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Vetting of new LSU president by Board of Supervisors called into question over details of Steven Spielberg grant debacle

Posted in Boards, Contract, Contracts, Ethics, Higher Education, LSU on April 16, 2013| 5 Comments »

Vetting (v.): To subject to thorough examination or evaluation (The Free Online Dictionary).

Did the LSU Board of supervisors make even a token attempt at vetting the applicants for LSU President before settling on F. King Alexander, current president of the University of California Long Beach?

Vetting (v.) The process of performing a background check on someone before offering them employment (Wikipedia).

Did Long Beach State make even a cursory attempt at vetting F. King Alexander before he was chosen president of that university?

Vetting (v.): To make a careful and critical examination (Oxford Dictionary).

Okay, the last definition was in deference to the Oxford Roundtable Foundation, the organization headed by Alexander but not really affiliated with Oxford University.

The LSU Board of Supervisors meets today (Wednesday) to finalize the details of Alexander’s contract.

But back to the original question: was there even a perfunctory effort to vet the leader of Louisiana’s flagship university by the LSU Board of Supervisors?

Besides the fact that Alexander’s own curriculum vitae indicates that the highest level to which he rose as a teacher was a five-year (1997-2001) stint as an assistant professor at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana before making the quantum leap to the presidency of Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky, where he served for another five years (2001-2005).

Apparently, it isn’t necessary to pose the vetting question with Murray State; he simply succeeded his father, S. Kern Alexander to the presidency of the school.

Assuming that it’s the norm for an assistant professor to scale the academic ladder to president of a 10,000-student university in a single move (which, of course, it certainly is not), it’s his handling of a major grant from a prominent movie executive http://thugthebook.blogspot.com/ while at Long Beach State that we will examine here. Additional analyses of his qualifications will be provided in subsequent posts which we will offer for simultaneous release to the LSU Reveille and a couple of other choice blogs.

In May of 2007, King signed off on a three-page pledge agreement by movie producer/director Steven Spielberg’s Wunderkinder Foundation in which the foundation pledged nearly $1.4 million to support Long Beach State’s Master’s in Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing Program within the Film and Electronic Arts Department.

The money was given by Wunderkinder in three incremental payments. The first payment, $590,000 was payable upon the effective date of the pledge agreement (May 31, 2007). The second installment of $400,000 was due on the first anniversary of the effective date of the pledge agreement (May 31, 2008) and the final payment of $388,000 was scheduled for May 31, 2009, the second anniversary date of the pledge agreement.

The pledge agreement said, in part:

• The pledged funds are designated to (i) support the Master’s in Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing Program at the (university); (ii) support the conversion of space for a soundstage and editing studio in the (Department), and (iii) support equipment maintenance, replacement, and upgrades within the (Department);

• If (the university foundation) should for any reason lose its tax-exemption so that gifts to it no longer qualify as tax deductible, or if the pledged funds are used for any purpose not specifically permitted under this pledge agreement, this pledge agreement shall terminate immediately and pledgor (Wunderkinder) shall have no further obligation thereafter to pay any amounts not previously funded.

• A breach by (the university foundation) of this pledge agreement may cause irreparable injury to pledgor not readily measurable in money and for which pledgor shall be entitled to seek injunctive relief or to terminate this pledge agreement without further obligation to (the foundation), or both.

All three checks were delivered to the university’s Film and Electronic Arts Department as scheduled.

The third check of $388,000 was issued through Comerica Bank-California on May 18, 2009. But six weeks earlier, on April 6, Alexander had issued a directive suspending future admissions for the program, effectively killing it—even as Spielberg was said to have been preparing to renew the grant for another three years.

The check was not only negotiated in the full knowledge that it would not go for its intended purpose, but some of the money was then moved from the donor foundation account into the Film and Electronic Arts general account to be mingled with state funds and used for salaries.

Because there were still five students finishing the program, each received $10,000 under the grant, leaving $338,000 that went for other purposes—an apparent violation of the terms of the pledge agreement.

