Bama Sued

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Alabama
21

@fallenchemist I believe the purpose of these initial schools was to set the program in place and measure and monitor the lift of these First Gen students in the program, versus those First Gen students who didn’t have the specific support and mentoring. The grant funded an administrator and seeded the initial First Gen scholars.

Schools competed to become part of the program and get the grants. Many schools as part of their mission want to educate first gen students and change their lives. This program is developing the framework and needs that data to shape and roll out this program across many colleges. And with successful outcomes the foundation will solicit more donors to help even more First Gen students.

The challenge here is when a school signs up, takes the money, but then doesn’t provide the data back to the foundation and drops out. That hurts the foundation and the reputation of the school to other charitable organizations who are weighing which school to support.

22

I completely understood all of that, and it is because of the eventual “failure” of the program everywhere but Memphis I think (failure in the sense of not being sustained as originally envisioned) that I made my side comment of what I think would have been a better alternative. It wasn’t off topic in the sense that these disputes arise from time to time due to various shortcomings on both sides. But it isn’t the direct topic either, other than how it applies to the Alabama case in particular. I meant it as context, that perhaps the lack of a critical mass in funding coupled with the attention of the donor being spread out contributed to the problems with Alabama. I did not mean for that comment to spark a different discussion. Let’s stay on Alabama.

23

@fallenchemist - I wouldn’t think Bama will want it’s dirty laundry aired in court.

I would imagine they either live up to the agreement or return some of the monies.

Otherwise it looks like thanks for the money and paid staff. But sorry we won’t give you the data and you can’t talk to the scholars you funded.

Someone there has some explaining to do. (Not sorry those people aren’t here anymore…)

24

There are certainly examples beyond Yale where universities not fulfilling the intent of the donor caused issues. ***And based on what I have read being reasonably accurate and complete, which is a huge IF, ***I also suspect that Alabama will concede some of the issues before this gets too far, depending on how they fare in these early court skirmishes. If they win most of their motions, then perhaps their position is stronger than we know. Hard to discuss it intelligently because it is in litigation. I am guessing the state FOIA for Alabama has an exception for ongoing litigation? No idea.

25

@fallenchemist - check out this article “The Unraveling of Donor Intent: Lawsuits and Lessons.” There is a Tulane case in there.

http://www.pgdc.com/pgdc/unraveling-donor-intent-lawsuits-and-lessons

The authors share some good ideas on how to avoid problems (scroll down towards the end).

26

Great article @SouthFloridaMom9 and yes, many of us Tulane grads are quite familiar with the case. I think the article, by virtue of being a summary, couldn’t emphasize enough the fact that in this happened right after Katrina and so the factor of

and similar highly exigent circumstantial factors that the courts use in weighing such decisions, were paramount. Operating two separate administrations as if Tulane had a men’s college and a women’s college was an expensive fiction. I know Alabama is claiming it was too expensive to administer the data collection portion of the program, but there was nothing they shouldn’t have known going into it. In Tulane’s case we are talking about an over 100 year passage of time! In fact the original donation was not just for a women’s college, but for a college for “white, Christian women”. Obviously the law no longer allowed for the first two factors to be enforced, but it shows how much of a difference there is between a donation made very long ago and one made recently and how much the school should be expected to anticipate. BTW, the case was still in the courts when the article was published. Tulane won at the state Supreme Court level, the final stop for this one. There were no Federal issues.

If a judge were to use the chart in the article as a guide, it seems that the only one Alabama is claiming is that it is too costly to administer. But again, this should have easily been knowable before accepting the money, with the usual caveat of based on what we know. But other school’s experiences work against Alabama: Memphis because they make it work and SIU-C and UK because they are fulfilling these obligations even though they have chosen not to continue the program.

For a school the size of Alabama this is a relatively small amount of money and I think they would be better off just coming to a settlement with the donor rather than risk fallout. I do think fallout is relatively unlikely in any case, but it is a risk. From this easy chair, it seems better to refund at least the last check, possibly twice that amount if that is what it takes, and move on.

27

Back to the original article “Mr. Suder said he was bothered that what was supposed to be seed money for a network of programs has not taken root.” Article stated problems at other schools under Mr. Suder’s First Scholars assistance.

Don’t know why a few on this thread are critical of UA. Glad I saw the article, but based on what I know about UA and the State of Alabama, I think some of the criticism is overly harsh. I have lived in-state since 1983, have a scholarship student at UAB and UA, had previously worked at UAH and have a graduate degree from UAH, so I have a long history in AL and with higher ed in AL. AL has done wonderful things in business circles and with medical research/advancements, some may be hearing about more and more as time goes on. I have lived in TX as well and have worked for higher ed there and have a graduate degree from there too - experience with two Universities there. UAB made a mis-step with ending their football program, but has fixed that and re-instated the program (there are 18 colleges in AL with football programs, so it was foolhardy for UAB’s program to get cut).

UA accepts a lot of first from family college students too, especially in-state students - a higher profile one will be graduating on athletic scholarship, football MLB and team Captain Reggie Ragland, who will be the first from his family receiving a college degree - he could have gone into football draft last year but chose to stay and receive his college degree at UA. He attended Madison AL HS Bob Jones HS, the one we are zoned for - IMHO the best public school district in our area (one of the top 10 HSs in the state, with both Madison HSs in the top 10).

Suder admits “One of the things we didn’t consider is the constant changing of administrations in all of these schools”.

Hindsight is 20-20. Suder is not getting the results he expected, so he is using legal channels, which is his right. He claims breech of contract. Foundation is based in TX.

How about more concern about states that are in trouble with higher ed funding, like IL which is making the news with cutting social programs (because they have ‘robbed’ pension funds and have the worst reserves for public pensions in the Country? - 8 other states have not funded their pension systems in any meaningful way over a number of years - CO, KS, ND, NJ, OK, PA, VA, and WA). Was looking to quote the article in the Dubuque IA Telegraph Herald about IL cuts to higher ed, but I think they are pretty well known.

I would also have concerns with state funded colleges in states with water issues/droughts (severe, extreme, or exceptional drought) running out of water. Time will tell about how Flint MI water issues affects state college funding - after all, states have to balance their budgets.

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@SOSConcern - the foundation chose UA out of many applicants so it could seed this First Gen program and with the promised data fed back they could learn and improve the program. The goal of the foundation is to change lives of First Gen students. Then secure more donors and then more schools and really help many kids on a large scale.

UA signed on for the program, took the money but supposedly did not supply the data and refused the foundation access to speak with its scholars.

That’s why it’s in litigation…

29

Well, we do live in a very litigious society.

From what has been written here, if UA comes to some sort of settlement w/ the donor, it ends up being a non-event.