Du to the petulance and punctuation, I’m guessing Suk2001 is not an adult and stopping by the Parents’Cafe for reasons unknown.
What were the reaction in NH?
Considering the funding problems and costs I imagine people aren’t happy and made it known.
(Think of what Notre Dame did with a several-million gift: established a scholarship and support program for lower income students. Think of what UT Dallas did with the gifts of the McDermott family. In fact, I can"t think of any university that treated a bequeath so callously, without even naming anything for the person who made them the gift.)
If only those of us that live in NH and work in Mass could send our kids to Mass schools for the in-state tuition rate! That would amazing.
I understand the desire for a state of the art scoreboard at UNH’s stadium, I just think that the money could have (and should have) been spent on education. Needs before wants.
We talk about college-related stuff here. We find it interesting.
Welcome to the CC forum. There are pamphlets over there on the table points to the table that describes the kinds of things we talk about here.
I think people are talking about it, whoever the poster was, because there is a sore point with many on the emphasis on college sports over academics, and how tone deaf that if kids in NH are coming out with a ton of debt because the school is so expensive (which is directly linked to lack of government subsidy) , they spend this on a scoreboard that likely is more an ego thing than anything else…and I think it is the attitude that riles people.
They could at least spend that money to pay their athletes snickers
According to this: https://www.unh.edu/institutional-research/sites/unh.edu.institutional-research/files/media/cds_2015-2016_5-17-16.pdf
UNH has about 13,000 undergrads. Rather than they scoreboard they could give each student about $80 for one year. Include the grad students and its about $65 for one year. No doubt every bit helps. But if kids are graduating with high debt loads, would that make much of a difference? Especially for just one year.
You don’t do it like that. You invest the money - say, one million - and you create scholarships that uses the earned interest. And you name the scholarship for the generous donor. (I am still aghast it didn’t occur to UNH to acknowledge the librarian’s generosity by anything else than a plaque on a bench.)
Another way to do it is by investing in infrastructure, or in hiring professors and creating grad student lines so that service classes (the gen eds all undergrads take) can be smaller and more personal.
You can also use it to bargain with the State: that science building we desperately need because ours is so outdated? We use the gift for it, but in exchange you offer better funding and state aid.
And what state would this be?
I’m referring to this
http://governor.nh.gov/media/news/2016/pr-2016-09-16-unh-scoreboard.htm
Assuming a 10% annual return, you can reduce the 4 year cost for each undergrad by about $30. Lets make it 20% return and we can reduce the 4 year cost of attendance by about $62.
How many professors are you hiring with $1 million and for how long?
As a noted many posts ago, the scoreboard may well be an investment in infrastructure. If they include ads as part of the sign (like you see in pro, college and high school stadiums across the country), the ad revenue may well be higher than any return you could ever get on the investing the funds for scholarships. And if the football team/athletic department do not make a profit (would be surprised if they do because so few schools do), that ad revenue would free up tuition money for education.
Its interesting because the administration of the school certainly has a better idea of the schools budgets, needs, etc. and the relationship that exists with the NH state legislature in terms of potential funding for state schools than pretty much everyone here. But folks here are convinced they know better how the money should have been spent.
What’s your point though? If administrations have better ideas of school budget and needs why do they pay themselves insanely large 6 figure sums while raising tuition huge amounts? Just because they have the knowledge doesn’t mean they’re properly applying it.
You don’t make scholarships for ALL students. You create a named scholarship for a small number (20 a year, for example). And you make the program grow as the investment grows.
UNH has been asking and asking for money for their science center. Do you think they’re more likely to get what they want now? (They have a nice EOS center that gets external funding.)
Is there any indication revenue from ads linked to the scoreboards will be used in any way for instructional needs or academic facilities?
(For the record, they’re almost dead last in their conference - and we’re not talking SEC or B1G here, but a conference that includes Elon, Towson, UDel, James Madison, URichmond, or William&Mary.)
How do you justify not honoring the person who gave 4 million with anything more eloquent than a plaque on a bench?
