Sat 16 May 2009
I’ve taken myself off most Williams mailing because the College financial situation and its causes are too discouraging. The Achilles Heel of 501 (c)3 nonprofit corporations is the lack of public accountability. A fundraising e-mail from Williams slipped through my defenses the other day. No mention of any lessons learned. I stipulate here that I have no reason to believe other than that those governing Williams are honest people committed to good work for the right reasons. Something is missing, though, in the discussions.
My reply to Williams:
Hi. I am a very nice person. I love my Williams education and use it
every day. You have hit a sore spot, I’m afraid. I thought I had removed
myself from mailings and all, but here you are. I know you are doing hard,
honest work in what you believe to be a good cause. It’s because I think
more people need educations as good as ours, that I reply. You may have a
voice.
Regarding a donation to Williams —
No thanks.
1.) Over the past decade and more, Williams has built and built and built.
The Baxter/Paresky debacle was the last straw for me. That was before I
saw the Humanities Center, whatever that is. The Williams enrollment is no
bigger and may be even a little smaller than in 1976 (or 1980). I work in
higher education. Some even consider me knowledegable about higher
education. Now I hear there is discussion on campus about what to do with
all the flat-screen monitors in Paresky, which seem to be just sitting
there. If Baxter had run its course, so be it. Go green. Tear it down
and plant a garden. Every square foot of new space increases operating
costs.
2.) For years all these generous people have been giving money to
Williams. How many nights did Morty spend away from his family, out on the
road fundraising? And raising a lot of money. Williams had in its
endowment enough money, assuming enrollments no greater than 2,000, to live
happily ever after, even eliminating tuition. (I have an MBA. My
assumptions are sound here, though others have honest assumptions and may
disagree.) What do the current trustees do? They put most of the
endowment in high-risk, high testosterone investments. I’ve heard the
allocation was as high as 80%.
What happened? Hundreds of millions of dollars vanish, not because of the
economy but because Williams trustees took way too much risk. The evidence
that it was too much? The panic spending cuts. Charlie Ellis of Greenwich
Associates, hardly a radical, says in Endowment 101 that people and
institutions should keep about five years worth of known expenses in cash
and bonds. Precisely to avoid what’s happening at Williams.
3.) Greg Avis and Mike Eisenson, head of the investment committee, owe the
Williams community an explanation and perhaps even more. Has anyone on the
board stepped down over this fiscal fiasco?
The values of Williams will endure. I’m afraid a donation today is bad
money after good.
Wick Sloane ’76
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51 Responses to “More money to Williams? No thanks.”
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frank uible says:
A valid viewpoint. In fairness it should be noted that the Oakley Center for Humanities building is not new major construction but is a former reasonably modest private residence located on Denison Park Drive and acquired by the College, I believe, about 1985 (I can no longer find on the Williams website its historical list of College facilities constructions and acquisitions and their costs) and undoubtedly improved and otherwise modified for College use and, of course, maintained.
May 16th, 2009 at 9:27 amSam says:
“They put most of the endowment in high-risk, high testosterone investments. I’ve heard the allocation was as high as 80%.”
This is almost certainly an exaggeration. It is more likely that somewhere between 30-40% of the endowment had been placed in private equity funds and other illiquid assets. That may be too high, or it may be reasonable, but it is not 80%.
May 16th, 2009 at 9:45 amWilliams has obviously taken a significant hit to its endowment, but it seems that the experience here is actually better than some schools while it is worse than others. We seem to be average. And “panic spending cuts” does not quite capture the current approach to budget reduction. Cuts are happening but in a careful, systematic and prudent manner. That’s my impression….
hwc says:
My only quibble with Mr. Sloane would be that I haven’t seen any panic cuts. For that matter, I haven’t seen any cuts at all that amount to much more than gathering up loose change in the sofa. The plan is to hope that high teststosterone investments recover sufficiently before real cuts have to be made so that business as usual can continue without soul searching about direction and philosophy.
