Links
Archives
Monday, November 05, 2007
|
Fragile College Syndrome No one in her right mind wants Europe's state-strangled model of colleges and universities here in the United States. Yet when your country has, like ours, thousands and thousands of widely varied schools, some of which have incompetent or nefarious boards of trustees, disaster may ensue. Remember Papa Doc Diamandopoulos of Adelphi University; his scummy trustees were as greedy as he, and, until the law stepped in, let him go on a spectacular personal shopping spree with student and government money. Follow the ongoing story of New Jersey's totally corrupt University of Medicine and Dentistry. If even solid places like Adelphi are vulnerable to presidential theft, think how much worse things are for our truly fragile campuses, all of them subject to being run into the ground by knaves and fools. There's Central New England College, for instance, whose last president (CNEC no longer exists) just killed himself by jumping out of a building. Conviction on ninety counts of bank fraud, each count carrying up to thirty years in prison, can't have looked rosy. "Authorities said Mr. Mattar, 68, used a sledgehammer to break open an apartment window about 3:30 a.m., then jumped." CNEC actually hired Mattar to help it close: 'An accountant with no experience in education, Mr. Mattar had taken over as president of CNEC in 1978, a year after he had been hired as a management consultant to help close Worcester Junior College, which was heavily in debt. Instead of closing the institution, he assumed the top job, soon renamed the school [Got rid of the Junior thing.] and seemed at the time to be turning the situation around. ... While in Worcester, Mr. Mattar was known for the lavish parties he threw at his 5,500-square-foot home on Salisbury Street, which he could afford on his salary that was the highest of any college president in New England.' When the hapless college grasped its situation, it got rid of him, but Mattar was able to turn around and find another college to soak: 'After leaving Worcester and about the same time he purchased the struggling bank in Boulder, Colo., Mr. Mattar took over Nasson Institute in Springvale, Maine, and its branch unit in Pawtucket, R.I. Nasson was a small liberal arts college that was struggling financially and facing declining enrollment. Mr. Mattar succeeded in convincing its trustees to make him president and grant him broad authority.' |