Levin: Financial update coming this week
In the wake of this weekend’s meeting of the Yale Corporation, Woodbridge Hall says it is preparing to release an update about Yale’s financial health. A message could be sent to the University community as early as Tuesday.
Speaking to the News late Sunday evening, University President Richard Levin said the Corporation spent much of its time discussing Yale’s budget and finances. The University’s highest governing body also heard preliminary reports on planning for the West Campus and the two new residential colleges, Levin said.
It is still unclear...
YLS 78:
There is no way Levin is letting his legacy escape him like that. We'll keep building away. It's good, too, for the economy.
Re: #1 That's probably because a downturn in the endowment has substantially less impact on operating and development budgets than they are going to make us think it does.
Let's hope the Yale Corporation has the foresight to avoid the blunt instrument approach of a "hiring freeze" instituted by some of our sister institutions. Such blanket policies have consequences that far outlast the shorter term fiscal problems. The last such "freeze" in the early 1970s still has its effects felt at Yale in terms of holes in programs and weaknesses in some departments. Better to implement selective retrenchments as needed... perhaps now is the time to "bargain hunt" and improve our programs while our friends sit it out.
Economist article this week on the "Yale Model" of endowment investing heightens anticipation for this announcement.
Of course, we will have to wait to be sure, but it will be surprising if existing West Campus plans are derailed by the inevitable contraction in the endowment. West Campus was acquired for a song (about $100 million) but includes vast expanses of super-valuable grade-"A" lab space that is already built and ready to serve, requiring very little additional investment. Moreover, that existing physical plant will help attract top researchers and their support, who generally attract lots of private and government funding within a short time. In other words, top researchers tend to be self-supporting once established for a little while.
West Campus is not and never has been conceived as a vanity project or as stretching Yale finances or requiring a big capital campaign. In that sense, West Campus is very different from superficially similar expansion plans of some of Yale's peers. Indeed, the YDN has already reported on the very first phase of the amazingly ingenious plan for West Campus [http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/24821]:
"[T]he University has lured world-renowned scientist James Rothman '71 from Columbia to chair the School of Medicine's department of cell biology. ... He will also lead a new institute to be launched at the West Campus, the former home of Bayer HealthCare acquired by the University last summer. "Jim Rothman is one of the most brilliant researchers of our time," Robert Alpern, the dean of the School of Medicine, said in a news release ... Under Rothman's leadership, the cell biology department will be significantly expanded, the University announced, and will also launch research on the West Campus. There, Rothman will also oversee the new Yale Center for High-Throughput Cell Biology ..."
Is the West Campus plan well conceived? Certainly. Too good to be true? Probably not. But I suppose we'll know more later this week.
When do the employee buyouts start? I'll be first in line.
I'm surprised the Corporation hasn't just suspended all work on the West Campus and new colleges.