Search words: Dr Anil Potti Duke University
Please scroll down to the next post as well. There are three vital posts today. The previous one, this one, the next.
The Chronicle skims through a lot of ground and leaves Fact Checker thirsting for more information at every turn:
POTTI
The man had multiple lies on his resume. Did Trustees discuss whether he should be fired outright?
Did the Trustees explore Mr. Brodhead's explanation of Potti's resume, that there are truths, lies and "intermediate explanations?" Did Trustees wonder about the message this sends about the honor code?
Potti had cancer patients being treated according to his "research." Does the board have any message for them? Has anyone sued for malpractice yet? And will their claims be expedited?
In addition to the investigation into Potti, our administration must be investigated. From the Cancer Letter: "When questions about Potti’s science emerged in scientific literature and in alarms sounded by internal critics, the Duke administration formed a protective barrier around the man they considered their star, forming committees that operated in secret, and then incorrectly portraying the findings of one of these committees as validation of Potti’s science." What steps are being taken to do this?
ENDOWMENT
Having spent more than a decade boasting about the ten year average return on our endowment -- and how it is better than other schools -- we now find our long term return well below our expectations. And this fact has not appeared in any press release, whereas the old ten year average was always in the fore.
Translation: Did the Trustees discuss the 7.45 percent (FC calculation, Trask may update) ten year return, when we budget based upon a sustained 8.5 percent return?
Did they discuss the coming loss of federal incentive funds?
BUDGET
Chronicle, you let Brodhead slip in a timetable for two more years of hardship. His original goal was for the last academic year, this year and next year. This is major, major slippage in the goal of a sustainable budget that you have NOT covered.
INTERNATIONAL
Chronicle, when Brodhead said there would be another full year of slippage in Kunshan, you let him slip that in too. This is major, major. What is his reason?
Coupled with our scraping together only half of the people our Dean "promised" for this year's Cross Continent MBA Program -- the signature of our international effort -- after last year's failure too, this would indicate to me a rocky start to say the least.
Fact Checker also calls upon Fuqua to release specifics on the academic qualifications of those who were admitted. There are a lot of rumors.
MEDICAL SCHOOL EXPANSION
The question for Dean Andrews is this: with this giant new facility, how come there are no plans to increase the number of MD students. While other schools -- particularly Fuqua and Law -- have multiplied, the medical school still turns out only 99 or 100 doctors year after year. Despite great need in the USA. A few more doctors and a lot less lip service about the need for medical equality around the world would be good too.
SECRECY
In rejecting the Chronicle's request for open meetings (presumably like the partially open meetings started in 1973 and in effect until precisely two years ago), Brodhead said Trustees must have confidentiality to speak out with vigor.
At the meeting this past weekend, please tell us:
A) Did any Trustee bring something to the floor that was not on the administration-sponsored agenda, and if so, what was it.
B) Give us some examples -- without names -- of the kind of comments made this weekend that needed confidentiality.
Fact Checker waits.
