/2009 On transparency
Today I share the transcript of a recent conversation:
Student: Fact Checker, could you identify for us a key university issue that you will be watching during the new academic year?
Fact Checker: Thank you for asking. I believe greater transparency in the governance of Duke -- particularly in the operation of Duke's endowment -- is imperative. I want to explain why……..
Faculty member: Whoa, whoa Fact Checker. We know that the University flack Schoenfeld said last semester that earnings of the endowment would suffer if more information were public. Duke simply needs the money!!
Fact Checker: I know what the flack said -- now let him prove it. What report is he citing? What expert is he quoting?
And Duke's investments should mean far more than making a profit. There's social responsibility and leadership too.
Faculty member: But isn't financial secrecy part of the territory for private institutions, universities and the like.
Fact Checker: Not at all. Consider please, three independent endowment funds created by Duke family members that benefit our university.
First, the widow of James B. Duke, Nanaline, established a very sizable Fund. Every year it lists all its holdings, all its trades, and all its profits and losses for every stock. It is overseen by the Trustees of The Duke Endowment. The editor of the Chronicle should ask his grandpappy (chair of The Duke Endowment) about this.
Second, Mr. Duke's niece Mary Duke Biddle established a very important fund that is an angel for the arts, and also gives small grants to projects that cannot get other funding to see if they can get off the ground. Check their exemplary website: there's no complaint that I see about a loss of earnings because they list every holding, every trade, and account for every profit and loss.
Third, Mrs. Biddle's daughter, Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, has established a fund as well that focuses on the arts. It too reports every holding, every trade. Check out the public portion of its tax returns, Form 990. Has Schoenfeld ever heard Mrs. Semans complain about the earnings on this fund being throttled because of the public disclosure?
Beyond this, every mutual fund I hold in my own private portfolio reports its trades stock by stock. No one has ever said, "Fact Checker, you are screwing yourself and getting lesser returns with all this public information."
Conservative student: Last semester my organization wrote to the Chronicle in opposition to disclosure. You have to remember our traditions and history: we are a private school entitled to keep secret what we choose.
Fact Checker: Sorry bud, but the conservative position would be what Duke University did for decades -- to release the very information that the Coalition for Transparency now requests. In fact the university used to mail this report to every alum. It could very easily post it on-line now. Visit the Archives in Perkins and review this.
Conservative student: hmmm, I did not know that.
Fact Checker: Well you are not the first to write a letter to the Chronicle (or a news story or column or editorial) while being half informed. You right wingers also made a point about the role of students in the governance of Duke University . Basically you said, "pay your tuition and graduate in silence." A vassal kind of relationship.
Too bad this too his not the conservative, historical position, where Trinity College and Duke University -- far more than today -- welcomed involvement and input from all stakeholders.
This is a proud tradition we should be very conservative about.
For example the current Strategic Plan was written with student participation. Just like the first Long Range Planning Report half a century ago. Terry Sanford fostered creation of the Young Trustee positions for student involvement at the highest level. The Chronicle spreads the news and creates an atmosphere for "thought and action," as its slogan (hidden this year) declares; it exists with great support from the University, including its choice real estate in Flowers Building , because it fosters student involvement.
And Duke goes through great lengths to keep its alums informed. The list is long: a great magazine, meetings. Schoenfeld's office in fact makes copies of all news releases available, along with copies of stories written about Duke, immediately available on his website.
The overarching point is this: Duke as an institution has welcomed input for generations-- but once again some administrators cast people who ask and seek answers on as dis-loyalists. The Duke tradition is precisely the opposite of the relationship that you suggested for students and the school.
Maybe the President is learning, however. This is what he said at the freshman Convocation this year:
"When you chose Duke, you chose a place that has made itself ever better by its willingness to dream bigger dreams and find ways to achieve them. And when I welcome you to Duke, I welcome you to join this history and write its future chapters."
Conservative student: Well…… write its future chapters. That is an invitation!
Fact Checker: Excuse me one second. Would you also place limits on the faculty participation in governance? The secrecy surrounding the endowment restricts them too. Or perhaps the conservative view is they should be damn thankful for their paycheck and should go quietly to the library and the classroom? And their subsidized country club.
Faculty member: Ha. Ha. Fact checker, you mentioned earlier social responsibility. You mean like our policy of not investing in the Sudan ?
Fact Checker: Now it's my time to say Whoa Whoa. That policy was highly touted when it was created several years ago -- which is to say 20 years after other schools like Yale created theirs. Duke's policy covers only "direct" investments, that is, when we go to the stock market and buy and sell. That's about ten percent of our money. Most of the money is not covered -- because Duke contracts to give money to a mutual fund, a hedge fund or a private equity manager who will then in turn make the actual investment. Duke has been very misleading about the impact of its policy, but that's why you have Fact Checker on your side.
Oh, have any of you who are good enough to be here today… do any of you see anything about the environment in Duke's "Guidelines on Socially Responsible Investing"?
And does anyone have the minutes of the Committee on Investment Responsibility -- its one meeting over the course of five years? Laughably, The Conservatives wrote in the Chronicle that this was sufficient. Here let me remind you:
"In our opinion, the call for "transparency" is especially baffling given that Duke's Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility fully accommodates corporate social responsibility concerns."
Oh, and this happens to raise an emerging issue that is very important which Fact Checker is working on. We know that the relationships between some universities (and other endowments) and money managers are tainted -- filled with special incentives if not bribes. The disclosure of specific holdings would minimize the chance of the sharks getting away with this.
And one other point that Fact Checker is working on: a disturbing number of Trustees have filed secret Conflict of Interest statements because they are administering and managing university money -- and earning fees in the process. Fact Checker has just gotten names, and I intend to report fully on this in a Fact Checker Major Statement when research is far enough along. I used the word disturbing. What's an escalation from that.
Moderator: Fact Checker, our time is running out. Do you have some final comment.
Fact Checker: I would suggest everyone in Allen Building get some SPF 45 or higher, because the sun is going to shine in.
------
The Fact Checker archive is now open.
http://dukefactchecker.blogspot.com/
9/07/2009
9/7 Evaluating the Chronicle
When errors creep into Fact Checker's writing, I am the first to admit and correct. Just last week I renamed Coach Pressler -- identifying him as Larry and not Mike. I have no explanation for this stumble, having lived through the lacrosse crisis, and having read blogs and books for three and a half years.
