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| Lafalum |
WEIS DIGS IN!!!!At a faculty meeting Weis states he will NOT cut faculty hires or salaries but will cut administrative staff and ATHLETICS. Word is this will be crippling cuts in the neighborhood of 10 pct this year and more for the next three years!! This is huge and may effect overall giving!!One confidential source told me they were trying to think of ways that giving to athletics could be "redirected" I know most on this board just want to talk about xs' and os but this is serious!! This could turn into a dispute that made the scholarship issue a minor dissagreement!! |
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| TheRock90 |
Time for a regime change. | ||||||
| carney2 |
Very discomforting news for this alumnus who finds the Athletic Department one of the few reliable ties left to alma mater. Is anyone thinking this through or is it just minus 10% across the board, regardless of the value of said athletic program to the College community? I say again, why does a school like Lafayette have/need 22 (my count) varsity athletic teams? That is an astounding 1 varsity team for every 110 students! And these are D-I programs, not student activities. To one degree or another, most of these athletes are selected and recruited. Other than the athletes themselves, what part of the College community is affected by the disbanding of fencing, or volleyball, or [fill in your favorite sacrificial lamb here]? Time for a reality check. Time to focus our limited resources on the activities that could make a difference to the quality of campus life, the enhancement of school spirit, and even the loosening of some wallets.
How exactly could they "redirect" funds given to the athletic programs? |
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| Lafalum |
By reducing the budget of a sport by the same amount given to a "Friends Organization" |
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| 2008pards |
How about this idea? How about the teams that have been reported to turn back money (didn't I read in another post that close to $700k is returned every year) in to the Athletic Department actually keep and use that money to help fund better student/athletes?
Even a 10% haircut would still leave some serious dollars available to be utilized by the various teams. I know it may sound pollyanna-ish but does anyone care our teams are getting their brains beaten on a fairly consistent basis in the PL in most, not all, but most sports? Is Bruce McCutcheon a pawn or a player in the Admin department and is that even fair to ask considering all AD's have to be accountable to the pointy heads in Admin and to some degree the BOT? When is enough enough? Who can go to Weis and/or the BOT and say "The football team is competitive as are the field hocket and men's soccer squads, but after that, we are lower tier in almost every other sport with no end in sight". And after that's said is there a collective yawn or are there passionate LC supporters in the room who really do care about the athletic as well as the academic reputation of the school? Can Jim Fisher, Fred Kirby or Jack Bourger change hearts and minds or is it a waste of time to even hope something can be done to reverse the slide into mediocrity and hopelessness? |
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| Lafalum |
The money returned is need based aid money. The 700 k you are talking about is the short fall if we were to go to football scholarships. In any case unused need based aid goes back to the college need based aid pool.
But you have point. As to pawn or player. I'm leaning pawn. |
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| carney2 |
Stating the obvious: Under this scenario there is virtually no incentive to contribute to the Maroon Club and/or any of the Friends organizations. and Once the contribution spicket is turned off, it will be very difficult to turn it back on. |
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| Lafalum |
[/quote]Stating the obvious:
Under this scenario there is virtually no incentive to contribute to the Maroon Club and/or any of the Friends organizations. and Once the contribution spicket is turned off, it will be very difficult to turn it back on.[/quote] Here's how they operate, by cutting the budget of athletics they hope they get the athletic donors to up their contributions to make athletics whole. Therefore those donors are actually giving to support Danny's diversity dean, her husband, the BMW's for Danny and his wife and 35 faculty positions which will be used to put the faculty on a 2/2 schedule ( teaching two courses a semester instead of the present 3/2). The bottom line for the consumer/parents and students is that class sizes remain the same, tuuition continues to rise, and athletics continures to limp along. The killer is THEY DON"T WANT ATHLETICS TO GO AWAY entirely because their donors will go away with them. That's why they will not cut the number of sports!! Following up with the last BOT meeting the budget never got to the full BOT. It was discoverd that many in the BOT were unhappy. Weis apparently joked "Well I guess we'll get it from athletics" The bottom line is, this leadership gave the running of the portfolio to one of their own, paid him 500,000 dollars a year through a subidiary ( Hollow Brook Assc) and he screwed up. They want someone or number of people to bail them out!! This is one angry alumnus |
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| Franks Tanks |
Weiss is turning into Rothkoph. This strategy and plan of action is virtually similar to his.