When the financial crunch hit colleges and universities across the country, Long Beach State was not spared and university faculty took a 10 percent “furlough” pay cut for the 2009-2010 academic year–ostensibly because of funding cuts. Later that year, however, Alexander announced that additional money had been “found.”

The terms of the furlough that came into existence in the fall of 2009 specifically said, “Faculty Unit employees whose salary is 100 percent funded from grants and contracts not funded from the state general fund shall not be subject to this furlough agreement.”

Yet a faculty member whose salary was to have been funded 100 percent by the Spielberg/Wunderkinder grant saw a 10 percent reduction in his salary. That 10 percent was apparently re-allocated for general expenses rather than for the purposes specified in the pledge agreement which could be interpreted as a breach of the pledge contract.

To make matters worse, Spielberg was never informed of the termination of the Master’s in Fine Arts in Dramatic Writing Program.

Spielberg, meanwhile, was experiencing problems of his own and for whatever reasons, did not pursue the matter. Wunderkinder in 2008 had become a victim of the giant Ponzi scheme perpetrated by Bernard Madoff. With assets of $12.6 million as of November of 2006, Wunderkinder’s financial fortunes had suffered right along with other investors in Madoff’s scheme.

By late 2009, even though Wunderkinder was financially crippled by Madoff, Spielberg continued his personal philanthropic activities on behalf of the University of Southern California, among others .

Vetting.

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Kostelka says he is serious about elected superintendent; Jindal sends in the clown, gets comeuppence from Regents

Posted in BESE, Education, Governor's Office, Higher Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, LSU, Politicians, Public Records, Regents, Retirement, Veto on March 28, 2013| 30 Comments »

Sen. Bob Kostelka, R-Monroe, wants people to know he’s serious.

He has already pre-filed SB 41, which calls for a constitutional amendment to be placed on the ballot which, if approved, would make the state superintendent of education and elective position as opposed to the current appointive one.

Kostelka also wants it understood that he wants current Superintendent John White to go.

He says he has seen enough of bloated contracts granted to politically-connected firms. He has seen his fill of contracts like the one that teaches kids how to play at recess. He has heard quite enough about contracts awarded to PR hacks to work out of their homes in other states for outlandish figures like $12,000 per month.

Most of all though he has grown weary of trying to obtain information and records from the secretive Louisiana Department of Education—and repeatedly encountering a brick wall of resistance.

And he is more than a little concerned about the approval of vouchers for schools which have no classrooms, no teachers and no desks—like New Living Word in Ruston.

And while he didn’t say so, he seemed to take some bit of pleasure in knowing that his bill has come under fire from Gov. Bobby Jindal’s chief apologist, Jeff Sadow.

Kostelka claim that the bill would make the superintendent answerable to the people instead of a rubber-stamp Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) was described by Sadow as a “curious mix of ignorance and illogic.”

Sadow chose to fall back on the argument that most of the BESE members are already elected and “answerable to the people,” apparently choosing to ignore the fact that most of the elected members’ seats were bought by out of state contributions from such people as Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, the Walton family and K-12.

Sadow also says Kostelka seems to have forgotten the “policy-making mess” that existed under the elected superintendent structure that existed prior to 1988. In saying that, Sadow appears to be overlooking the ever-evolving “policy-making mess” that is indicative of today’s DOE under a superintendent who doesn’t seem to have a clue where he intends to go or what he intends to do when he gets there.

“People like Mr. Sadow say I want to return to old-time politics,” Kostelka said. “To that, I would have them look at the political contributions to the BESE members and then explain to me what has changed under the present system.”

“They say my bill would cost the state the expense of another election, but it wouldn’t. I’m calling for the election to be held in the fall of 2014 at the same time as the Congressional elections, so there would be no additional costs. If approved, the elected superintendent would take effect with the 2015 gubernatorial election and White could leave with Jindal,” he said.

Kostelka is well aware that he has run afoul of the petulant Jindal and is certain to incur the governor’s wrath. His punishment could range from a loss of committee assignments to vetoes of key projects in Kostelka’s senate district. All one has to do is harken back to last year’s session when Jindal vetoed a major construction project in Livingston Parish after Rep. Rogers Pope and Sen. Dale Erdy had the temerity to buck Jindal on legislative matters important to the governor.