A friend suggests perhaps I was thinking of Larry Moneta, the vice president for student life. No, I assured, I do not think about L-Mo very much at all, and when I do, it can be rabid. This semester he's in Croatia, studying what services the universities in that country provide to their students. You know, things like janitors on the weekends to clean up puke in dorm bathrooms.
This is true. Not even Fact Checker can make this stuff up. Studying student life in Croatia.
My rage comes from the cost. Moneta's on a Fulbright Scholarship. Translation: paid by our federal tax dollars. And I have not been able to confirm if he's also on sabbatical, which would mean Duke is piling on $117,000 plus fringe benefits for the semester at a time of severe budget crunch.
-0-
But I digress. The points I want to make today start with accuracy and corrections, and grow into the vision the Chronicle has for itself -- the kind of discussion the paper tries to present about other entities from time to time, but never offers about itself.
Last week's big story about the new mandate for all university employees to report any sexual assault was very important, given the dimensions of the campus problem. It properly was reported in substantial detail. But I sat up when I read a quote attributed to Ada Gregory, director of the Women's Center, said to be talking about undergraduate men:
"The higher IQ, the more manipulative they are, the more cunning they are... imagine the sex offenders we have here at Duke-cream of the crop.."
Ms. Gregory wrote the Chronicle immediately, saying this quote "was neither accurate in the context of our conversation nor did it reflect my views, and could in fact harm our efforts to address the problem of sexual misconduct." Her letter got printed.
If this quote was wrong, it is a major journalistic failure. Far worse than calling Mike Pressler by another first name. It wrong, deserves a correction, not merely a letter.
Enter the Chronicle editorial board:
"It is unfortunate that when the policy was announced, the focus of the conversation was not on the policy itself, but rather on comments made by Women's Center Director Ada Gregory.....
"...Gregory's comments introduced the issue in a manner offensive to Duke men, ultimately creating a poor perception of the new policy and a biased environment for enforcement. Although Gregory has said her remarks were taken out of context, the response they generated still shows that demonizing or talking down to men is not going to improve the situation, and it only alienates a key stakeholder in reducing sexual assault."
As a reader, Fact Checker is left scratching: is the Chronicle repeating the quote? Is it standing by the quote?
Why is the only response to Ms. Gregory via the Editorial Board. Remember, please, how it is drilled into us that the board is totally independent from the news gathering operation that either made a mistake or did not.
Readers of the paper deserve more than a muddle.
-0-
They also deserve a far more intelligent editorial page.
I start with the columns. Conflict of interest disclosure: Fact Checker would like to write one!
With the singular exception of the summer-time interview with President Brodhead's musing on whether he'd like to return to teaching someday, there is little if any evidence that any columnist did all of the following: picked a local subject of importance, did substantial research and interviews, got quotes from people on campus, and produced a think-piece worthy of a newspaper at a Top Ten university.
Translation: I am tired of reading travelogues masquerading as columns: "Hi mom!! Guess where I am. People all different from us. Look different. Talk different. Helping them get clean water. Will be home on schedule whether the job is done here or not. Whew!!"
As for the editorials, many are on piddling issues. There is no broad sweep: not a single substantial comment (other than the loss of 7 janitors and the administration's stupidity for letting dorm bathrooms fester all day Saturday and Sunday) about the University's fiscal crisis, threatening current activities and shaking our vision for the future.
Little example: the University tinkered with thermostats, making them higher in summer, lower in winter. Did anyone interview students or employees to see how this may have affected them in the heat and humidity of the summer? Did anyone buy a thermometer and walk into President Brodhead's office, or Executive Vice President Trask's office, and announce they were going to check whether they were experiencing the same environment as the rest of us? Editorialize, praise them or scorch them.
That's what a newspaper does. That's it's job.
On a higher plane, our biggest donor, The Duke Endowment, is curtailing contributions, apparently by 25 percent, a development the Chronicle finds to be unworthy of either story or comment. The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, smaller but a lifeline for the arts and catalyst for many projects that cannot obtain other funding, also cuts back. Silence from the Chronicle, no news, no comment.
The editors should read other campus papers. Where was the commentary when term limits forced the retirement of a most controversial chair of our Trustees, Bob "Wachovia" Steel? It's hard to believe the Harvard Crimson or Yale Daily News or Princetonian would not explore this with great depth. (Hang on Dukies, relief is on the way: Fact Checker is working on this one)
What about other issues raised by Fact Checker: Fuqua's new partnership with an Arab Sheikh who presides over the kidnapping of little boys from other nations to serve as slaves in his camel racing camps. 50,000 boys, one of the biggest slave-traders in human history. Well, i did not mean to imply this guy is human.
This too is true, for you cannot make this stuff up.
And now it's time for Fact Checker to address the news pages.
Unfortunately, the newspaper offers only a limited selection of campus news, and pages and pages ares filled with material from The Washington Post and similar sources. Now the Post's a solid newspaper, but you can read a more comprehensive version on line, and maybe even fish out a copy of the printed edition. Besides, there are many sources for news about Afghanistan and the fires in California and the Obama health plan, but precious few about Duke.
In the stories it does undertake, the newspaper is not accurate enough nor probative enough.
Back to Pressler and his lawsuit victory. The Chronicle headline in print and on-line said "Judge OK's Pressler's Slander Suit.:" Sorry, it was a three judge appeals panel whose unanimous opinion demolished the university position. Far different from a singular judge.
Also, the Chronicle identified the basis of Pressler's suit as alleged violation of the settlement agreement he reached with Duke after being fired. Sorry, but the coach's lawyers dropped this part of their lawsuit, a maneuver important enough to the potential outcome to be duly noted in the Herald-Sun, News and Observer, and Associated Press. Given the information that Fact Checker has about Chronicle deadlines, the reporter had plenty of time to digest the two newspaper and one wire service variants.
If we eliminate the erroneous, outdated, we find the Chronicle never stated the remaining basis for Pressler's lawsuit, leaving us wondering if the newspaper has even a rudimentary understanding of what is going on.
Unlike Fact Checker who corrected and apologized for missing Pressler's first name, the Chronicle is silent about its errors.
