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From reading the article, doesn't seem like UChicago was very interested in actually running the institute as much as sticking it with operating expenses and do

by dahdum 9y ago

From reading the article, doesn't seem like UChicago was very interested in actually running the institute as much as sticking it with operating expenses and doing the bare minimum. I'm sure more will come out - this will be an interesting lawsuit.

kei29ssj 9y ago
I got the opposite vibe. The Pearsons pledge $100 million to run an entire cutting edge research facility. Ok, sure. > In the suit, the Pearsons declared that they had lost all confidence that the University would be “an appropriate or capable steward of the Pearson Family legacy” as it had allegedly failed to fulfill several key contractual obligations that were agreed upon when the gift was made. For this paltry sum, do all this work and take my name into the next century. All for $100 million It’s a large amount for an individual. It’s peanuts for a mandate of “build a bleeding edge research org that will churn out ideas that take us into the next century.”
- cassieramen 9y ago
  If that is true, don't you think the university had a duty to communicate that? It seems like the u of Chicago promised them a first class institute and is not delivering. If that was never possible then it seems like a clear bad faith agreement.
- dahdum 9y ago
  For 22 million they did what exactly? Hired someone who didn’t want the job at the last minute to avoid legal issues, who hired junior professors for roles that were meant to be prestigious. Instead of hosting a conference, they attended a Catholic conference promoting traditional marriage.
- oh_sigh 9y ago
  It was the second largest donation in the school's history, and if it really was a paltry sum, UChi could have just rejected the donation, or at least rejected the donation if it came with any strings attached.
- prepend 9y ago
  It’s a public policy institute, not cancer research. That should have been a substantial endowment with perpetual time scale of $5-10M/year. Considering a tenure professor is $1-200k (with overhead to take care of building) and a world class conference is $500k-1M, this should be substantial. For comparison, the Harvard Kennedy school has a $1.2B endowment and has 500 faculty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_School_of_Government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_School_of_Gove...) so with $200M that could be 50-75 top notch professors.
  - kei29ssj 9y ago
    Haha look at you, defending rich people for free! Ok, yep those numbers add up to other numbers But let’s not pretend that tells the whole story. No one here was in those meetings.
tomkat0789 9y ago
Yep. In grad school, the university took like 50% of the funds for our project, probably to plug budget gaps. I agree with the first comment: "Relying on a university administration is generally not prudent. It is clear that the Family envisioned an effective "new business," in the spirit of a venture or a "start-up" and those kinds of projects take serious business execution. In my experience, the Pearson's complaint merely exposes the tip of the iceberg as far as what the donor "sausage machine" looks like in a major university. Lesson? Donors need to act more like active investors, despite the general hard resistance universities put up." They were expecting university administrators to provide "serious business execution".

by dahdum 9y ago

kei29ssj 9y ago

I got the opposite vibe. The Pearsons pledge $100 million to run an entire cutting edge research facility. Ok, sure. > In the suit, the Pearsons declared that they had lost all confidence that the University would be “an appropriate or capable steward of the Pearson Family legacy” as it had allegedly failed to fulfill several key contractual obligations that were agreed upon when the gift was made. For this paltry sum, do all this work and take my name into the next century. All for $100 million It’s a large amount for an individual. It’s peanuts for a mandate of “build a bleeding edge research org that will churn out ideas that take us into the next century.”

cassieramen 9y ago
If that is true, don't you think the university had a duty to communicate that? It seems like the u of Chicago promised them a first class institute and is not delivering. If that was never possible then it seems like a clear bad faith agreement.
dahdum 9y ago
For 22 million they did what exactly? Hired someone who didn’t want the job at the last minute to avoid legal issues, who hired junior professors for roles that were meant to be prestigious. Instead of hosting a conference, they attended a Catholic conference promoting traditional marriage.
oh_sigh 9y ago
It was the second largest donation in the school's history, and if it really was a paltry sum, UChi could have just rejected the donation, or at least rejected the donation if it came with any strings attached.
prepend 9y ago
It’s a public policy institute, not cancer research. That should have been a substantial endowment with perpetual time scale of $5-10M/year. Considering a tenure professor is $1-200k (with overhead to take care of building) and a world class conference is $500k-1M, this should be substantial. For comparison, the Harvard Kennedy school has a $1.2B endowment and has 500 faculty (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_School_of_Government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_School_of_Gove...) so with $200M that could be 50-75 top notch professors.
- kei29ssj 9y ago
  Haha look at you, defending rich people for free! Ok, yep those numbers add up to other numbers But let’s not pretend that tells the whole story. No one here was in those meetings.

tomkat0789 9y ago

Yep. In grad school, the university took like 50% of the funds for our project, probably to plug budget gaps. I agree with the first comment: "Relying on a university administration is generally not prudent. It is clear that the Family envisioned an effective "new business," in the spirit of a venture or a "start-up" and those kinds of projects take serious business execution. In my experience, the Pearson's complaint merely exposes the tip of the iceberg as far as what the donor "sausage machine" looks like in a major university. Lesson? Donors need to act more like active investors, despite the general hard resistance universities put up." They were expecting university administrators to provide "serious business execution".