2-8-2010 Tom Clark, openly gay Trustee and alumni president

Just a sidebar on Tom Clark.
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Aside from a reference in a Chronicle column on September 1, 2008, there was never any coverage in the campus newspaper of his trailblazing achievement.

Clark '69, a varsity swimmer, got through Duke even though the Dean of Undergraduate Men was carrying out a personal pogrom against gays at the time. How's this for a quote from the Dean: "There are two things we can't have around here: thieves and homosexuals."

Clark rose through the ranks of alumni to become President of the Alumni Association. Openly gay, he brought his partner of 30 years to official events.

He was a Trustee of the University, under provision of the by-laws making the alumni president an ex officio observing member and then voting member. Since trustees operate behind closed doors, there is no way of knowing what posture Clark took on any issue -- and it is reassuring to know from today's letter that he may have been watchful for gay interests.

In his professional life, Clark rose to be a division president in one of the world's largest financial institutions, US Trust. He is now retired.

I did not want the mention of his name in a Chronicle letter to go without impact. ✔That's what Fact Checker is all about.

2-8-2010 Congress debates student aid; where is Dick Brodhead

Fact Checker here.
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It would be interesting to find out if Duke University is lobbying for this legislation, or if it lobbied for other bills within the past two years critical to the financial support of college students.

The Fact Checker Records show that President Brodhead has lobbied personally in Washington -- and held a news conference there -- to gain more federal research dollars for scientific faculty.

How about students?

More recently, he went a day and a half in Washington chasing diverse contacts. This did include a discussion of the GI bill that helps veterans go to college after military careers.

Was there any focus on the broader issue?
Was there leadership at all?
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With respect to Pell grants, there is a new study suggesting that the education industry (like Duke University) is the real beneficiary, not students who need help. The tentative conclusion is that Pell grants are enabling round after round of tuition increases, leaving students no better off.

This possibility deserves more exploration.
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2/4/2010 Student shot, others robbed

Thurs 2-4-2010 editorial / Fact Checker post
Sorry if this post is out of order in my archive.

✔This editorial leaves too many unanswered questions.

On Friday evening when Vice President Moneta sent out an e-mail to everyone about the weather, when did he discover that the e-mail was not transmitted. What did he do next?

Within 24 hours, there was a very serious crime: a student was shot twice while he and two others were robbed just off East Campus. Two thugs, the one who did not fire brandished a knife.

Again, Duke officials sent out an e-mail. And it failed.

Moreover, as the editorial notes ..."in recent weeks, multiple e-mails sent by Moneta have not been properly delivered to students."

So what did he do about it?

Chronicle, you should be hammering for answers and be able to give readers a precise report on what is being done to remedy this state of affairs. It did not develop this weekend; it is weeks old.

It does not suffice to soft pedal this as you did, saying "Whether the e-mail mix-ups have been caused by human error or the messages have mysteriously been lost in the tubes of the Internet, the University needs to find out what went wrong and fix it."

Mix-ups? Is that the strongest word you can find?

This newspaper is charged with a greater responsibility: to get off its ass, to get on their tails, to find out specifically what is being done and to assure us when this will be rectified.
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2/5/2010 Financial meltdown; Faculty retirement incentive

Fellow Dukies, good day.
Fact Checker here.
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Every time I have read a story on the faculty retirement incentive, administrators have had a new excuse why they cannot provide details. The latest is that while the deadline for applying is past, professors can still flip-flop and decide to stay after all.

Chronicle, thank you for staying atop this.

Administrators, we deserve more transparency and you will face accountability.

It is my understanding that professors are not part of the university retirement plan. I say understanding because Tallman Trask will not respond to inquiries from Deputy Fact Checkers.

Rather than augmenting university pensions as provided in earlier staff retirement incentives, Fact Checker believes Duke is giving professors money directly to add to their own shrunken IRA's. In effect our university is becoming the insurer and guarantor of investment decisions and screw ups.

Moreover, given the pay scale of senior faculty there could be big money involved. Here are statistics from the American Association of University Professors for nine month contracts in the 2008-2009 academic year.