And by the way, Fact Checker has reported on the outrageous lacrosse defense legal bills that Duke is paying; Fact Checker provided that information to the Chronicle three months before using it, and the Chronicle suppressed it. There are substantial questions on whether the University properly is spending so much ($2 million in 12 months to one law firm alone) or if the money is only to try to bury the deeds of officials.
If you add up all the bills for the lacrosse hoax to date, Fact Checker believes we have surpassed $100 million. And counting. Where is the Chronicle tally?
Whew. We now come to the word probative, taking last Thursday's story celebrating the opening of Fuqua in London, first stop on the new Cross-Continent MBA program.
Yes celebrating. "With blue and white balloons bobbing against the backdrop of the River Thames, the coming out party went off without a hitch....." My friends, that's a lead worthy of a student trying to butter a dean for admission next year.
From top to bottom, this story is rich with stronger lead paragraphs.
-- Anticipating 180 students but drawing only 120, the reporter let the dean of Fuqua explain the world economy is to blame -- when in fact the timing indicates he set the goal knowing full well about the economic meltdown. No one asked how many applied, what the acceptance rate was, what the yield is (the percentage of those admitted who actually show up). There are also rumors that should have been dealt with, about whether Fuqua bent the Duke standard to capture as many students as it did.
-- Equally important, the students are far less diverse than anticipated, robbing the program of its intended flavor: exposure to various business cultures and contacts with students who will emerge as business leaders in their homelands in the decades ahead. Sounds like a lead to Fact Finder.
-- With 120 students, the 16 month program -- costing $115,000 this year and $120,000 for students who start next year -- will bring in approximately $5 million less than anticipated this year. That's a calculation the Chronicle did not make, nor did it interpret how more and more the venture smacks of our earlier forays into Frankfurt and Moscow, failures where Duke lost millions. This should be tied to the Provosts rather candid observation last May at the Academic Council, that Duke is expanding its graduate level degrees as a means of turning a profit.
-- Combine this with a 35 percent drop in Fuqua's sales of corporate education, revealed for the first time but buried in the Chronicle story and of course not analyzed in any way, we have a major financial crisis in Fuqua.
The first question Fact Finder would have asked Dean Sheppard: how many professors are you going to lay-off. Not janitors, not tinkering with thermostats set higher in summer and lower in winter, not fewer telephones -- but a real stab into the cost structure.
At least we learn one fact from the Chronicle that my own researcher could not dig out: the London start to this MBA experience is in a hotel. (We were quite amused at the way -- and the depth --of the dodging by Fuqua School's deans and other administrators. This is Fact Checker, on your side. We are not Osama bin Laden).
The hotel: four stars by the London Bridge, which, as anyone familiar with the British capital can tell you, is in a remote location inconveniently separated from the historical, cultural and business heart of the city.
The London hotel is bad enough as a campus, but we have no location at all set up in some of the other five international cities that MBA students who go to in rotation. How many, we are left to guess.
But that's OK, because Chronicle readers are never told a dirty secret previously revealed by Fact Checker: in 16 months, students will only be in the five international cities and Durham a total of 60 days. The rest of the time -- six to eight weeks between each city -- is something Fuqua calls "distance learning," something my father called "homework."
Do the math: 60 days in the Duke experience is costing $2,000 a day, plus travel expenses.
Story suggestion #1 - The Chronicle should develop a story on Duke Immerse, soon to rise as a cousin to Duke Engage for undergraduates.
Suggestion 2: the Chronicle should read The Yale Daily News profile of its freshmen. Compare, please, to the whitewash and pap we got from Dean Guttentag and the Duke news office.
Suggestion 3: this weekend the Yale Daily News had a comprehensive report about gift giving, including figures for the 2008-2009 academic year. If Yale's accountants can get their numbers together for the fiscal year ending June 30 by September 1 and make the tepid results available to students, parents, faculty, staff and alumni, The Chronicle should be asking some rather stiff questions of Dr Trask as to why he can't keep up.
Finally on the reporting side of the Chronicle, there is too much reliance on phone calls or e-mail to the Vice President for PR, Michael Schoenfeld. He is very available, responding even to Fact Checker immediately in most cases. But that's the lazy way to report.
Schoenfeld is not a primary source; there is more authority to be derived from people actually making decisions and executing policy than from someone charged with filtering the news. You never know what you will discover in a sit-down interview, or by regularly reading Fact Checker.
A friend suggests perhaps I was thinking of Larry Moneta, the vice president for student life. No, I assured, I do not think about L-Mo very much at all, and when I do, it can be rabid. This semester he's in Croatia, studying what services the universities in that country provide to their students. You know, things like janitors on the weekends to clean up puke in dorm bathrooms.
This is true. Not even Fact Checker can make this stuff up. Studying student life in Croatia.
My rage comes from the cost. Moneta's on a Fulbright Scholarship. Translation: paid by our federal tax dollars. And I have not been able to confirm if he's also on sabbatical, which would mean Duke is piling on $117,000 plus fringe benefits for the semester at a time of severe budget crunch.
-0-
But I digress. The points I want to make today start with accuracy and corrections, and grow into the vision the Chronicle has for itself -- the kind of discussion the paper tries to present about other entities from time to time, but never offers about itself.
Last week's big story about the new mandate for all university employees to report any sexual assault was very important, given the dimensions of the campus problem. It properly was reported in substantial detail. But I sat up when I read a quote attributed to Ada Gregory, director of the Women's Center, said to be talking about undergraduate men:
"The higher IQ, the more manipulative they are, the more cunning they are... imagine the sex offenders we have here at Duke-cream of the crop.."
Ms. Gregory wrote the Chronicle immediately, saying this quote "was neither accurate in the context of our conversation nor did it reflect my views, and could in fact harm our efforts to address the problem of sexual misconduct." Her letter got printed.
If this quote was wrong, it is a major journalistic failure. Far worse than calling Mike Pressler by another first name. It wrong, deserves a correction, not merely a letter.
Enter the Chronicle editorial board:
"It is unfortunate that when the policy was announced, the focus of the conversation was not on the policy itself, but rather on comments made by Women's Center Director Ada Gregory.....