The administration may have had a very good reason for spending it on a million dollar scoreboard (the ability to charge for advertising in the future is a good example), but they did a HORRIBLE job of explaining that to the public IF that’s really the case.
Yeah. we know, people running the show always know best, we can see that with the heads of Mylen Pharmaceutical and Wells Fargo…
No, using the million dollars as an endowment wouldn’t generate a lot, though the interest on that million dollar endowment could help some kids with a scholarship, for example, let’s say a kid studying library science (since the donor was a librarian)…or it could have been used as the seed to start a new fund to build up an endowment for scholarships, or to build a new science building.
Could the scoreboard be used for advertising? Sure, but it is also likely that any ad revenue from the scoreboard would go right back into the sports program, that is the SOP at almost any school with a football program, revenues generated around it go right back into the program. The fund that is renovating the stadium makes it pretty clear that they see a renovated stadium (presumably including the scoreboard) as something to ‘show off’ like ‘other landmarks on the campus’, which indicates how they see a sports stadium, as prestigious or whatnot. Which raises the question, is spending the money on the scoreboard about serving the interests of the students, or is it about inflating the go of those running the place and its board of trustees?
As far as people’s right to comment on this, of course they have the right, we are talking about something many already are talking about, whether spending money on sports like this, when the money could be used for academic things, a smart thing to do, especially given that UNH football is the minor leagues, to say the least, and isn’t likely to bring much prestige to the school shrug.
Yep. The ad revenue would probably end up right back in the sports program, and it’s not like they would even use it to pay their athletes lol!
Administration may well have made a bad decision. We do not have sufficient info to make that determination. And in reality, it will take time to determine whether it was a good decision. May be extremely difficult to determine because between now and x years down the road, the university will make a whole host of decisions which will be at least somewhat related to the scoreboard decision making it difficult to determine cause and effect. Plus there may be subsequent events which make the decision a bad one which were not known (and could not be foreseen) at the time the decision was made.
But given a choice between going with what people with the most info decided (the administration) and a group of people online with next to no info decided (most people on this board, in the media, etc.), I will go with the people with more info. Its not uncommon to see decisions that are made which on their face or with a lack of info look like bad decisions prove to be good decisions. Happens in business all the time. And like it or not colleges are businesses. Big businesses.
My point in terms of the scholarships is the impact on the student population as a whole. If school grads have debt issues presumably its not 20 kids (which represents about 0.15% of the total undergrad population). And if you want to start giving scholarships today, the corpus gets smaller right out of the gate and thus your base for future scholarships is reduced. You could wait a year to begin scholarships to produce income. But my 10% annual return is purposefully way too high. Assets would need to be invested very conservatively to avoid dipping into corpus when market dives (unless you want to tell kids who were expecting scholarships they will be reduced or eliminated until the market recovers). 3% return would provide $1500 per year to 20 kids (assuming you waited a year). If you are looking to grow the scholarship, you cannot distribute all returns so $1500 is too much. Seems unlikely returns will keep up with the increases in tuition so over time the significance of the scholarships to the lucky few will decline.
I don’t know what the prospects are for more funding for a science center. Governor’s statement is almost certainly laced with politics. Good way to distract from reduced state funding for colleges by pointing to “waste” by the UNH of other funds. May well be private dollars for funding the science center (give money for that and we will give you a spot on the scoreboard ads for 5-10 years ;)). It may also be the case that the university doesn’t actually need a new science center. Or maybe what they are seeking to build/add doesn’t make sense, could be smaller, more targeted, etc. Again people with a lot more info than I have are making those decisions.
Likely the UNH athletic department operates at a deficit. Like a whole host of other colleges, they likely charge some type of fees to cover those losses. If ads on the scoreboard reduce those losses, the fees can be reduced (which would decrease CoA for students) or repurposed for educational purposes.
Every conference has teams that are dead last. Should they end their athletic programs? Entire conferences/leagues are big money losers. Should all of them end their athletic programs?
No idea what the proper recognition should be for donating $4 million to the university. Would want to look at how other donors of comparable amounts (and higher and lower amounts) have been recognized. May also be the case that the donor requested minimal recognition. Not everyone who gives money away has a big ego and expects big time recognition. Some people are quite happy to be anonymous. Not sure about the donor’s views here.
