Thursday, May 03, 2007

Funny quote in the DE today - SIU's search

I am out of town, but a friend brought this to my attention. The DE has a piece on the latest Chancellor candidate. The funny part from the DE's article -
Ford said one of the main factors that attracted the committee to Gupta was his success at raising money.

While dean at the University of Washington from 1999 to 2004, Gupta more than tripled the money raised by the School of Business. The school raised roughly $20 million in the five fiscal years before his arrival, and about $62 million during Gupta's tenure, according to the school's Department of External Relations.
As many of you know, there is a little company in Seattle area called Microsoft and the stock options were running pretty good in the late 90's. The estimate is there are between 25,000 and 35,000 Microsoft stock option millionaires. Then you have the 2000 to 3000 high tech companies that were created in the 90's in the Seattle area, including mine.

It would be interesting to know why anyone thinks that you wouldn't have fund raising go up 100%+ at UW in that time frame. I wonder how the other colleges did in comparison.

We know already that he will not be able to double SIU giving and it is just silly to think he can.

From the search committee head Susan Ford -
"One of the concerns is always, 'Well, if you're in a business school in southern California, it may be easier to tap a variety of wealthy markets than sitting in southern Illinois,' but he has developed a series of connections and skills and abilities, and it's our sense that they will translate well here," she said.
You kind of wonder if the people doing the recruiting understand what is going on at SIU or if they are willing to throw out happy BS, even if it isn't true.

I have no idea if this candidate is any good, but why are SIU spoke persons putting quotes like this out for the press? Maybe the secret hiring of Glenn Poshard was better?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have given to SIU in the past including funds to endow a scholorship. That was in the past and today I wouldn't piss on SIU-C if it were on fire. SIU-C has been tearing itself apart for the past 35 years and it is going to take more than a roll of duct tape to put it back together again.

Anonymous said...

I have and will continue to give money to SIUC. I will probably give more.
As to Gupta and where he intends to fundraise. I was in the room when the question was ask of him.
Gupta's answer; large corporations are not the largest source of donations, Alumini are.
SIU has not even ask many Alumni ( some I know) for anything.
He intends to ask them personally, not with a letter or a donation packet.
Anonymous is mad and I do not think he wants to be happy with SIUC. He has made up his mind.
Oh well, one less pain in the butt shooting off their mouth. HIs attitude will not improve anything.

Anonymous said...

Peter,

The dot-com bust happened in 2000 and all these companies with paper millionaires folded.

So if Gupta tripled the amount of money raised after the b ust, I think he did pretty well.

I do not know anything about all these candidates, but they all seem to have skeletons in their closets. I can't believe this is the 4 best candidates the search committee and the search firm were able to find.

On the other hand, after demises of Argensinger and Wendler who in his/her right mind would be willing to come here apart from people who are truly desperate?

PeterG said...

You are going to argue with me over rich tech guys in Seattle? You are wrong. Of course, some people lost big in that time frame, but you are so wrong about the total effect on the wealth of the Pacific Northwest region. The huge meltdown was in Silicon Valley in the ecommerce VC backed companies. We took a hit in Seattle, but the good times were still rolling. For that matter, things went about even for a while, but are super heated once again in Seattle.

Since UW is the best school in the region, the have received huge endowments. The money is stunning.

Again, if every college is getting 2 times as much, then getting 2 times as much isn't very impressive. The Engineering and Computer Science departments both got new buildings in the early 2000's. :)

I'm going to get into Argensinger and Chancellor search soon, let's hold that party off for now.

Anonymous said...

Sam, You can buy SIU all the duct tape you want. As far as I am concerned you can buy yourself a roll. What has been lost by SIU cannot be replaced by money. Lack of money has not led to the demise of SIU-C nearly as much as the lack of a sense of reality and leadership. SIU was not built by a leadership consisting of "managers" and clerks, but it has sure been taken down by "managers" and clerks posing as "Leaders". What are you Sam? A "manager" or a clerk?

anonymous fastsaluki