"...Gregory's comments introduced the issue in a manner offensive to Duke men, ultimately creating a poor perception of the new policy and a biased environment for enforcement. Although Gregory has said her remarks were taken out of context, the response they generated still shows that demonizing or talking down to men is not going to improve the situation, and it only alienates a key stakeholder in reducing sexual assault."
As a reader, Fact Checker is left scratching: is the Chronicle repeating the quote? Is it standing by the quote?
Why is the only response to Ms. Gregory via the Editorial Board. Remember, please, how it is drilled into us that the board is totally independent from the news gathering operation that either made a mistake or did not.
Readers of the paper deserve more than a muddle.
-0-
They also deserve a far more intelligent editorial page.
I start with the columns. Conflict of interest disclosure: Fact Checker would like to write one!
With the singular exception of the summer-time interview with President Brodhead's musing on whether he'd like to return to teaching someday, there is little if any evidence that any columnist did all of the following: picked a local subject of importance, did substantial research and interviews, got quotes from people on campus, and produced a think-piece worthy of a newspaper at a Top Ten university.
Translation: I am tired of reading travelogues masquerading as columns: "Hi mom!! Guess where I am. People all different from us. Look different. Talk different. Helping them get clean water. Will be home on schedule whether the job is done here or not. Whew!!"
As for the editorials, many are on piddling issues. There is no broad sweep: not a single substantial comment (other than the loss of 7 janitors and the administration's stupidity for letting dorm bathrooms fester all day Saturday and Sunday) about the University's fiscal crisis, threatening current activities and shaking our vision for the future.
Little example: the University tinkered with thermostats, making them higher in summer, lower in winter. Did anyone interview students or employees to see how this may have affected them in the heat and humidity of the summer? Did anyone buy a thermometer and walk into President Brodhead's office, or Executive Vice President Trask's office, and announce they were going to check whether they were experiencing the same environment as the rest of us? Editorialize, praise them or scorch them.
That's what a newspaper does. That's it's job.
On a higher plane, our biggest donor, The Duke Endowment, is curtailing contributions, apparently by 25 percent, a development the Chronicle finds to be unworthy of either story or comment. The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, smaller but a lifeline for the arts and catalyst for many projects that cannot obtain other funding, also cuts back. Silence from the Chronicle, no news, no comment.
The editors should read other campus papers. Where was the commentary when term limits forced the retirement of a most controversial chair of our Trustees, Bob "Wachovia" Steel? It's hard to believe the Harvard Crimson or Yale Daily News or Princetonian would not explore this with great depth. (Hang on Dukies, relief is on the way: Fact Checker is working on this one)
What about other issues raised by Fact Checker: Fuqua's new partnership with an Arab Sheikh who presides over the kidnapping of little boys from other nations to serve as slaves in his camel racing camps. 50,000 boys, one of the biggest slave-traders in human history. Well, i did not mean to imply this guy is human.
This too is true, for you cannot make this stuff up.
And now it's time for Fact Checker to address the news pages.
Unfortunately, the newspaper offers only a limited selection of campus news, and pages and pages ares filled with material from The Washington Post and similar sources. Now the Post's a solid newspaper, but you can read a more comprehensive version on line, and maybe even fish out a copy of the printed edition. Besides, there are many sources for news about Afghanistan and the fires in California and the Obama health plan, but precious few about Duke.
In the stories it does undertake, the newspaper is not accurate enough nor probative enough.
Back to Pressler and his lawsuit victory. The Chronicle headline in print and on-line said "Judge OK's Pressler's Slander Suit.:" Sorry, it was a three judge appeals panel whose unanimous opinion demolished the university position. Far different from a singular judge.
Also, the Chronicle identified the basis of Pressler's suit as alleged violation of the settlement agreement he reached with Duke after being fired. Sorry, but the coach's lawyers dropped this part of their lawsuit, a maneuver important enough to the potential outcome to be duly noted in the Herald-Sun, News and Observer, and Associated Press. Given the information that Fact Checker has about Chronicle deadlines, the reporter had plenty of time to digest the two newspaper and one wire service variants.
If we eliminate the erroneous, outdated, we find the Chronicle never stated the remaining basis for Pressler's lawsuit, leaving us wondering if the newspaper has even a rudimentary understanding of what is going on.
Unlike Fact Checker who corrected and apologized for missing Pressler's first name, the Chronicle is silent about its errors.
And by the way, Fact Checker has reported on the outrageous lacrosse defense legal bills that Duke is paying; Fact Checker provided that information to the Chronicle three months before using it, and the Chronicle suppressed it. There are substantial questions on whether the University properly is spending so much ($2 million in 12 months to one law firm alone) or if the money is only to try to bury the deeds of officials.
If you add up all the bills for the lacrosse hoax to date, Fact Checker believes we have surpassed $100 million. And counting. Where is the Chronicle tally?
Whew. We now come to the word probative, taking last Thursday's story celebrating the opening of Fuqua in London, first stop on the new Cross-Continent MBA program.
Yes celebrating. "With blue and white balloons bobbing against the backdrop of the River Thames, the coming out party went off without a hitch....." My friends, that's a lead worthy of a student trying to butter a dean for admission next year.
From top to bottom, this story is rich with stronger lead paragraphs.
-- Anticipating 180 students but drawing only 120, the reporter let the dean of Fuqua explain the world economy is to blame -- when in fact the timing indicates he set the goal knowing full well about the economic meltdown. No one asked how many applied, what the acceptance rate was, what the yield is (the percentage of those admitted who actually show up). There are also rumors that should have been dealt with, about whether Fuqua bent the Duke standard to capture as many students as it did.
-- Equally important, the students are far less diverse than anticipated, robbing the program of its intended flavor: exposure to various business cultures and contacts with students who will emerge as business leaders in their homelands in the decades ahead. Sounds like a lead to Fact Finder.
-- With 120 students, the 16 month program -- costing $115,000 this year and $120,000 for students who start next year -- will bring in approximately $5 million less than anticipated this year. That's a calculation the Chronicle did not make, nor did it interpret how more and more the venture smacks of our earlier forays into Frankfurt and Moscow, failures where Duke lost millions. This should be tied to the Provosts rather candid observation last May at the Academic Council, that Duke is expanding its graduate level degrees as a means of turning a profit.