If that isn’t old-time politics, we don’t know what is.

But Jindal has proved beyond any doubt that he is not above such tactics.

But, at long last, those tactics appear to be coming back to bit him in the backside.

He has demoted legislators, fired a BESE member, an LSU president, doctors, various department and agency heads, appointed legislator buddies (Noble Ellington, Troy Hebert, et al) to six-figure deadhead jobs and in at least one case—that of Hebert—that appointment appears to be a major embarrassment to the administration.

But even after all of that, nothing compares to the damage done to his political stock as the recent dust-up with the Board of Regents.

Send in the clowns

As is his M.O., Jindal attempted to distance himself from the action—perhaps as a means of attempting to maintain deniability, a ploy that has consistently served him badly—by dispatching an emissary to do his dirty work. In this case, it was Taylor Teepell, brother of Timmy Teepell who seems to be running his OnMessage political consulting operation from the governor’s fourth-floor offices in the State Capitol.

What was Taylor’s mission? Nothing less than to demand the firing of Commissioner of Higher Education Dr. James Purcell. Purcell, you see, committed the unpardonable sin of criticizing Jindal’s repeated cuts to higher education. There is no run for dissention on Team Jindal.

But Taylor Teepell got a major surprise. Regents Chairman W. Clinton “Bubba” Rasberry, Jr. sent Teepell back to Jindal with a message: “Dr. Purcell works for the Regents.”

Whoa. Herr Jindal is not accustomed to such spunk from his subordinates. The governor does, after all, appoint the Regents members and he expects all appointees to toe the line, not draw a line in the sand.

Of course, Jindal could fire the entire board and replace the recalcitrant members with more compliant sycophants. But his brazen attempt to oust Purcell for the sin of independent thinking probably did more harm to Jindal than anything else he has done in his five-plus years in office. This attempt, coming as it did on the heels of three major court reversals of his education and retirement reforms and the word last week of a federal investigation into a contract with the Department of Health and Human Resources, has left him politically crippled.

And his blatant, quixotic pursuit of the presidency would be laughable were it not such a pathetic sight to behold. It somehow makes him look even smaller, more the little boy, in his ill-fitting suits.

Seeing his presidential aspirations slip away raises yet another spectacle that he would probably rather no one would know about. When he encountered occasional crises during his tenure as head of the University of Louisiana System, rather than facing the problems head-on, his solution of choice was to retreat to his office where he is said to have played video games virtually non-stop.

One must be wondering what video games he prefers these days. League of Legends, perhaps?

As one observer recently said, the Jindal waters appear to be circling the drain.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Education, Higher Education, House, Senate, Legislature, Legislators, LSU, Notable Quotables, Politicians, Revenue on March 19, 2013| 2 Comments »

“Many Legislators would rather get re-elected than make the right decision. They say they’re not going to raise taxes but they’re going to allow us to raise tuition.”

“Federal revenue for higher education is double what the states are doing now. I don’t have faith in legislators but I do have faith in them wanting federal money.”

“The power of Washington to hold states accountable may be the most important answer that we have. The more federal dollars are attached to state behavior, the less likely state legislatures are going to remove themselves from funding responsibility.”

—F. King Alexander, President of University of California Long Beach and more recently LSU President-designate, speaking on “Strategies for Fiscal Housekeeping” at the 14th Annual Travers Conference on Ethics and Accountability in Government Financing California, Feb. 11, 2011.

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LSU president-designate Alexander runs organization that capitalizes on Oxford University name despite no affiliation

Posted in Boards, Education, Governor's Office, Higher Education, LSU on March 19, 2013| 7 Comments »

Did the LSU Board of Supervisors opt for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in its selection of F. King Alexander, 50, as the next LSU president?

Will the LSU faithful, so alarmed at the prospects of an appointment of Secretary of Economic Development Stephen Moret to the position, end up wishing he had gotten it after all?