Full professors excluding Medical School

Male $163,600
Female $152,400

Surely our provost knows the total amount of money involved across the university. Surely he can provide some examples, including the high and the low amounts, and average amounts, offered to each professor. He can leave out names; I am not interested in who is reaping the benefits, I want to know about the decision of the Trustees and Brodhead Administration.

Mr Brodhead has scheduled one of his rare appearances on campus in the coming weeks, to discuss with employees -- finally in person -- the fiscal crisis. Maybe someone can ask him -- in writing in advance of course -- for details about the faculty retirement incentive. And we can all hope that this question makes it through the screeners who are filtering out the hard hitting questions for this event.

One analysis that you can count on from Fact Checker: are higher paid employees being given a proportionately bigger incentive. Is the faculty incentive in line with that given to housekeepers and dining hall workers, campus cops and groundskeepers. In other words is our fiscal crisis being played out on the back of our poorest employees, individuals and families least able to take the brunt.

I fear so. I shall find out the truth.

If all this were not so serious, I would be laughing at Mr. Lange. He says the purpose is of incentives for senior faculty to retire is faculty renewal, because otherwise you get stale. That maxim apparently does not apply to our chief academic officer, the 2nd longest serving top administrator.

Have a nice weekend and GO DUKE!

2/5/2010 New dorm continued, Keohane Quad K4

7 AM to 7 PM Seven days a week.

While top administrators responsible for this fiasco duck, poor old Joe Gonzalez is sent out to explain. He does not even have authority to give the community newspaper the plans.

Fact Checker is just shaking his head.

What is the big rush on this. Why isn't this disruption being scheduled for this summer?

Who was consulted on this decision -- like all the others? How did Duke decide Dorm K4 is our #1 priority. How did we decide that the proportion of singles will be doubled? Was this the result of student input? If so, when, whom. What other ideas were expressed. What other options were heard.

7 AM seven days a week. Is this the result of input of students living in Keohane, Few and Edens who want to contribute to a greater Duke by having bulldozers and jackhammers jar them awake at 7 AM every day? Right on!!!!

The biggest joke is that this entire dorm is designed to create interaction among students. You bump by accident into someone at the front door and the intellectual waves start to roll. This idea, by the way, was conceived and honed by administrators who sit isolated in Allen Building, reached through a hall that students are barred from. No running into those people face to face by accident.

✔The more I learn of this project, the more I just shake my head.

2/3/2010 Young Trustee

✔You listed Adult Trustees Dan Blue, John J. Mack, Richard Wagoner, even Xiqing Gao.

I will tell you what they all have in common: we are totally in the dark of what they stand for, how they vote, even if they bother to attend meetings. I have never even read anything they wrote or heard them speak about Duke. They are products of a self-perpetuating board, either appointed to fill out a term or subjected to a phony "election" for a full term carried out by either the Alumni Association or Methodist Church. Some election -- one candidate for each seat is nominated.

On the other hand, Chelsea Goldstein, John Harpham or Zachary Perret are standing before us, letting us know their thoughts and going forth in a competitive election.

The key issue in my mind is this: opening up the Trustees. As candidate Adrienne Clough for Graduate Trustee has laudably done, each should pledge to work toward transparency. For me that is posting the agenda, reporting every vote and providing the complete minutes, preliminary in opening the Trustee meetings.

Fellow Dukies, this is your only opportunity to vote for a Trustee. Savor it.

✔ Good day from Fact Checker.

2/3/2010 More, new dorm for Keohane Quad K4

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Here's Fact Checker's idea now that we have our first numbers on the cost of this. 150 beds. $20 million. Not counting the land of course which we already own.

That's $133,333 per bed. Why don't we forget the dorm and put up $500,000 houses for four students. We'd save bundle and the students would love it!!!!
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OK Fellow Dukies, let's get serious. The numbers do not add up.