-- Combine this with a 35 percent drop in Fuqua's sales of corporate education, revealed for the first time but buried in the Chronicle story and of course not analyzed in any way, we have a major financial crisis in Fuqua.
The first question Fact Finder would have asked Dean Sheppard: how many professors are you going to lay-off. Not janitors, not tinkering with thermostats set higher in summer and lower in winter, not fewer telephones -- but a real stab into the cost structure.
At least we learn one fact from the Chronicle that my own researcher could not dig out: the London start to this MBA experience is in a hotel. (We were quite amused at the way -- and the depth --of the dodging by Fuqua School's deans and other administrators. This is Fact Checker, on your side. We are not Osama bin Laden).
The hotel: four stars by the London Bridge, which, as anyone familiar with the British capital can tell you, is in a remote location inconveniently separated from the historical, cultural and business heart of the city.
The London hotel is bad enough as a campus, but we have no location at all set up in some of the other five international cities that MBA students who go to in rotation. How many, we are left to guess.
But that's OK, because Chronicle readers are never told a dirty secret previously revealed by Fact Checker: in 16 months, students will only be in the five international cities and Durham a total of 60 days. The rest of the time -- six to eight weeks between each city -- is something Fuqua calls "distance learning," something my father called "homework."
Do the math: 60 days in the Duke experience is costing $2,000 a day, plus travel expenses.
Story suggestion #1 - The Chronicle should develop a story on Duke Immerse, soon to rise as a cousin to Duke Engage for undergraduates.
Suggestion 2: the Chronicle should read The Yale Daily News profile of its freshmen. Compare, please, to the whitewash and pap we got from Dean Guttentag and the Duke news office.
Suggestion 3: this weekend the Yale Daily News had a comprehensive report about gift giving, including figures for the 2008-2009 academic year. If Yale's accountants can get their numbers together for the fiscal year ending June 30 by September 1 and make the tepid results available to students, parents, faculty, staff and alumni, The Chronicle should be asking some rather stiff questions of Dr Trask as to why he can't keep up.
Finally on the reporting side of the Chronicle, there is too much reliance on phone calls or e-mail to the Vice President for PR, Michael Schoenfeld. He is very available, responding even to Fact Checker immediately in most cases. But that's the lazy way to report.
Schoenfeld is not a primary source; there is more authority to be derived from people actually making decisions and executing policy than from someone charged with filtering the news. You never know what you will discover in a sit-down interview, or by regularly reading Fact Checker.
9/02/2009
9/01/2009
9/1/2009 Duke partners with slave trader -- little boys
Fact Checker - more Fuqua news
posted 9/01/09 @ 2:39 AM EST
And now more Fuqua news from Fact Checker.
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Duke, Dubai and deviants
This summer, Frank Lombard, associate director of Duke's Center for Health Policy, was arrested on federal charges stemming from his pimping his five year old adopted black son to another pervert. Unfortunately for Lombard, the other guy was a weasel, already facing pedophile charges and trying to gain favor with the feds by ratting on others.
If you are repulsed, fellow Dukies, read on. Because Fact Checker has learned that Lombard's internet sales operation was kid stuff -- if you will pardon the expression -- compared to the activities of the Arab sheikh in Dubai that Duke has just partnered with.
This is part of Fuqua's new International MBA program, and Fact Finder will address this venture directly in another post. But for now, we look at the man involved.
As Duke's PR office announced, the Fuqua School reached an agreement "under the patronage" of the Crown Prince, Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid al Maktoum, the important Dubai ruler who quite possibly will be the next leader of the entire region, the United Arab Emirates.
Many of Duke's students in the new international MBA will spend their Dubai rotation (there are also four other cities) at a school the Sheik founded and modestly named for himself, the Mohammad Bin Rashid Programme for Leadership Development. No feminists or other infidels need apply.
So Mohammad's name will appear alongside the names Fuqua and Duke through out the world. Perhaps even on Masters Degrees themselves.
Fellow Dukies, tell Fact Checker if you are comfortable getting into bed with this dude, posting a diploma with his name at your desk:
When he is not busy raping oil money from his nation (2008 Forbes Magazine estimate, personal wealth, $18 billion) or tending to his senior wife, his junior wife, eight sons and eleven daughters, Mohammad is involved in racing. He has a vast empire of stables for breeding and training as well as his own competitive tracks, making him the big kahuna in this sport.
No, no, not horses.
Camels. Thousands of camels.
And when you have herd after herd of camels, they need lots of care. Hiring Arabs can get expensive, so Mohammad has joined with his brother to resolve this pesky issue:
Members of their tribe, acting on Mohammad's personal command, Allah Akbar, go into other countries to kidnap young boys. Places like Bangladesh and Pakistan. The tribesmen pose as a parent to clear the boys through borders, then bring them to the stables deep in the Dubai desert where they become slaves.
The lucky boy-slaves (aged 2 to 12) only serve the animals, bringing feed and water, carting their waste, exercising them and learning to be jockeys. Those less lucky are also turned into sex slaves for the pleasure of the humps in charge.
TENS OF THOUSANDS of young boys have been kidnapped. In the name of the man whose name may well now be engraved on Duke diplomas. The man Duke has partnered with.
Fact Checker gets this information from a 2005 report from the U S State Department on international sex and slave trade:
"The children... work long hours in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit, live in unsanitary conditions, receive little food, and are deprived of sleep so that they do not gain weight and increase the load on the camels they race.
"They are trained and kept under the watchful eyes of handlers, who employ abusive control tactics, including threats and beatings. Some are reportedly abused sexually. Many have been seriously injured and some have been trampled to death by camels."
Trampled? Yes, you see in Mohammad's races, the jockeys are often so young they do not know enough to hang on to their saddles, so the boys have to be bound in place. Sometimes a knot gets loose, leaving the poor boy dangling by one restraint, in which case he falls under the camel, between its galloping four legs, meeting death as the hoofs alternate between stomping the sand and stomping the boy.
Dukies, as surely as Mohammad's name joins those of Fuqua and Duke, be advised there is more.
Mohammad's personal thugs also force hormones on the boys. That's to keep their voices from changing as they grow older. You see camels respond best to high pitched screams.
When the boys get too old, you know, 13, they are dumped. Sold on the international market just like barrels of petroleum.
More from the U S State Department report: Mohammad is "one of the most active participants" in world slave trade.
