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Friday, August 26, 2005

THE PLOT THICKENS

The Washington Post is pursuing the Benjamin Ladner story with the same persistence he is said to have displayed in his pursuit of rich donors. The newspaper has another article about it today, in which its reporter wonders why the university decided to handle the allegations of financial wrongdoing against President Ladner by very publicly suspending him.

UD wonders about this too. Why physically remove him from his office? Are the trustees worried he’ll shred papers?

And didn’t they know that in a short time 44 news outlets would be running the story (that’s the current number, via Google News)?





The story quotes Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity University, also in Washington:

"The president should be subjected to the same audit rules" as others at the university. She turns in her receipts to the chief financial officer -- and pays for some trips on her own because the small school can't afford them. She has her own house and her own car, she added, and sometimes takes potential donors not to elegant dinners but to cafes at Union Station. Good donors, she said, don't want the president to waste money wooing them. They can get good meals on their own dime.

"This idea that presidents should be minor potentates" and paid accordingly just hurts higher education, McGuire said. "Look at the trouble corporate CEOs are in, too! It's a bad model to emulate."