Most important of all, with academics, integrity and healthcare already sacrificed at the Altar of Jindal, will the LSU football program survive?

Perhaps these and other questions will be answered in due course but for the time being, let’s take a look at the paradox that is F. King Alexander.

The first issues that must be addressed are his credentials and his motivation for coming to LSU.

The politically-charged atmosphere in Louisiana in general and LSU in particular is such that one must question the wisdom of anyone wanting to walk into such a volatile situation. The mere fact that one would even apply for the position would seem to call his or qualifications into question.

The LSU student newspaper, The Reveille, was contemplating filing a lawsuit—and still might do so—to learn who all the applicants were. But considering who the winner was the paper’s editors may wish to reconsider its efforts to learn who the losers were.

On the one hand, there is the F. King Alexander who two years ago admonished state governments for “backing out of their responsibility” to keep public colleges working and affordable.

On the other hand, there is the F. King Alexander who operates what critics describe as a “vanity” conference operation that capitalizes on the Oxford University name without the benefit of its being officially affiliated with the English school.

The Baton Rouge Advocate describes Alexander as “a nationally respected up and comer” and his 28-minute speech in February of 2011at The 14th Annual Travers Conference on Ethics and Accountability in Government Financing California: Strategies for Fiscal Housekeeping was a direct assault on state governments’ failure to adequately fund state colleges, thus allowing private universities and for-profit colleges to syphon students away from public institutions.

His talk was a blistering attack on states that he said have taken federal funds for higher education while at the same time, cutting state appropriations by like amounts. Meanwhile, federal grants continue to increase for private schools.

It was the kind of rhetoric that college professors will embrace enthusiastically but the kind that got Alexander’s predecessor, John Lombardi canned by the Board of Supervisors—at the direction of Jindal who doesn’t like to be criticized by subordinates.

Then there is Alexander’s Oxford Round Table connection.

The Oxford Round Table is a series of interdisciplinary conferences that was founded by Alexander’s father, Kern Alexander but now run by F. King Alexander and his wife.

The purpose of the Oxford Round Table is “to promote education, art, science, religion and charity by means of academic conferences and publication of scholarly papers,” according to an online profile.

The organization has incorporated, dissolved and reincorporated several times in different states, including Kentucky, Illinois and Florida—both as a for-profit and as a non-profit. In 2008, the non-profit Oxford Round Table, Ltd. was established in the United Kingdom.

A 2009 report was critical of the organization because, the report said, it does not make its lack of academic connection to Oxford University clear.

Two years earlier, Times Higher Education reported that the organization had been criticized because it was trading on the name of Oxford University and failed to properly inform invitees that it had no formal academic links to the university.

The Oxford Round Table also has attracted controversy in at least three states, including Louisiana, over the cost of school boards’ paying for administrators to attend its conferences. This led to a successful legislative effort to tighten travel rules for school board members statewide, according to a 2003 New Orleans Times-Picayune story.

It remains to be seen if Alexander will bring his pro-funding rhetoric with him or whether his Oxford Round Table will set up shop in Baton Rouge—or both.

Either way, it should be interesting—like perhaps a reprise of the old Carol Burnett Show skit As the Stomach Turns.

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Notable Quotables (in their own words)

Posted in Ethics, Governor's Office, Health Care, Higher Education, LSU, Notable Quotables, Privatization on March 18, 2013| 1 Comment »

“These sections of the code generally prohibit Board of Trustees members from receiving anything of economic value for any transaction involving any of the colleges and universities that are under the jurisdiction of the Board of Trustees.”

—Former State Board of Ethics Chairman Gray Sexton, in a July 1996 ruling that the Natchitoches Times could not provide printing services for the Northwestern State University student newspaper because Times Publisher Lovan Thomas was a member of the Board of Trustees for State Colleges and Universities, the governing board for state colleges and universities, including Northwestern. The LSU Board of Supervisors is preparing to accept a memorandum of understanding from a Shreveport foundation to take over two LSU-run hospitals in Shreveport and Monroe even though the foundation’s incoming CEO is a member of the LSU Board of supervisors.

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