His name, Fuqua and Duke. Perhaps even on our diplomas!!
Human rights activists say as many as 30,000 boys from South Asia and Africa have been victimized in "one of the greatest humanitarian crimes of the last 50 years."
Mohammad and his band "robbed parents of their children and boys of their childhoods, their futures and sometimes their lives, for the craven purposes of entertainment and financial gain."
Some lucky boys have escaped with help from UNICEF. They go to repatriation centers, get $10 US in cash and a bike.
Comfortable with our bed-mate? How about if a decision is made, as it was in Singapore, to issue a joint degree. Stare at that diploma, Dukies!!! Duke, Fuqua and the Mohammad Bin Rashid Programme for Leadership Development. Signed: Richard Brodhead
So to Dean Shepperd (no pun intended, shepherd, got it?) of Fuqua, faculty at the business school and some fa ultyfrom the Sanford School too, and Dick Brodhead:
When you are in Dubai luxuriating on one of the Palm Islands cut from the Gulf, checking into the lavish Burj Al Arab hotel or gaping upward at the Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world, please remember the other dimension of your host.
If you get the opportunity meet the Sheik, will you bow? Will you shake his hand? Will you accept the kind invitation to the camel races?
Or will your stomach turn at Duke's latest international partner.
Thank you for reading Fact Checker!
-------------
Duke, Dubai and deviants
This summer, Frank Lombard, associate director of Duke's Center for Health Policy, was arrested on federal charges stemming from his pimping his five year old adopted black son to another pervert. Unfortunately for Lombard, the other guy was a weasel, already facing pedophile charges and trying to gain favor with the feds by ratting on others.
If you are repulsed, fellow Dukies, read on. Because Fact Checker has learned that Lombard's internet sales operation was kid stuff -- if you will pardon the expression -- compared to the activities of the Arab sheikh in Dubai that Duke has just partnered with.
This is part of Fuqua's new International MBA program, and Fact Finder will address this venture directly in another post. But for now, we look at the man involved.
As Duke's PR office announced, the Fuqua School reached an agreement "under the patronage" of the Crown Prince, Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid al Maktoum, the important Dubai ruler who quite possibly will be the next leader of the entire region, the United Arab Emirates.
Many of Duke's students in the new international MBA will spend their Dubai rotation (there are also four other cities) at a school the Sheik founded and modestly named for himself, the Mohammad Bin Rashid Programme for Leadership Development. No feminists or other infidels need apply.
So Mohammad's name will appear alongside the names Fuqua and Duke through out the world. Perhaps even on Masters Degrees themselves.
Fellow Dukies, tell Fact Checker if you are comfortable getting into bed with this dude, posting a diploma with his name at your desk:
When he is not busy raping oil money from his nation (2008 Forbes Magazine estimate, personal wealth, $18 billion) or tending to his senior wife, his junior wife, eight sons and eleven daughters, Mohammad is involved in racing. He has a vast empire of stables for breeding and training as well as his own competitive tracks, making him the big kahuna in this sport.
No, no, not horses.
Camels. Thousands of camels.
And when you have herd after herd of camels, they need lots of care. Hiring Arabs can get expensive, so Mohammad has joined with his brother to resolve this pesky issue:
Members of their tribe, acting on Mohammad's personal command, Allah Akbar, go into other countries to kidnap young boys. Places like Bangladesh and Pakistan. The tribesmen pose as a parent to clear the boys through borders, then bring them to the stables deep in the Dubai desert where they become slaves.
The lucky boy-slaves (aged 2 to 12) only serve the animals, bringing feed and water, carting their waste, exercising them and learning to be jockeys. Those less lucky are also turned into sex slaves for the pleasure of the humps in charge.
TENS OF THOUSANDS of young boys have been kidnapped. In the name of the man whose name may well now be engraved on Duke diplomas. The man Duke has partnered with.
Fact Checker gets this information from a 2005 report from the U S State Department on international sex and slave trade:
"The children... work long hours in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit, live in unsanitary conditions, receive little food, and are deprived of sleep so that they do not gain weight and increase the load on the camels they race.
"They are trained and kept under the watchful eyes of handlers, who employ abusive control tactics, including threats and beatings. Some are reportedly abused sexually. Many have been seriously injured and some have been trampled to death by camels."
Trampled? Yes, you see in Mohammad's races, the jockeys are often so young they do not know enough to hang on to their saddles, so the boys have to be bound in place. Sometimes a knot gets loose, leaving the poor boy dangling by one restraint, in which case he falls under the camel, between its galloping four legs, meeting death as the hoofs alternate between stomping the sand and stomping the boy.
Dukies, as surely as Mohammad's name joins those of Fuqua and Duke, be advised there is more.
Mohammad's personal thugs also force hormones on the boys. That's to keep their voices from changing as they grow older. You see camels respond best to high pitched screams.
When the boys get too old, you know, 13, they are dumped. Sold on the international market just like barrels of petroleum.
More from the U S State Department report: Mohammad is "one of the most active participants" in world slave trade.
His name, Fuqua and Duke. Perhaps even on our diplomas!!
Human rights activists say as many as 30,000 boys from South Asia and Africa have been victimized in "one of the greatest humanitarian crimes of the last 50 years."
Mohammad and his band "robbed parents of their children and boys of their childhoods, their futures and sometimes their lives, for the craven purposes of entertainment and financial gain."
Some lucky boys have escaped with help from UNICEF. They go to repatriation centers, get $10 US in cash and a bike.
Comfortable with our bed-mate? How about if a decision is made, as it was in Singapore, to issue a joint degree. Stare at that diploma, Dukies!!! Duke, Fuqua and the Mohammad Bin Rashid Programme for Leadership Development. Signed: Richard Brodhead
So to Dean Shepperd (no pun intended, shepherd, got it?) of Fuqua, faculty at the business school and some fa ultyfrom the Sanford School too, and Dick Brodhead:
When you are in Dubai luxuriating on one of the Palm Islands cut from the Gulf, checking into the lavish Burj Al Arab hotel or gaping upward at the Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world, please remember the other dimension of your host.
If you get the opportunity meet the Sheik, will you bow? Will you shake his hand? Will you accept the kind invitation to the camel races?
Or will your stomach turn at Duke's latest international partner.
