[Alumni-chat] Ain't over till dat weight challenged lady sings

[t Sanford]

We do owe current students our support. By that I mean we should investigate opening up some of the money we have raised for the college to help students through their transition i.e. a travel stipend of $150 or something.

However, in absence of any news lets not agree that it is over and that the college will not be open next year. Many of the roadblocks they have raised are not issues at all OBR authorization for instance in place through 2010. Most of the faculty have not found new jobs and sadly, most will not find another job before fall 2008. I would propose that ACCC and the alumni should spend some of our money to stipend the faculty for a little while longer than August 2008.

If AC3 throws in the towel then we can honestly say we tried the cooperative route and then we can begin legal action, though it is easy to imagine that any legal action will ipso facto mean suspension for that next year if not longer.

The key to all of this is the financial implications for the University if the college is emancipated. Funny that a failing school may actually be the only thing keeping the University afloat (in terms of being able to claim the campus facilities as collateral (if they take loans for operations)  in terms of their own accreditation. It comes back to a refutation of what the Chancellor said at the McGregor commencement last summer:  "Can the University survive without the college? Yes it can. Can the college survive without the University? Why would it want to?" it seems then and now the chancellor has the configuration exactly backwards. If the University went away and the historic assets of the college, including the 90% of the endowment of the University designated for the college, the college would thrive given the revitalized support of the alumni.

That raises another fiscal point. If the college is emancipated the University must give the money in the endowment earmarked for the college, back to the donors or to the college. If they do that their whole financial universe starts to crumble. I imagine that they are trying to figure out a way to keep all the money and even have  us pay them something for their trouble. I would argue that if this is the only way to move forward, and we are assured by OIA that we can raise $100MM plus operating expenses then we should just pay the piper to go away. Easy for me to say I only have thousands invested in the revival fund, not millions.

 

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