Just came out this morning:
Anyone here has more inside scoop?
It is common for colleges to impose a tax on externally- funded centers of maybe 15-20% to pay for overhead, but it does sound like the Harris School attempted to levy the tax before a real director and schedule of forum activities were in place. The Pearson director seems to want the title but not the adnmin role. They did hire an assistant professor from Yale to one of the endowed chair positions, and it appears that the founder wanted someone more senior.
I wonder whether the underlying problem here is perhaps a lack of belief in the mission. How do scholars exactly do research into “global initiatives for world peace”? I know nothing of such things, but I apply the Malcolm Gladwell “blink” test and get the response in my own head of “lots of gas, little substance”. It seems like a field - if that’s the right word for it - for action outside the university, not study within it - unless that university happens to be Oral Roberts U. or otherwise features praying hands. I would not be sorry to see this turkey returned to sender.
Clearly it seems that Pearson’s vision of the institute was different from UChicago’s vision of the Institute. I doubt from a superficial look that the Pearson’s will prevail, but they will need to end this contract and go their separate ways.
I dunno, is it really necessary to establish a separate research institute to “design and implement policies that would reduce conflict around the globe” at the Harris School of Public Policy? Wouldn’t “reducing conflicts around the globe” be an inherent reason for the existence of the Harris School of Public Policy in the first place? Wouldn’t the intent of ‘world peace’ and conflict-resolution be implied? Maybe they just wanted to make that statement more prominent.
Also, it’s interesting how the school would be subject to the conditions accompanied by the donations. It must be a difficult trying to balance the requests and demands of the donors vs. what the university envisions.
Donors usually don’t get much say in faculty hiring decisions but we shall see in this case . . . a lot depends on the wording of the grant agreement. Some can be pretty fuzzy.