Let's start with a room in an old dorm. Duke just about breaks even -- using the numbers it provides for auxiliary services like housing in the annual financial report. Your housing fees must cover electric, heat, air conditioning, snow removal, painting, buying mattresses, housekeeping, routine maintenance, landscaping. There are a lot of expenses, and we are not even able to salt anything away for capital improvements, like those urgently needed in Crowell and Craven Quads.

Let's look at the new K4 dorm. In addition to all those expenses, we're being told that the housing fees will also pay the interest for this building.

Let's see. $20 million, borrowed at 4 percent, which is my estimate based upon the latest Duke bonds sold, divided by 150 people living there, works out to $5,333 Let's figure this out together. Let's assume we are able to borrow the money at 4 percent interest. Each bed will be responsible for $5,333 a year in interest.

Even assume we can get 2 percent money, a half priced loan! That's $2,666 in interest cost to be paid from housing fees for each bed.

There money is just not there! But as always, Fact Checker is open to listening. Explain for me how this is going to be financed.

The careful reader will notice that so far Fact Checker has only talked about paying the interest. Because Duke is not going to be paying back anything year by year on the principal. It's not like a mortgage on a private home or condo.

This means that in 50 years, we will have a tired old dorm in need of a total makeover -- and we will still owe the $20 million borrowed in 2010 to put it up. Crazy.

Associate Dean Gonzalez says K4 will pay for itself. Hey everybody, there's a free lunch in Keohane Quadrangle!!

As the student government president said in relation to another issue, "no way in hell."

If we can put up Keohane4 and it will pay for itself, why don't we put up all the dorms for Central Campus and celebrate!!!

And answer one other question. We're starting work on the site / foundation. Noise, dust, disruption. Hey everybody, it's 7 AM, time to get up.

Suppose the Trustees wake up at their meeting late in February and vote no. No, we are not going to proceed with this folly. We will leave the Quad a mess? C'mon fellow Dukies.

As they say in politics, "the fix is in," and the board will merely rubber stamp what the administration wants. After all, the trustees owe their seats to the administration, having been hand picked because they are lemmings. The Board of Lemmings.

✔Let us move on to the twin issues of consultation with stakeholders on planning for this dorm.

Today's Chronicle report provides no information on how K4 dorm became construction priority #1. Who had input, when, what ideas were considered from other than administrators, what other options were on the table?

And this article announces a meeting tonight at 9 PM to answer student concerns and questions. Thanks for the advance notice, fella.

And don't think tonight's meeting is a substitute for full transparency and accountability. There is still a need for Nowicki and Company to put forth complete documentation of all input from students and other stakeholders. When were meetings held? Who attended. What ideas were expressed. And most importantly what ideas were accepted.

The bulldozers may start to move the dirt around Keohane Quad very soon. But I am not going to be bulldozed into silence on these issues. Trust Fact Checker!
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2/2/2010 New dorm in Keohane Quad K4 continued

Fact Checker here. You knew I'd be writing about that editorial, and indeed I want to comment on several aspects.

✔FINANCING
The editorial board assures us the revenue stream from housing fees will pay for this project. Fact Checker doesn't believe that for one minute.

Let's look at existing housing, where there is no outstanding debt. Just about all the housing payments are eaten up by current services, like housekeeping, current costs like heat, air conditioning and electric, and routine maintenance like painting and buying new mattresses. We do not salt money away to cover major renovations, like the one that Few went through, and Crowell and Craven need so urgently.

The editorial tells us that rents from the K4 dorm will not only pay for the above, but they will be enough to pay the interest on the loan we will take out to build this folly. Prove it. Give me the numbers.

Specifics. Numbers. Make the case with real facts.

We'll be able to pay the interest? Ain't going to happen.

I notice too that the editorial does not use the B-word. Borrow. We are going to add to our already burgeoning debt… right now it totals $2,547,000,000. Yes that's right. That's BILLION. Another B-word.

We are going to Burden the annual Budget with more interest payments, which in the last year alone jumped 20 percent. Imagine what will happen when the economy recovers and interest rates start to rise, because much of our borrowing has been with floating rates.

