 |
| this link |
The opening paragraphs of the Strib item, written by Tony Kennedy (please follow that link, Kennedy has written extended past coverage of U.Minn. top-level meanderings):
Before retiring last summer as president of the University of Minnesota, Robert Bruininks repeatedly steered money to a tiny leadership center within the Humphrey School of Public Affairs where he will spend the next phase of his U career.
Records obtained by the Star Tribune show that Bruininks, who will earn a $341,000 salary in his new faculty role there, directed at least an additional $355,000 in university funds to the Center for Integrative Leadership since 2009.
That total includes more than $150,000 for two staff members who will follow him to the center -- money that Bruininks put into his final budget as president. He also spent $75,000 from a presidential discretionary fund to cover expenses at the center, including salary for executive director Laura Bloomberg, a former Ph.D. student of his. Bruininks also shifted $110,000 to the center from money in an academic chair allocated to him by the Board of Regents. He earmarked the funds for work that he and others would do at the center.
Bruininks said he made some of the investments to help show the university's commitment to the program at a time when he was asking Marilyn Carlson Nelson of the Carlson Family Foundation for a major donation -- $1 million for the center over five years.
"You put it all together in a weird way and it may look like I'm feathering a nest, and that's simply not the case," Bruininks said in an interview.
The university drew criticism this week at the Legislature over Bruininks' approval of pay packages worth more than $2.3 million for nine high-ranking administrators who have stepped down in the past two years.
State Rep. Mike Benson, R-Rochester, said on Wednesday that he will ask the chair of the House higher education committee to examine the Bruininks deal in greater detail.
"It lends itself to a good-old-boy network," Benson said.
But Raymond D. Cotton, a Washington lawyer who specializes in contracts for university presidents and once represented Bruininks, said there is nothing unusual about Bruininks' returning to the faculty and taking two staff members with him.
[italics added] Well, I can believe there is nothing special to Mr. Bruininks taking money, but there should be real special attention to the how, why, and responsibility-accountability gap this shows, when teaching a next generation of [hopefully] ethical graduates what top-dog means in our less than perfect world. It is something the graduates can mull in their minds while frantically worrying over the debt load they have incurred to be taught a "practical" lesson, by the esteemed Mr. Bruininks; and facilitators.
Are you ready for some more? Page 2, from STRIB:
'Just kind of fell into place'
The Center for Integrative Leadership is a joint project of the Humphrey School and the Carlson School of Management, launched in 2007.
One of the center's major goals this year is to create its first degree program for students -- a graduate-level minor in leadership. So far, the center has focused on leadership training within the university and in community groups.
Holy s**t, THIS is how university leadership teaches leadership? It's like the joke about the industrial banker, the union leader, and the voter at a table where a dozen cookies are served. The industrial banker takes eleven, and tells the voter, "Watch out for that union guy, he's after a good part of your cookie."
It galls most, that this is billed as a way to teach "leadership" to a next generation.
We need an acrostic for this similar to the WWJD, (although that one fits here too given how the money changers were driven from the temple), but I prefer WWMTW -- What Would Mark Twain Write?
THIS OUTRAGE. IS RIPE FOR BIPARTISAN INQUIRY AND REFORM. IT OFFENDS. FROM THAT POWDER-PUFF NAME, THE AUDACITY OF IT ALL, HIDDEN AMONG WHO KNOWS WHAT ELSE IN THE HUMPHREY INSTITUTE MIGHT ALSO NEED A TEAM OF SKILLED BIPARTISAN CASH FERRETS. IF IT'S BROKE, FIX IT, YA BETCHA.