I dunno… The trustees, most of them, are on the board of trustees because the university wants large cash gifts from them. In short, they’ve been chosen because they are rich and because the university has reason to believe (the trustee graduated from the university, say; or the trustee’s kid is a student at the university) that for sentimental reasons the trustee may choose to give some of his or her billions or millions to the university.
Hence the relationship between the university and the trustee involves the university doing anything it can to make the trustee happy.
This being the case, handing out professorships to trustees could be seen as one more happy-making gesture extended to the trustee by the university; and therefore one could argue that this compromises the intellectual integrity of the school.
But, as I say, I dunno. It’s easy to imagine a situation in which a trustee, beyond being good at generating enormous personal compensation in a business setting, also has actual academic heft, and it would be silly to deprive students of such a person…
But let’s add some complexity to the question: Should a trustee whose personal compensation has been outrageously high ($38 million over five years) (despite having run his enterprise into the ground, with hideous consequences for all tax-paying Americans) teach courses at a Jesuit university?
Okay, let’s mix things up even more. Should a Boston College trustee against whom the SEC has just filed civil fraud charges for having been a significant player in the country’s financial crisis be teaching a course at BC on the financial crisis?
“Who better?” said Mr UD just now, across the breakfast table.
“Yes,” said UD. “A kind of How I Did It.”
December 19th, 2011 at 10:29AM
Oh my goodness. So many persons quoted in the Globe are just ‘shocked’ that this man could have done such a thing.
Such a nice boy he was!
Too bad Khuzami and the SEC have very little credibility at this stage. Another settlement on the way, no admission of guilt, and it’ll be pennies on the dollar… call me a cynic, I won’t disagree.
Where is DoJ? [SOP is MIA.]
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is written such that the language of the criminal code tracks the language for civil suit. This was done intentionally so that a successful civil action then translated into a slam dunk criminal prosecution. Of course there’s nothing doing if Syron is allowed to settle for a fine and no admission of wrongdoing.
Bear witness to the death rattle of the American Dream.