Moreover, I would like to point out that we will only be paying the current interest on K4. Unlike a mortgage on your house, where you reduce the principal every year, at the end of 40 years we'll have an outdated dorm PLUS we'll owe everything that it cost back in the year 2010. The only hope of future Dukies will be to refinance, at the mercy of whatever bankers are charging at the time.

Here is just one illustration of the debt that we are giving to future Dukies. It's called the Series B 2006 bonds. We got $128,435,000 and we are paying interest rates between 4.3 percent and 5 percent until the year 2042. In the year 2042, Duke needs $128,435,000 lump sum to pay back the loan -- and guess what -- we have no idea in hell and no plan at all on where to get that money.

Finally, let me ask if this new dorm will pay for itself, how come we don't put up new dorms all over campus, including Central. What folly!!

✔STUDENT INPUT
Yes, we are told, the administration did not deal with stakeholders specifically on this dorm, we had a place at the table for planning in the past couple of years. Planning that had to be put aside because of the financial meltdown.

When all construction was put on hold because of the financial meltdown, who then decided this project was priority #1. List for me the students that participated in that discussion. The faculty. The alumni. Who made this decision? Be specific. What meeting, what date, what input? What other options were considered?

And then there is the matter the actual plans for the dorm.

The bottom line is this: Dean Nowicki appeared before the Campus Council on October 8 to enthusiastically tell students their participation was welcome. Seven weeks later, Tallman Trask let it be known that the architect was almost done.

On October 9, the Chronicle quoted Alex Reese, vice president, Campus Council: “I hope to see Campus Council and a wide variety of students involved in discussions about which living style are most amenable.”

List for me the people who participated in those discussions. List for me the ideas that they presented that were incorporated. Loyal readers, Fact Checker is not happy today.

✔DUKE GETS INTO THE HOUSING BUSINESS
If all this were not so serious, I would be amused by the thought that Duke needs this dorm to test what living arrangements should be like for undergraduates. As if Duke and other universities did not already have a clue.

✔Finally, if the Brodhead administration made us aware of its plans, if it made those plans with proper participation by stakeholders, you might even find Fact Checker supporting the boys in Allen Building.

That day has not arrived, so enjoy this one. Thanks for reading Fact Checker. ✔

2/1/2010 Electing Young Trustee; Chair Dan Blue writes Chronicle

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This is a very unusual and very welcome letter, a direct communication from the chair of our Trustees to stakeholders in Duke University.

When our previous chair, Bob Steel, used this device to try to explain his bungling of the lacrosse hoax, the head of our PR operation said it was the first instance he could remember of the chair's reaching out to everyone. And now a second broad message. Fact Checker can only hope that Dan Blue expands on the practice.

I must admit though that the substance of Mr. Blue's letter today troubles me.

Mr. Blue gives tacit approval to a public debate on the positions of the candidates on issues in Duke's governance, and for everyone's having a vote. Perhaps he could explain his endorsement of this process, while at the same time acquiring his own Trusteeship and then the board chair in secret.

As a matter of fact under Mr . Blue's leadership, the secrecy has reached its zenith: the Trustees recently selected two new members for partial terms, to fill out terms of people leaving the board, and no one will tell us who was picked. We have to wait until they actually take office July 1.

This is merely one instance of the board's operating as if the rest of us were Taliban. What reason in hell could support this policy?

There is an additional step in the selection of full term adult Trustees. Under the by-laws, rather than selection being finalized by the Trustees themselves, candidates are nominated clandestinely, to use a charitable term, with the current Trustees -- after careful vetting by the administration -- putting forth one name to fill each vacancy. Then the real charade: 12 of the candidates are "elected" by the leadership of the Alumni Association and 24 are "elected" by the North Carolina Methodist Church. I cannot fathom why the Church in particular tolerates this falsehood.

Does anyone know what Dan Blue stands for? What is his position on any issue confronting Duke University? Has he ever stood before us in competition with other candidates to tell us why he is better? Indeed, has anyone even heard him speak? In the coming weeks, the Trustees will decide whether to spend more of our endowment each year -- a decision that let us live beyond our current means at the expense of future generations. We learned this only by accident. If the Trustees go forward, it will have a great negative impact upon what we transmit to provide for the greatness of Duke in perpetuity. Where does Mr. Blue stand on this folly?

