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Campus Updates

bym051d said:
I thought in the mid 00s, the administration championed the fiscal management of the endowment in the market.
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I think that was MSD bragging about making the same gains everyone else was making during the economic bubble. Then they got out later than everyone else and got stuck.
 
ReplacementDeac said:
last part is interesting. does anyone know comparable numbers for other schools (vandy would be a good one to look at)?
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Endowments in billions

Wake
2006- .907
2014- 1.148

Comparisons
Vandy
2006-2.628
2014-4.086

Duke
2006-3.826
2014-7.037

Emory
2006-4.376
2014-6.681

So pretty much lower overall endowment to begin with, now what about management, well that is pretty shitty if you also look at what schools that had a similar level in 2006 have done.

GT
2006-.937
2014- 1.889

MSU
2006-.906
2014-2.145
 
Have there been any policy / personnel changes to rectify the management issues?
 
ThinkingWithMyDeac said:
Endowments in billions

Wake
2006- .907
2014- 1.148

Comparisons
Vandy
2006-2.628
2014-4.086

Duke
2006-3.826
2014-7.037

Emory
2006-4.376
2014-6.681

So pretty much lower overall endowment to begin with, now what about management, well that is pretty shitty if you also look at what schools that had a similar level in 2006 have done.

GT
2006-.937
2014- 1.889

MSU
2006-.906
2014-2.145
Click to expand...

That's sobering. Where did you get that data?
 
bym051d said:
Have there been any policy / personnel changes to rectify the management issues?
Click to expand...

Yes, Jim Dunn came on as Chief Investment Officer in 2009. Wake has since spun out its endowment to a separate management company, Verger Capital Management (I think that happened sometime in 2014) and Jim is the CEO and CIO of Verger. Prior to Dunn's arrival, Wake's endowment was not invested the way you would expect a billion(ish) dollar fund would be invested. If you have that much money you have access to investments that folks like you and me don't. Wake apparently had virtually no alternative investments in its endowment portfolio at that point, which sounds preposterous to me. As of last week, the endowment sat at ~$1.45 billion (obviously dependent on market fluctuation).
 
ThinkingWithMyDeac said:
Endowments in billions

Wake
2006- .907
2014- 1.148

Comparisons
Vandy
2006-2.628
2014-4.086

Duke
2006-3.826
2014-7.037

Emory
2006-4.376
2014-6.681

So pretty much lower overall endowment to begin with, now what about management, well that is pretty shitty if you also look at what schools that had a similar level in 2006 have done.

GT
2006-.937
2014- 1.889

MSU
2006-.906
2014-2.145
Click to expand...

Did GT or MSU have capital campaigns in that time frame (just curious - could also be really impressive returns)? One (of a number) of the reasons Wake lags behind out "peer" schools is that we have only had 3 capital campaigns in our history (and a lot of the projects in the first part of the Wake Will campaign went to capital improvements, not the endowment) - I believe the first one was in the 80s. Duke, Vandy and Emory (in addition to bigger long term major benefactors - the Reynolds are great, but Coke $ wins) have had more campaigns over longer time periods.
 
I just pulled those numbers from the world of google, there are plenty of other schools that have seen poor gains as well but for the most part it appears Wake's money was handled very poorly. They could have stuck all the endowment in some olds savings account with 1% interest and only been off by 100 million in what was earned the last 8 years.
 
Wakelaw2006 said:
Did GT or MSU have capital campaigns in that time frame (just curious - could also be really impressive returns)? One (of a number) of the reasons Wake lags behind out "peer" schools is that we have only had 3 capital campaigns in our history (and a lot of the projects in the first part of the Wake Will campaign went to capital improvements, not the endowment) - I believe the first one was in the 80s. Duke, Vandy and Emory (in addition to bigger long term major benefactors - the Reynolds are great, but Coke $ wins) have had more campaigns over longer time periods.
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GT ran a major campaign (1.5 billion) that just wrapped up this year, $470 million of which was directed to permanent endowments. Further to your point, GT finished a campaign not 2 years prior to launching this one.

MSU has also run a major campaign that hit the 1 billion mark in September, with $404 million being raised for the endowment.

ETA: A few others- Emory ran a 1.7 billion campaign that ended in 2012, Duke is in the middle of a 3+ billion campaign and a 2.3 billion campaign in the early 2000s and Vandy ran one from 2003 to 2011 that raised ~2 billion.
 
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This won't be popular, but I find it hard to muster sympathy for tenure-track faculty. Once they pass the tenure bar, their pay is more than respectable and their responsibilities really aren't that taxing. I had some wonderful, life-changing profs at MSD, but I had plenty of duds, too, some of whom were just coasting. Obviously, few if any Wake profs are getting rich, but for those of us in the private sector who live every day with the threat of job loss due to downturns or poor performance, the lifestyle of a college teacher seems pretty damned enviable. I am open to suggestions for why I should view the situation differently.
 
LK is the only one mustering sympathy for tenure-track faculty but most of his concern is for faculty who aren't allowed on the tenure track.

But if you want a case for sympathy, compare the status of faculty to the bloated administration.
 
inspectah said:
This won't be popular, but I find it hard to muster sympathy for tenure-track faculty. Once they pass the tenure bar, their pay is more than respectable and their responsibilities really aren't that taxing. I had some wonderful, life-changing profs at MSD, but I had plenty of duds, too, some of whom were just coasting. Obviously, few if any Wake profs are getting rich, but for those of us in the private sector who live every day with the threat of job loss due to downturns or poor performance, the lifestyle of a college teacher seems pretty damned enviable. I am open to suggestions for why I should view the situation differently.
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this take is so ridiculously bad. Only about 20% of profs are tenured. Job security is significantly hire in the private sector than academia.
 
He was talking specifically about the professor jobs with the most job security not adjuncts and such. It's a fair take.
 
nobody is coerced into taking a job they don't want

but it's disheartening to hear that msd is doing a poor job of attracting and retaining high quality faculty
 
Wakelaw2006 said:
Did GT or MSU have capital campaigns in that time frame (just curious - could also be really impressive returns)? One (of a number) of the reasons Wake lags behind out "peer" schools is that we have only had 3 capital campaigns in our history (and a lot of the projects in the first part of the Wake Will campaign went to capital improvements, not the endowment) - I believe the first one was in the 80s. Duke, Vandy and Emory (in addition to bigger long term major benefactors - the Reynolds are great, but Coke $ wins) have had more campaigns over longer time periods.
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GT (and I would think MSU) have access to state funds beyond their foundation as well as making money on research projects. GT has their own version of the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) at the GT Research Institute (GTRI).
 
In perusing reddit, I came across the original campus update. Pretty interesting pics.
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