In February, [Norwood] Teague paid $750 for a limousine to transport nine donors and three staff while in Bloomington, Ind., during a Gophers men’s basketball game against Indiana. “Our priority was to keep the group together and multiple stops need to be made. The reserved vehicle provided more reliability than trying to find multiple cabs near the basketball arena following the game,” Teague’s report stated.
Your education taxes at work.
August 17th, 2015 at 5:34PM
For those keeping score at home, that would totally save money, so long as no two people stayed at the same hotel, and they made sure to stay at least 30 miles away from the venue. Completely reasonable of course; I try to stay at least 30 miles away from my job site when I travel for work.
August 17th, 2015 at 5:50PM
Eric: Yes – Bloomington is noted for its myriad, extremely widely spaced, hotels.
August 17th, 2015 at 9:25PM
Meanwhile, we’re discussing whether we can tell graduate students to share rooms at academic conferences when department pays or does this dollar stretching effort create liability risk.
August 18th, 2015 at 8:25AM
Oh, come on. Donors. Anyway, suppose a university gives an honorary degree to a distinguished literary scholar – probably going to send a limo to the hotel, right?
August 18th, 2015 at 8:57AM
On the honorary degree and sending a limo – actually, probably not. And I’m figuring it wouldn’t cost upwards of a thousand bucks. In most cases, if the university did this at all, it would be a campus vehicle. Not a hired limo.
As to the hoary argument that when dealing with donors the university has to act super-rich or the donors will say oh no I’m not giving money to this shitty threadbare place — please…