Thank you for reading Fact Checker!
Fact Checker Aug 31 - New Brodhead contract
Fact checker
posted 8/31/09 @ 3:45 AM EST
For those of you who expected to read NEWS in the Chronicle, rather than an account of last week's music, Fact Checker does not disappoint.
==============
Fact Checker has learned that at its June 19, 2009 meeting, the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees approved a five year extension of President Brodhead's contract.
This action, its timing and the failure of the Trustees and Administration to publicly announce this... all raise intriguing questions that must be addressed.
As you may recall Brodhead arrived in the summer of 2004, his five year contract publicly announced.
First: why wasn't the president's renewal on the same timetable as all other officers -- that is, after the three year evaluation, renewed during the fourth year?
Why did Brodhead have to wait until the very end of his five years?
Examples of other renewals:
Chancellor Dzau arrived at the same time as Brodhead. After Dzau had a three year review, the normal pattern was followed -- and on April 15, 2008 (note 2008) Duke made official announcement during his 4th year of a new five year contract extension.
The same pattern was followed for Provost Lange. In fact the April 15, 2008 announcement included a 3rd five year term for him beginning in September 2009; the careful reader will recall that he had moved up from chair of the political science department to Provost in 1999.
We know from the exultant reaction of Chair Steel that Brodhead's review went off on schedule and also was pleasing to Steel.
Why did it take another one year and two months for Trustees to renew Brodhead, someone who arrived at Duke and began his five year term on precisely the same day as Dzau?
Was Brodhead reluctant to commit? Was Duke???
There is more to think about.
Brodhead's recent discussion with a Chronicle columnist (one of the few good columns in more than a year dealing a campus topic and involving an actual interview and actual quotes with a local newsmaker) toyed with the idea of a return to teaching. At 62, he is the precise age as President Nan Keohane was when she announced her resignation, effective one year later, to return to full academic life.
Second, while a year ago neither Brodhead nor Duke could have realized the following scenario, it does come into play:
Consider a major fund-raising campaign. Brodhead -- born 1947 -- is 62 or 63. Because of the economy, the big boom campaign contemplated for the Brodhead years (the Financial Aid Initiative was merely a placeholder) will have to be delayed at least three years or so from now before public launch.
And the campaign will be huge -- maybe $4 billion? -- and require at least five years on the public stage.
Add it up. That makes Brodhead suddenly 71 years old, in an very demanding position leading a campaign, a position he cannot in good conscience abandon in mid-stream, with little prime time left for academic life after he leaves the Presidency. Is this the scenario he wants?
Lastly Fact Checker wonders why the Executive Committee handled this renewal? While the By-Laws do give the Exec Committee full powers of the Trustees between quarterly meetings of the full board, as a courtesy a job like this should be filled by vote of every Trustee, perhaps at the plenary Commencement meeting less than a month earlier. That was the pattern for other top officers (See Chancellor Dzau, Provost Lange discussed above).
Thank you for reading, supporting and thinking about Fact Checker.
==============
Fact Checker has learned that at its June 19, 2009 meeting, the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees approved a five year extension of President Brodhead's contract.
This action, its timing and the failure of the Trustees and Administration to publicly announce this... all raise intriguing questions that must be addressed.
As you may recall Brodhead arrived in the summer of 2004, his five year contract publicly announced.
First: why wasn't the president's renewal on the same timetable as all other officers -- that is, after the three year evaluation, renewed during the fourth year?
Why did Brodhead have to wait until the very end of his five years?
Examples of other renewals:
Chancellor Dzau arrived at the same time as Brodhead. After Dzau had a three year review, the normal pattern was followed -- and on April 15, 2008 (note 2008) Duke made official announcement during his 4th year of a new five year contract extension.
The same pattern was followed for Provost Lange. In fact the April 15, 2008 announcement included a 3rd five year term for him beginning in September 2009; the careful reader will recall that he had moved up from chair of the political science department to Provost in 1999.
We know from the exultant reaction of Chair Steel that Brodhead's review went off on schedule and also was pleasing to Steel.
Why did it take another one year and two months for Trustees to renew Brodhead, someone who arrived at Duke and began his five year term on precisely the same day as Dzau?
Was Brodhead reluctant to commit? Was Duke???
There is more to think about.
Brodhead's recent discussion with a Chronicle columnist (one of the few good columns in more than a year dealing a campus topic and involving an actual interview and actual quotes with a local newsmaker) toyed with the idea of a return to teaching. At 62, he is the precise age as President Nan Keohane was when she announced her resignation, effective one year later, to return to full academic life.
Second, while a year ago neither Brodhead nor Duke could have realized the following scenario, it does come into play:
Consider a major fund-raising campaign. Brodhead -- born 1947 -- is 62 or 63. Because of the economy, the big boom campaign contemplated for the Brodhead years (the Financial Aid Initiative was merely a placeholder) will have to be delayed at least three years or so from now before public launch.
And the campaign will be huge -- maybe $4 billion? -- and require at least five years on the public stage.
Add it up. That makes Brodhead suddenly 71 years old, in an very demanding position leading a campaign, a position he cannot in good conscience abandon in mid-stream, with little prime time left for academic life after he leaves the Presidency. Is this the scenario he wants?
Lastly Fact Checker wonders why the Executive Committee handled this renewal? While the By-Laws do give the Exec Committee full powers of the Trustees between quarterly meetings of the full board, as a courtesy a job like this should be filled by vote of every Trustee, perhaps at the plenary Commencement meeting less than a month earlier. That was the pattern for other top officers (See Chancellor Dzau, Provost Lange discussed above).
Thank you for reading, supporting and thinking about Fact Checker.
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So Mike Pressler has won another round and can proceed in open court with his slander lawsuit against Duke University and its now retired mouthpiece, John Burness. This is the case best recalled by a comment from one of North Carolina's most distinguished judges, who was narrowly defeated for election to the state Supreme Court. In a preliminary hearing, the judge asked aloud how anyone could be so stupid, to make the slanderous comments about Pressler that Burness did in an interview with the Long Island, New York newspaper Newsday.
Stupid, the judge's word.