They want to cut athletics and chase out the fraternities. We are hiring a ton of profs and a worthless dean. When the dust settles we will still have a medicore ranking and crappy athletic teams. Oh and all students will be forced to live on campus insead of learning to live on their own in a frat or off campus house. |
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| carney2 |
It's a little early in the day to be making this kind of statement. Weiss did, after all, sign off on basketball scholarships, something that Rothkopf resisted to the last. Also, Weiss did not throw up any roadblocks when Fisher, Bourger, et al. ponied up the $$ for football. (I'm not sure that Rothkopf would have just let it happen, even though it did not involve "his" money.) Add to this the fact that Weiss is confronted with the worst economic situation since the Great Depression. After decades of using high tuition as a "plus" in the recruitment of students (an absolute fact), schools like Lafayette are, more and more, going to have to justify the prices they charge. President Dan is, I think, thrashing around, making it look like he is doing something - anything - for the moment. I'm not sure that he has many short-term options, but he deserves a little support until we get a better idea where all of this is headed. |
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| Franks Tanks |
We already have the smallest budget in the league. Yes we are the smallest school, but not much smaller than HC or Colgate. I agree with you Carney in regard to the number of sports we sponsor. Pick a few impactful sports such as Football, Soccer, Field Hockey, Basketball, Baseball and Lacrosse and be good at them. Also Lehigh and Bucknell have wrestling and Colgate and Holy Cross have Hockey. We have neither yet cant even fund our core sports properly. The whole thing has me rather put-off. |
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| TheTruth |
carney2 and FranksTank: You know Eve Atkinson proposed cutting sports to balance the budget. She got run out of town. Of course, she had other short comings such as a bad manager and royal b!
I agree that we need to decide what we want out of our athletic program. If they aren't going to add more dollars, then reduce the numer of sports so all our teams are competitive. Again, something does not feel right about the College. It's not just the athletic program. |
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| Lafalum |
The truth is Eve and Russo got fired by rothkopf because they leaked to the Morning Call that rothkopf and the BOT were thinking of dropping football/and or dropping to Div 3. Rothkopf was furious. She was a terrible manager but that was not rothkopf's motivation.
You are right, there is a drop in morale that you can feel. People at the college are pointing fingers, they don't see the shared sacrifice that is needed or expected institutionally. They point to protected programs and employees( an over bloated administration, the hiring of high paying superfulous deans, some pampered, undistinguished faculty), do we really need an intercollegiate fencing team, attacks on the fraternity system, high tuition in a bad economy, paying irrational amounts of money for an abandoned gas station, 10 mio dollars for third street, for what again, 240 mio evaporated into hedge fund purgatory by the originally unemployed friend of an ex BOT chairman who got paid 5 mio dollars over the last 10 years and he's still there,...... and I'm sure there is more. I don't put this at the feet of Weis entirely, but the leadership of this BOT has been awful, from the totally unnecssary divide over athletic scholarships, to the tuition hikes, culminating in the hedge fund disaster in the portfolio, this BOT deserves a place in Trustee Hell!! |
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| Franks Tanks |
But Steve Atkinson would have cut footall, baseball, and mens soccer to save money. Then would have proposed adding a woman's crew, wrestling and bowling team. |
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| TheTruth |
The truth is Eve and Russo got fired by rothkopf because they leaked to the Morning Call that rothkopf and the BOT were thinking of dropping football/and or dropping to Div 3. Rothkopf was furious. She was a terrible manager but that was not rothkopf's motivation.
lafalum: I know Art and Herm were pissed about the leak. I think they did the right thing in letting alumni know what was happening and paid the ocnsequences. thank you for confirming my suspicions. My suspicions were more antecdotal and communications I have had with folks on campus in the past month or so. |
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| carney2 |
This site is causing me sleepless nights. Up to a few years ago I thought that everything was beer and skittles as I operated under the "ignorance is bliss" rule. Now I toss and turn, thinking that the anti-Pard may be lurking under my bed. Is it "famiarity breeds contempt?" Not contempt. More like a well deserved skepticism. |
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| Andy |
Earning $500k/yr despite being responsible for $200 million in losses (rumored if not confirmed) is great work if you can find it. Are these losses in line with what other endowment funds have suffered? Has this gentleman offered his resignation?
For us non-insiders: Hollow Brook Assoc is described as "the investment office for the Lafayette College Endowment Fund." Hollow Brook was further described in April, 2008 as "an SEC registered investment advisor managing or advising investment assets of $1.2 billion." The Chairman has been acting as such since 1999, is a member of the class of '60, and is a Trustee Emeritus. |
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| TheTruth |
Many schools like Lafayette (small private liberal arts) suffered 25%-40% losses in their endowment. | ||||||
| Lafalum |
Not colgate (-20.1), not Bucknell(-20),F and M lost 33 pct. . We paid a guy millions to keep us out of trouble...a professional who made the same mistakes "everyone else did." Colgate, Bucknell and F and M actually provide a report on their endowment every six monts to their alumni. I missed that report in my mailbox. We refused to ansewer questions from reporters from the Philadelphia Inquirer several months ago unlike our peers. And due to our higher administrative costs and discount for aid we depend more on our endowment for annual fiscal support than many others.( about 28 pct according to published reports) |
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| Franks Tanks |
