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Thursday, September 22, 2005
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My god, you gotta have a swine to show you where the truffles are ... …says George, the college professor in Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In the case of American University , all you gotta do is follow soon-to-be-ex President Benjamin Ladner to find “pan-seared foie gras, BeauSoleil oyster, sabayon and caviar, and white truffle risotto,” a typical menu at one of the Ladner clan’s family birthdays, all made for them by their American University-provided personal chef, Rodney Scruggs. Ladner really liked Scruggs. While faculty raises in the last five years have been “small, single digit" type things, Scruggs got raises that “averaged 11 percent over the past five years.” And while Scruggs seems to have had a pretty impressive food repertoire, the Ladners apparently felt he needed more sophistication, so they sent him on "‘professional development’ trips …to Paris, London and Rome.” Ladner also liked to travel in style. He “incurred a travel expense for himself alone to Nigeria,” in the words of a trustee who wants to fire him (the chef has just been let go) “of $22,345. … Had he bought a business elite ticket, the savings would have covered a student's tuition for one semester." Last year, Ladner was paid more than "the president of George Washington University, which is twice AU's size and includes a medical center. An expert in higher education compensation compared Ladner's package with that of six other presidents of universities of roughly equal size and reputation as American and found Ladner's more than $100,000 higher than the next highest." Altogether the independent report (which will itself cost the university a million dollars) “questions more than a half-million dollars spent over the past three years.” The investigators are also trying to figure out the mysterious second contract thing. Ladner “was operating under a second contract, negotiated a few years after he arrived at AU in 1994 by William I. Jacobs, then board of trustees chairman, but unknown to some on the board. The university's vice president of finance told auditors that he had repeatedly asked Ladner to let him see the second contract and that Ladner finally did, three years after it went into effect.” What with, er, supplements from the second contract, “Ladner's total compensation in 2004 was more than $800,000, well above that of presidents at comparable schools, according to outside analysts. He and his wife, according to the report, were charging antiques and cashmere to the university as well… The spending in dispute includes travel expenses, more than $6,000 in club dues, nearly $54,000 in drivers' costs, more than $220,000 in chef services, more than $100,000 in services from the social secretary and nearly $44,000 in alcohol… Although university presidents often are expected to entertain at home with dinners and other events for donors, the report concludes that the vast majority of the chef's time was not university-related.” Some trustees are wondering whether these and myriad other expenses are “the last straw for a president who squandered money at a school where more than 90 percent of operating revenue comes from students.” It’s really the first straw, though, since AU has apparently failed to scrutinize any of this activity over ten years time. “Until the new report, no detailed accounting had been done of the Ladners' spending, even as bills came in for first-class tickets for overseas trips, a waterfall for the back yard of the president's house and chauffeurs spending much of their time running errands for his wife to jewelers, salons and dry cleaners.” But when I say swine… Ladner's troubles with the board began more than a year ago, when the panel began reviewing his compensation after he demanded an increase... |