Other than an isolated Madoff related departure, I have not seen one single new article about an investment manager or board member at any college or university resigning over historic endowment losses. For example, it comes to light that Amherst’s managers put the College on the hook for $500 million in additional cash calls into investments that have already lost a third of the endowment. As a result, Amherst can’t even raise the cash for operating funds without borrowing. Nobody has resigned or even offered so much as an explanation. Instead they’ve issued some gobbledygook about how it’s good financial management for a college with a billion dollar endowment to borrow $100 million in taxable bonds to meet payroll this year.
In fairness to Williams, the College appears to have been positioned better than most to withstand the endowment losses, which is why they have the luxury of making penny-ante cuts. They do not have exceptional (relative to other colleges) debt issues, cash call commitments, or cash flow problems. The only relative poor mark I would give is that transparency has not been good. Even trying to find out the endowment spending rate – for last year, this year, or next year — has felt like watching a game of find the hidden pea played by someone with fast hands. Offsetting that lack of transparency, Morty has been one of the few college presidents being honest about the true scope of the endowment losses. Most have been pretending the losses in private equity haven’t occured because the partnerships haven’t been revalued.
May 16th, 2009 at 10:09 amPTC says:
“The Baxter/Paresky debacle was the last straw for me.”
You nailed it Wick!
You do not have to be a genius to figure out that Williams wasted a ton of cash over the last decade… just take a walk around campus and look at what was built.
Will the “values of Williams endure”…? The school gave up scholarships and the financial security of the school/town in an attempt to make Williamstown look like New Jersey. Well, Williamstown ain’t Princeton.
Tear Paresky down and plant a garden. I am all for it!
May 16th, 2009 at 11:13 amstudent10 says:
Just as an aside- I’m assuming that he meant the new North Academic Building, Shapiro Hall (SAB), and the plans for the new Sawyer-Stetson project, not the Oakley Center for the Humanities- That is definitely a huge change on campus. Although I think they were necessary additions-Stetson was in dire need of renovation, Baxter was falling apart, from what I hear- and there’s no way a school could survive without a student center, the amount that the 62 center gets used is surely representative of the need to expand the theater. However, there is no doubt in my mind that the designs were all wrong and horribly executed. There is no excuse for the hideous, out-of-scale Paresky center next to Chapin. The 62 center is a beautiful building, but it doesn’t belong on Main Street- it belongs in a city. I’m not sure what people were thinking- especially every time I see the metal siding on the side of the SAB- it looks cheap and ugly.
May 16th, 2009 at 11:43 amDavid says:
Wick,
1) Is “I’ve heard” some sort of weird code for “Dave Kane took the time to write hundreds of words explaining the Williams asset allocation to me?” Recall this post and the scores that followed.
2) Where do you get that 80% figure from? Unless you are including equities (50% of the endowment), that’s a fantasy. Do you think it is fair to describe equities as “high-risk, high testosterone investments?” Do you have any stocks in your retirement portfolio? Do you recommend that your children have any?
3) All this is mere yapping unless you are willing to specify what the asset allocation for the Williams endowment should be going forward. It is fine to say, “I don’t know. I am not an expert.” But is juvenile to suggest that any Williams trustee ought to resign unless you are willing to say how the endowment should have been allocated in the past and how it should be allocated going forward.
4) Charlie Ellis is a smart guy but allocating “five years worth of known expenses in cash and bonds” is extreme. I know of no school that does this. I suspect that you have just badly mangled what Ellis actually believes. Can you provide a citation? Williams operating expenses are around $200 million per year and its endowment is about 5 times that. So, every dollar in the endowment should be in cash and bonds? You can’t seriously believe that.
5) Praise and blame for the endowment should go mostly to Dave Coolidge ’65 and Joe Rice ’54, the two previous chairs (I think) of the Investment Committee. Eisensen has not been in charge long enough to make substantive changes.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:08 pmhwc says:
Depends on the equities.
Having five years of endowment spending in cash or bonds would not be far out of line with the portfolios as some colleges. Alternatively, having five years of total operating expense available in highly liquid investments is also within reason. As far as I know, Williams is not having any liquidity or cash flow problems, although many schools (i.e. Amherst) are.