@LucieTheLakie I agree that the administration has not done a great job explaining it to the public. Though is the public really clamoring for an explanation? I know there are a handful of people here who want to know the justification. The governor put out a press release (but as noted above likely political which in an of itself doesn’t justify a response). A couple news people have written about it. Is that enough? I don’t know. The university apparently doesn’t think so. And if it gets to the point where the university believes a response is necessary presumably it will provide one. May even change its mind. Or admit it made a mistake. We shall see. And sometimes public pressure can force changes away from policies/decisions that actually made sense/were justified. Just that from a PR perspective, it can’t be defended/explained and its better to make the change.
@musicprnt I never said that people with the most info make perfect decisions or are always right. Just that they have a lot better odds than people with a lot less info.
@saillakeerie, my opinions are based on nothing beyond being someone who reads the newspaper, has an interest in issues related to public education, and has spent 30+ years in the world of nonprofit development. Trust me, I am well aware that the best laid plans frequently go afoul, and not necessarily because the original use of the gift was wrongheaded. But whenever you do anything even remotely controversial in a university setting, where you are practically guaranteed to have competing interests (alumni, students, parents, faculty, the local community etc.), you need to be prepared to address those criticisms. All of them. And the ones that never come, frankly. It’s just basic due diligence to prepare, prepare, prepare and to have your “case” well drafted and vetted. Sorry, but I’m not seeing anything with this announcement that suggests any such thing.
There are a handful of football teams that do plow money back into other athletic programs and even some that help support academic programs (my kid is the beneficiary of one so I know they exist). And schools with successful football teams tend to make their alumni happy, who turn around and give more to the annual fund. Even THEN, those schools will receive heaps of criticism for “misplaced priorities.” All you can do is be proactive explaining the priorities and then correct those critiques that are ill informed.
Recognition is a separate issue. Four million dollars is not really a big gift at the university level, so nobody is going to be renaming the library for the donor, and it may very well be that he didn’t want his gift made a fuss over. That information should have been stated in his will if it was important to him one way or the other. And the university’s administration should have been prepared to address that.
There are two distinct issues here. One is the analysis that went into the decision about the use of the funds. That would include financial info, plans, etc. Presumably there were discussions about the use of the donated funds as part of discussions about funding needs for various projects on campus. Uses for the scoreboard/athletic facility and other uses (library, science center, etc.). May well have been disagreements along the way (and even in the final decision but whoever had the authority to make the decision made it). I agree that decisions should be made on a rational basis and justified. But I don’t believe you are suggesting that the university should make all of that info public right out of the gate with the announcement. The second issue is what you tell the public in your announcement.
We may well just have different experiences. I have advised clients for 25+ years on disclosure matters. Most for profit but several non-profits. In my experience, you say no more than you need to say (or want to say from a PR perspective). If you say more than you need to you may well find yourself answering questions (or worse with something of a fire storm) that would not have existed had you limited what you said to what you needed to say.
That the university hasn’t (to my knowledge) provided any further detail/rationale for the decision to use the donated funds doesn’t necessarily mean they do not have any. May well be the case that they do not believe at this point they need to provide further detail/rationale. Numerous decisions are announced by various institutions/organizations each and every day. In almost all instances there is at least one person who wants more info about the reasons behind it. But it doesn’t make any sense to disclose more simply because a small group of info may want more. At some point, the quest for more info does become and issue and at that point, typically more disclosure is made. Often times though its not clear when you have crossed that line. And interestingly, often disclosures are made more for PR interests than truth/accuracy (so stated reasons many times are shaded/spun).
Overlaying all of this in terms of disclosure is the freedom of info act. That may well require disclosure of more info than what the university may believe is necessary to disclose. But not sure the use of $1 million of donated funds will rise to the level of enough people caring to get the info. Does the president of the university or anyone on the board have any political enemies? If so, may lead to a request which otherwise wouldn’t get much interest.
He’s dead, and honoring him won’t cause him to give any more money. He’s apparently not from a rich family.