Mr. Blue also slips in the word "confidential" in describing the board, as if this were the norm. Sir, why is this necessary? Tell us about your counterparts at UNC, for example, who conduct their business in the sunlight. What would be lost if you were to do the same; I see a great deal to be gained. Please post the agenda, report on each vote taken and furnish us with the complete minutes, as steps toward fully open meetings.

In some respects, in my head, I compare the Trustees with the US Senate, both august bodies, deliberative, charged with advice and consent. This analysis collides with reality of course, because our democracy requires the US Senate to meet in public. This openness has helped build our nation and is a source of strength, rather than something to be feared.

I suggest current candidates for undergraduate Young Trustee be asked whether they will make a high priority to inform and persuade other board members of the need to come out of their closet. And that their answers be a key element in whether they gain your vote or not. I was pleased to see in this morning's Chronicle that one of the graduate and professional candidates for Young Trustee, Adrienne Clough, bases her campaign on transparency and accountability for all on the board.

Finally I call upon the leadership of the Alumni Association and the Methodist Church to "elect" as adult trustees only men and women committed to the principles I have outlined.

I am sorry that I find flaws with the substance of Mr. Blue's letter, as enthusiastic as I am about his very good judgment in writing.

✔Fact Checker thanks you for reading and wishes you a good day.

2/1/2010 Student shot, 2 others merely robbed

✔ Fact Checker here.

The late US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, sociologist at Harvard, MIT and Wesleyan, had a thought that is appropriate this morning.

He spoke of "defining deviancy downward." One article he wrote was entitled "How We've Become Accustomed to Alarming Levels of Crime and Destructive Behavior." He often talked of how, with increasing levels of violence, some crimes seemed normal and only extraordinary crimes brought great revulsion.

Just a year ago, when Durham on Duke violence such as this weekend's shooting and robbery occurred, the Chronicle would immediately post a bulletin.

Now we wait until Monday morning for a story, featuring Larry Moneta weighing in with an excuse that the e-mail system may not have functioned right to inform everyone immediately of great danger in our community. An e-mail required by federal law, by the way.

Chronicle, did you think to ask El-Mo how he discovered this breakdown and what he is doing to fix it. El-Mo, the first e-mail did not get out, did you try a second? (I seem to recall, and do not have time to do research now, that on an earlier crime the e-mail system also failed)

This weekend, we saw a very very serious crime. A student was shot twice. Yes with a BB gun, but a weapon that could blind him if it hit him in the eye, kill him if it hit him in the heart. We can only be grateful the wounds are in his leg. This time.

A student shot. And that doesn't even make the Chronicle's headline or lead paragraph which speak only of a robbery.

And I shall make another point, even though I am sure I will be attacked by the usual suspects who say I blame everything on Brodhead.

Where has he been during this violence. Not only this episode, but others. Has anyone heard our President speak? At the very least, he might say while the thugs did not kill anyone this time, "what they did do was bad enough."

Chronicle, you bear a particular responsibility this morning, on a campus that has recent memories of a graduate student killed, an undergraduate shot with a bullet and now a third student shot twice with a BB gun. Where is your investigation into Duke Police? To the best of my knowledge -- and I can be corrected -- this latest crime occurred precisely in an area that we were assured was going to get increased Duke Police presence.

I ask again: Chronicle have you checked on these increased patrols to determine if they even exist. Have you checked to determine where these extra cops are coming from, promised to the 9th avenue area, to the Trinity Park and Trinity Heights area, and most recently to Central Campus.

Have you inquired why we do not have decoy cops at work? And if we do, why we do not publicize this to scare the bastards away.

This is the job of a newspaper, not to assemble its staff and party on the third floor of Flowers Building.

Get out there and confront Mr Trask, who has direct responsibility for Duke Police: does he still believe we should reduce the number of fully trained, armed professional officers, in favor of cheaper security guards hired by the day from a private company.

✔Fact Checker is not happy.