Good post-- the fact is that we seem to be more affected by this economic downturn than our peer schools. Why? Poor planning and leadership. -Our endowment has taken a larger hit -Our applications are down and acceptance rate is most likely way up-- not good. I wonder if Colgate has experienced this as severly. -We have a bloated administration that is getting larger -We will probably slip again in college rankings due to the above In somewhat unrealted news -Our athletic teams continue to suck big time overall and FB scholaships look like a no. Which may result in some uncertain times for the PL in football. In poor economic does in not make sense to maximize investment and get optimal return. Scholarships will do this FB but they probably wont happen. -Also they want to kick my frat and others off campus. The witchhunt has begun once again. I am pissed overall right now and dont really feel like giving money to the travesty. |
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| TheTruth |
Everything I had read and discussed with colleagues suggests everyones endowment was down at least 25%, with some more distinguished schools suffering more. I'm not as angry as you all are about the management of the endowment, although I understand why you are. My reason is everyone got sucked into this mess one way or another. it may have been a bad investment manager, bad advice on home purchases, supposed professions lying, greed, etc. Everyone was trying to maximize their investments and peopel who were suppose to know better were consumed with greed. Who knew this house of cards was built on such a poor foundation? If this was just an isolated case of Lafayette losing -xx% and everyone else was smelling like roses, then I would call for all Trustees to resign immediately. I'm upset by the other thiings you mention, lafalum, which is the lack of communication and ownership of the situation we are in. Weis needs to suspend his plan to expand the faculty until next year when things have stabilized and we know where we are financially. And stop kissing up to the faculty. The faculty is smart enough to understand this recession and the consequences. Heck their friends at other colleges are really suffering. Weiss has a very serious situation on his hand. The things Lafalum and others mentioned are troubling. His last letter did not instill any confidence that the College has a handle on this situation. keep us up to date as best you can Lafalum. |
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| Franks Tanks |
Whoops-- I tried to edit some of my grammar errors and messed up. carry on |
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| ericatbucknell |
it is not entirely clear that lafayette has taken a significantly larger hit that most of its peers. lots of numbers get thrown around here, but without context (namely, start and end dates), it is hard to make informed comparisons. total losses, losses since june 30, total losses through december 30, losses between june 30 and december 30... you get the idea. heck, to make things even more interesting some schools (like columbia) have released numbers that exlude losses from large swaths of non-marketable assets in their calculations! also, applications to colgate were down 17-18% this year, one of the largest drops among top schools in the country. reports have lehigh and villanova each down approximately 13% and bucknell down around 5%. does anyone have a number for lafayette? as far as usnews goes, lafayette likely will struggle a bit more than most of its peers. per capita spending measures, which ultimately comprise a huge chunk of a schools ranking, will take a larger hit as lafayette is more defendant on endowment revenue than most of its peers. admissions outcomes will be interesting to follow, however. will the strength schools merit aid program outweigh the effect of the greater number of cross-admits with peer institutions, a battle lafayette (for whatever reason) seems to lose? |
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| Franks Tanks |
http://media.www.thelaf.com/media...shtml?reffeature=htmlemailedition From the Lafayette online paper (not sure if you can open the link) it states that applicants were down and acceptance % up, but does not give any concrete numbers. It does state however that the profile of the average accpeted student has raised slighlty. We are still attracting the same students it appears, but perhaps less borderline applicants are applying. I completely understand nobody is immune to the economic conditions, but I am just worried we are managing the crisis worse than our peers. |
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| 65Pard |
QUOTE [lafayette is more dependant on endowment revenue than most of its peers. admissions outcomes will be interesting to follow)
If we are more dependent on endowment revenue, why not curtail the redistribution of wealth agenda and become more dependent on Tuition revenue?....There are plenty of people who have worked hard to be able to afford a quality education for their kids and admitting a few more of these kids to LC could be done without noticeably affecting admission standards. I believe that all things being equal, the admissions letter now goes to the "disadvantaged" kid rather than the one who can pay a greater share.....Is the latter somehow not deserving of a Lafayette education?? |
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| Lafalum |
Total applications were down 11-12 pct I understand, and we accepted a greater number of applicants, because we expect more not to matriculate. There is an expectation that we will use our wait list this year as we have not done in previous years. I would be surprised if the final matriculated class is as good as previous classes measured by the traditional metrics. We are shooting for a class of 620 vs last year's 600. That is understandable and makes clear sense. I would like to see us have larger classes. It makes us more efficient, covers a lot more fixed expenditure and allows for a more diverse academic offering without the individual cost burden on students and their parents. | ||||||
| cr |
Colgate suffered a 21% decline in the endowment as of 2/28/09. The Hollow Brook deal sure sounds like a conflict of interest on the surface of things. |
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| cr |
Yes Colgate applications were down and its acceptance rate was up. Further details na until June 1. |
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| cr |
Again Colgate claims the same thing,ie that the drop-off of applications is from the lower tier of applicants and the profile of the incoming class will not suffer. Time will tell. |
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| Andy |
I agree the lack of communication, if not downright secretive ways of this and past administrations, is troubling. Lafalum, Truth, Tanks, et al, the information you provide is important and appreciated. | ||||||
| Lafalum |
PLEASE EVERYONE read my post on cutting athletic related aid, scholarships, and squad sizes on the other thread!!!! | ||||||
| ranger |
Weis and this BOT are doing severe damage to our beloved college. We will not recognize it. It will soon be beyond repair.
Please Weis, Griffith, Ahart, Jenkins, Kuenstner resign. Do us all a favor, for the good of the college. All alumni should withhold general donations. Give to a Friends group where your contributions can be watched and allocated by dedicated alumni. |
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