Now you know why those tuition rates are going through the ceiling:
"A tiny tax-exempt school gives president a lavish life" April 26, 2012|Brian Jordan, Kristina Finn and Walter V. Robinson, Globe Correspondents
FALMOUTH
- It is a tiny school, with an enrollment the size of a modest
elementary school. There is no campus, just a small office building. Its
400 part-time students are invisible here, attending classes at
off-site facilities across the country.
Yet the National Graduate
School of Quality Management awarded its president, Robert J. Gee,
$732,891 in compensation two years ago. By comparison, the president of
Tufts University, with 10,800 employees and 5,500 students, had nearly
identical compensation the same year, $738,596.
Gee
has champagne tastes. In 2009, he persuaded the Massachusetts
Development Finance Agency to authorize $2.64 million in low-interest
bonds. That made possible his school’s purchase of a $3.25 million
waterfront compound on Oyster Pond with spectacular views of Martha’s
Vineyard, especially from the six-bedroom house earmarked to be Gee’s
presidential residence.
Five months later, the school, which
focuses on a particular field of business management, purchased new
automobiles to fit the estate setting: a silver Mercedes-Benz S550 sedan
for Gee and a silver Mercedes-Benz station wagon for his wife, Aileen
Waters Gee. The cost: $130,638, or about 2 percent of the school’s
revenues that year.
There was no sales tax, because the school is tax-exempt.
For
years, the school’s revenues have financed a lavish lifestyle for Gee
and for his wife, who has been paid at least $100,000 a year since 2003.
And they have vacationed together at school expense: The school owns a
deluxe winter getaway in the US Virgin Islands for their use, part of a
17-year employment contract that expires in 2023, when Gee will be 79.
Gee,
after ignoring the Globe’s calls and e-mails for more than a month,
issued a statement Wednesday asserting that his compensation and perks
are warranted. He said that they are comparable with those given to
leaders of similar institutions, but did not identify any....
The statement said Gee’s compensation is justified because he is the
school’s founder and because he maintains a full teaching load.
The
statement said the Oyster Pond compound was never intended to be his
residence, even though the school’s own documents, some with Gee’s
signature, consistently said it would be. It said his wife’s hiring had
nothing to do with her being his spouse. The statement was silent about
her Mercedes-Benz.
Gee, who is 67, founded the school in 1994. Its
focus is graduate-level coursework in total quality management, the
practice of training workers and managers, and even customers and
suppliers, to more efficiently manage production and processes.
Oh, he's one of those jerks.
These
practices, which helped make Japan an economic superpower, are now
widely used by American manufacturers and have become a staple in
business school course catalogues....
Attorney
General Martha Coakley, who oversees public charities, said Gee’s
“compensation, employment contract, and other benefits … seem
excessive.’’ After reviewing the reports at the Globe’s request,
Coakley’s office sent a letter to the school Wednesday demanding
information from board members....
--more--"
Related:
"More college presidents hail from outside academia; Vital skills honed in business world" by Mary Carmichael |
Globe Staff, May 14, 2012
Many believe the trend is a symptom of the increasing corporatization of
higher education, as colleges, especially smaller ones with lackluster
or limited endowments, struggle to steady their finances and attract
students willing and able to pay high tuition....
Local presidents said they still felt the trend was rooted in a need for
colleges to operate more like companies and less like, well, colleges....
Then why bother going? Because they are selling debt-en$laving pieces of paper you will need to get through the door?
--more--"
Also see: College Compensation Consultant Corporatizes Campuses
It sure is an education isn't it, kids?