On the whole, I think Wick’s position is justifiable and reasonable. It is hard not to notice that spending at schools like Williams has been out-of-control. My wife drew the line at tearing down a library and building a new one because the old one was ugly. That’s when she said Williams obviously didn’t need any more money.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:32 pmDavid says:
1) I agree that Williams spending has been out of control. See several thousand words of commentary from me over the last 5 years.
2) There is no evidence that the Williams endowment has been poorly managed. Indeed, every bit of evidence that we have suggests that Williams is better placed to ride out the troubles than peer schools. As you have noted, the key clue is that other schools have had to issue taxable debt. We have not.
3) I agree that there is a difference between endowment spending (call it $80 million for Williams) and operating expenses ($200 million). I do not know of a single rich school in the US that keeps 5 times its “known expenses” in cash/bonds. Might there be schools that keep 5 times endowment spending in cash/bonds? Sure. How about some examples? Moreover, on June 30, 2007, Williams was not too far away from that.
13% of $1.9 billion is $200 million, about 3 times Williams spending from the endowment the previous year.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:40 pmmme says:
I have no idea what the Baxter/Paresky debacle was since I wasn’t here at the time. Will someone enlighten me?
And no! why would you suggest tearing down paresky? It really is a centre for student life and I love the different places where you can study or just hang out..
May 16th, 2009 at 1:46 pmmme says:
And also, the new academic buildings are so much nicer than the nightmare/maze that stetson was. You can actually find professors’ offices, and when you’re walking around the building, you don’t feel like you’re suffocating and the walls are closing in on you. Don’t our (usually) wonderful professors deserve that?
I guess I understand the critique that Williams has been spending more than it can afford, but I don’t really comprehend the sentiment that these new and improved buildings don’t “belong” at Williams/Williamstown. Like the 62 centre.. what’s wrong with having a wonderful building that is so instrumental in promoting the performing arts (besides the costs critique).. even if it looks more modern than a lot of Williamstown? And it sounds so ludicrous to me that people are suggesting we have a patch of garden instead of Paresky. Are these people just opposed to change? If you were a student, would you really prefer a patch of garden? (I mean.. maybe if you were a hippy and preferred to have your student group in a garden instead of a building.. but yeah).
May 16th, 2009 at 1:54 pmRonit says:
I could not agree more with Mr. Sloane’s post.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:59 pmRonit says:
Um, no. You can have a perfectly valid and useful view on overall investment strategy without having to decide on a specific allocation of stocks or bonds.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:04 pmcurrent eph says:
1st of all, I agree with the student above in that I really do think that a replacement for Paresky was necessary. The ’62 center…not as much, but that was a pretty separate situation (where a load of money was specifically earmarked for that and only that).
2nd of all, I know it sounds really slick to say the library’s being torn down because it’s ugly, but that’s not strictly true. There were a number of problems with Sawyer, with the most significant (I think) being that it was quickly running out of room. The College first looked into gutting the interior so as to use the space more effectively, but after looking into that, realized that it would be more cost effective to just tear it down and rebuild it. Now whether the current iteration of the Stetson-Sawyer project is more cost-effective than the cheapest gutting option would have been is another question altogether, but there was a lot of fairly responsible thinking that went into the decision to replace Sawyer.
3rd of all, a lot of the complaints here seem to come from people’s aesthetic distaste for these buildings. It’s fair to dislike the way the ’62 Center or Paresky or Morty’s building looks. However, the particular architectural styles of these buildings didn’t significantly alter their function or their cost. In other words, had we built a ’62 Center in neo-Georgian style (aka: to look like the frosh quad), the cost wouldn’t have changed that much (maybe a million dollars one way or another–a reasonably small amount given the total cost of the project). People on this blog–especially PTC–get the question of a building’s functional necessity and that building’s aesthetic success mixed up. Paresky may be an aesthetic failure but a functional success, and if we agree that there was a campus need for a well-functioning student center, than we should not cry foul at the financial decision to build Paresky simply because it doesn’t fit with its surroundings perfectly.