Burness, a savvy operator with a good reputation who negotiated most of the shoals of the lies from prostitute and prosecutor very well, who kept the news lid on faculty (the 88) misconduct remarkably, knew what he had stepped in very quickly. Shortly after the original interview, he contacted the newspaper anew, which added his spin to its website. But few people saw this retraction; indeed those in Burness's own office who post news stories about Duke on-line each day used the original printed version despite a warning from an avid reader. Thus Duke itself carelessly spread the libel.
Here is what Duke fears: Presssler's lawsuit will pry open the veil of secrecy that the Brodhead administration has woven around the lacrosse case, protecting itself and its officials from several lawsuits. Pressler's very able lawyers will take depositions from President Brodhead and former trustee chair Bob "Wachovia" Steel among others, and then use these depositions to try to trip someone up on the witness stand. Probably before a jury. And one revelation will follow another. In this lawsuit. In others.
Less than an hour after the appeals court decision Tuesday, Duke's current mouthpiece, the ubiquitous Michael Schoenfeld had prepared a written reply. He used PR words, but here is what he meant: Duke would continue to spend millions to fight Pressler and other lax plaintiffs, screw the fact that our budget is tight and must be reduced because of losses in our endowment. Screw too that the university is acting like a used car salesman caught tampering with the odometer, squiggling any way it can to escape the mess of its own making, the concept of justice be damned.
Fact Checker will now provide the first light into Duke's immense legal defense costs in all the litigation -- facts and source offered to the Chronicle which has shamefully failed to publish them. These are from the 2007-08 school year, outdated now but they are the latest; they are also from a time before the various lawsuits heated up into more costly phases.
One law firm, which has changed its name repeatedly but we'll use Wilmer Hale, billed Duke $1,966,288 for fees alone, in this one year alone. I believe there are extra costs beyond this, like secretarial help, xerox copies, phone calls, filing of documents.
Duke is using Wilmer Hale partner Jamie Gorelick, a controversial political operative who bills in the range of $800 to $1,000 an hour at this 1,100 lawyer firm headquartered in Washington. Gorelick was Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton administration, moving over to be the extraordinarily well paid vice chair of Fannie Mae. She famously pronounced this mortgage giant which continues to teeter to be "managed safely" and could not have been more wrong.
It's a mystery why Duke retained her or Wilmer Hale, for its website reveals no expertise in matters that Fact Checker sees in the various lax lawsuits. Perhaps the connection was made through its work for Boston Scientific Corp, headed by Duke's former trustee chair Peter Nicholas. Or perhaps through Morgan Stanley, headed by Duke trustee John Mack. Or perhaps we saw sterling work for other Wilmer Hale clients: The Wall Street criminal Ivan Boesky. The polluting, homophobic Enron. Several Swiss banks accused of profiting from the Holocaust. And, oh yes, defending the crown jewels of German industry, electronics giant Siemens AG and heavy weapons maker Krupp AG accused of forcing Jews to work as slaves during the Nazi era. Welcome aboard new clients Brodhead and Bob "Wachovia" Steel. Enjoy your company in the waiting room.
Beyond Wilmer Hale, other lawyers are lapping up Duke gravy too. Our total bill for lawyers in the 2007-08 academic year was $17,040,989. Three years earlier, before the lacrosse hoax, the total was $4,316,301. No other part of the University budget has exploded so fast, thank goodness.
To illustrate how long this feeding trough will remain open, remember please that Pressler won a decision in April, 2008, for a regular trial and not arbitration. That's 18 months of delay by appeal on this one motion alone -- and Duke plans to appeal again.
Not long ago, Fact Finder discussed the Holocaust with an elderly neighbor. Why, she was asked, should we keep its memory so alive and keep digging into its depravity. Her reply was simple: "We must know."
Her words cut deep.
While not wanting to be accused of equating the hoax with the Holocaust, Fact Finder believes there is an imperative at Duke too. For example: in what was surely one of the most difficult and courageous moments of his years at Duke, President Brodhead, a lifelong educator committed to fostering growth of young people, apologized for his failure, that is, for the way the University had treated (better word: abandoned) its students in their hour of great need.
It was a partial apology: no mention of the firing of Pressler, nor the university's false official statement that he had quit, walking away from his team.
A partial apology. Brodhead did not explain why, for example, he refused at a key moment an urgent plea for a meeting made by the parents of three students facing false indictment and 30 years in jail. What was going through Brodhead's head when he said no, what were his reasons?
We also must know what our board chairman thought. He after all, stood by silently listening to Brodhead read his apology, never issuing his own nor one on behalf of the Trustees whom Steel had once said signed off on every move and supported Brodhead.
After Duke gave up lying about Pressler's having quit, Steel was the cut-throat who said the coach had to be run out of Duke despite his distinguished record, in order to clear the decks. Why didn't we extend this logic: Brodhead and Steel himself would be gone.
Further, we are entitled to resolve the question of why the lacrosse season was canceled just as the team stood on the brink of a national championship. Brodhead said the team was in physical danger, finessing the source of the danger which was black racial hotheads in Durham egged on by 88 members of our own faculty. But Steel, in what surely is a low point of his years as chair, told The New Yorker a conflicting story, that he had to end the lacrosse season because letting the players go on was bad PR. What an admission: our chair is not seeking the high moral ground or setting justice as his goal, but merely tinkering with image.
We must remember too, one of the most serious allegations against Steel. Unproven, Fact Finder must stress. Did Steel really think the best course for Duke University was to have Dave, Collin and Reade convicted, leaving them only an appeal to salvage their lives and avoid 30 years in jail. If this proves to be true, it is dastardly.
The unfinished business of the lacrosse hoax also includes fulfillment of a Brodhead promise. He said he would convene a national conference of colleges and universities, to explore how they treated students charged with crimes and how Duke's system might be changed. Fact Finder can only assume Duke's lawyers told Brodhead to cool it, lest he uncover and confirm aspects that augur against Duke. Pressed on this issue 14 months ago, Burness exploded.
Fact Finder sees a new mandate in the new academic year, repeated 1,730 times: freshmen join all other students in being subjected to a judicial system that our president admits needs repair. A system that does not treat them fairly, nor with dignity, nor with protection of their rights.
Thank you for reading Fact Finder today.
To the buffoons who always ask what my son's lax number is: I have no connection whatsoever with lacrosse or anyone who plays it. If I did, I would be proud.