In one previously undisclosed fight, Trinity College in Connecticut
is facing government scrutiny for its plan to spend part of a $9
million endowment from Wall Street investing legend Shelby Cullom Davis.
Trinity's Davis professor of business, Gerald Gunderson, says he
believed the plan, which would have funded scholarships for
international students, violated the wishes of the late Mr. Davis. He
alerted the Connecticut attorney general's office. Then, Mr. Gunderson
said in notes submitted to the agency, Trinity's president summoned him
to the school's cavernous Gothic conference room, where he called the
professor a "scoundrel" and threatened not to reappoint him.
Gunderson is a market-oriented economist; here is the full story.
The professor of business looks like he has an ulterior motive in picking a fight: In a return letter, Mr. Davis approved the professorship and activities Mr. Lockwood specified. But he rejected any other leeway. “It is my wish that the funds and income from the Endowment be used for the various purposes you have described…and for no other purposes.”
…
Mr. Gunderson, 68 years old, says he complained for years that the school was starving the program and had rejected his frequent requests to add another full-time professor and a business-executive-in-residence program. The letter from Mr. Lockwood provides for the creation of a single professorship, but it doesn’t explicitly rule out adding another.
Mr. Gunderson says he suspects that liberal academics at Trinity have blocked these plans and have little interest in Mr. Davis’s vision. Mr. Gunderson, who is treasurer of the free-market nonprofit Yankee Institute, says some professors opposed his position in the 1970s in an economics department whose courses often stressed the downside of capitalism. He notes that the school, like many others, has programs in Progressive American Social Movements and Women, Gender and Sexuality.
“They are undercutting not just my program,” he says. “They are undercutting my view of the world, too.”
Ronald Joyce, Trinity’s vice president for advancement, says the school is open to all political views and that it believes the terms of the original gift prevent adding another professor. “We’re complying with the letter and the intent of Mr. Davis’s ambitions,” he says.
I don’t see how “for no other purposes” possibly translates to “an additional professorship”.
So the professor couldn’t get his way, so when the school contacts the Davis family for permission to spend the money another way, he gets sours grapes and sics the AG on the college? What, there weren’t any other ways to make his point? I’d call him a scoundrel, too.
Ow, the blog software ate my <blockquote>. The bit from “In a return letter…” to “… he says.” is a quote from the WSJ article.
Except that the professor seems to be the one wanting to spend the money in the way that the donor wished, unlike the school.
It does seem like an odd response to declining giving– make it clear to potential donors that their wishes will not be respected.
I am with david’s line of thinking. Gunderson also wants to alter the original terms of the deal. Mr. Davis (the donor) may have wanted the professorship to last, and not to be used to pay 3 salaries during upswings in value, thereby increasing the chance that the endowment goes to zero. Also, the executive in residence that Gunderson wants sounds a lot like “other purposes” that Davis said no to. If he want to cry foul for not following donor intent, then he can’t himself suggest changes to the plan. If I was a judge, I would not allow either expansion, and if that became ridiculous, I would side with the family. Ultimately, this shows the problems inherent in indefinite endowments without clearly specified contingencies (here a contingency for too much endowment, relative to mandate).
As an American internationally-schooled recipient of two scholarships given out by his son, Shelby Davis, including one that is making it possible for me to attend Princeton, I have to speak out: There is a strong case to be made that this is exactly what his son, Shelby Davis would have wanted (although I don’t know why they did not call him).
Shelby Davis largest endowments (the largest educational endowments ever in the range of 50 million) were to my sister school, United World College USA. The United World Colleges are United World Colleges (UWC) are a group of twelve international schools. Founded during the Cold War, the United World College movement aims to promote understanding between different nations through education and through interaction between young people from different countries, living and working together. UWC selects students from around the globe at a pre-university level, based on merit, regardless of their financial status and ethnic, religious or educational background. A UWC Scholarship is highly prestigious as it gives the students a chance to develop a global and tolerant mind combined with strong academic skills.
I attend United World College in Mostar on a second endowed scholarship by Shelby Davis that provides 30000 Euro over two years.
Shelby Davis third largest endowment is the Davis Scholarship, which allows students (nearly all international, but some American) that have completed the United World College program with up to 20,000 (full need for Princeton, Wellesley, Colby, College of the Atlantic) a year to attend a University in the United States. It is no exaggeration to say that thousands of international students have benefited from this program (me too!).
Shelby Cullom Davis was quite conservative, and his son was not very different, one of his stated motivations for the Davis scholarships were to increase the US influence in the world by educating the next generation of international leaders in the United States (it seems mostly successful), although I’m sure he would not object to the cash being spent on feminist studies and the like (given that UWC’s themselves are very progressive (there are no European/American conservatives, but a few libertarians that practice religion-myself included). Anyway, beyond the amateur psychologizing, I know that Shelby Davis no longer manages the any of his funds/endowments by himself.
Also, I totally disagree that donor money will not fulfill its purpose for long (depending on how you define long); if its purpose is to sustain a firm with a set of values that is what it will be used for!
Shelby Cullom Davis passed away years ago. His accounts are now owned (but not managed) by his less conservative son, Shelby Davis; I assume he would have the say (as someone pointed out above) on how his father would have liked the endowment money to be spent.
His son’s three largest endowments have been made towards international education- it is very likely he is ambivalent or even favors this given his previous donations.
Hope that clears things up.
A sad day for Trinty – a sad future for all of higher education.
So the professor couldn’t get his way, so when the school contacts the Davis family for permission to spend the money another way, he gets sours grapes and sics the AG on the college? What, there weren’t any other ways to make his point? I’d call him a scoundrel, too.
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