4th of all, even if we acknowledge that Williams went on an extremely spendy and not altogether necessary building spree in the last decade, we should not automatically assume doing so was a poor investment of the school’s resources. Williams’ endowment’s lost about a third of its value of the year. However, its physical infrastructure hasn’t changed in value in the slightest. In other words, while the 2 Billion dollars we invested in equities and whatnot has lost hundreds of millions of value, the ~200 million or so we’ve invested in Paresky, the ’62 Center, dorm renovations, the science center, etc, etc, has largely retained its value. In other words, because Williams spent so much money on buildings while the economy was hopping, we’re going to come out of the recession far ahead of many of our peer schools who did not make this investment in their physical infrastructure. Sure, we can’t really credit anyone for this–it was sheer luck that the recession happened after most of our major projects were finished.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:24 pmLarry George says:
How quickly I forget that a “generation” of students is more or less only four years (commenting on #10, not on current eph’s response in #13).
May 16th, 2009 at 2:46 pmWill Slack '11 says:
For Frank: http://www.williams.edu/admin/facilities/propertybook/const_proj.php
May 16th, 2009 at 2:52 pmwsloane says:
Almost as much fun as an in-person discussion at Williams. Ephblog works.
First: Noah Smith-Drelich ’07 will soon depart from two years of teaching at Pine Ridge Reservations in South Dakota. Generous Williams people have sent nearly 800 books to the library at his school. See left-hand margin of Ephblog. Can we get Noah to 1,000 before he goes?
1.) Equity allocation. “Equities or not” is neither my point nor my beliefe. The questions for any investor is how much in equities. My answer, though an opinion not a law of nature, is no more in equities than you can afford to lose. What’s too great an allocation? Well, if you find yourself, as Williams has, canceling projects and if, as at Williams, thoughtful faculty and staff are worried about losing their jobs, I’d say that’s too much in equities. Isn’t the (unnecessary, to me) loss hundreds of millions of dollars worth a discussion before people send off more money?
2.) The governance of Williams and Harvard and Yale and others, Amherst as discussed here, pose very similar questions. In recent years, the risk-free rate in finance, the U.S. Treasury yields, have hovered around 5%. Here is citation, for David:
http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/domestic-finance/debt-management/interest-rate/yield_historical_huge.shtml
Williams and other endowments have been pursuing yields of 20% and more. Even as just an English major, before my MBA, I think I could have understood the implications. To earn four times the risk-free rate, you have to be taking no risk? A little risk? A lot of risk?
3.) I return to my offer in my (so far failed) bid for the Williams presidency. That the Williams president and Trustees assume personal liability for the college finances, modeled on Names of Lloyd’s of London. Do I expect this to happen? No. My point? Fiduciary responsibility, which trustees have, is, I believe, the moral equivalent of personal liability. Now, if trustees had personal liability, would endowments have been invested as they were? With the huge losses?
4.) Are nice buildings pleasant to have? Of course. “Oh reason not the need!” a Shakespeare reference that needs no citation for this audience. I’m a grump on this one. I just completed a semester teaching College Writing 1 in a windowless basement classroom in a community college to a class full of students Williams admissions declines to visit. From that basement, Mark Hopkins on a log looks pretty good.
My point? Well, this class wrote a persuasive essay that caused the state Commissioner of Education to send his senior deputy to the class at 7 a.m. one day to discuss financial aid. The class, learning to write “proposal arguments,” wrote four proposals to improve student aid. The deputy commissioner has invited the students to work with the Commissioner to make those proposals happen. So has Sen. Kerry’s staff.
Records somewhere at Williams will show beyond any doubt that I am far from the best and the brightest to have passed through Williamstown. But if I can accomplish this in a windowless basement? Expensive buildings do not cause excellence.
May 16th, 2009 at 3:39 pmKen Thomas '93 says:
mme: You might appreciate the longing I have, when thinking back to walking down the narrow back stairwell of Stetson this previous summer, remembering all the interaction that happened there, the journeys through it, how it ‘worked.’
To walk out of that stairwell and think something like– this is the last time I will see an old friend.
“Buildings are containers for human activity,”– a Williams audience should not need the citation. Though I am not negative towards Paresky, it seems clear to me the architects never took the time to do a site survey of its existing human paths, the patterns of activity, and adjust to them.
It is jarring to try to cross the campus again, on foot, and find that the pathways are gone, that you can’t pass through the same containers for activity– you can’t find the activities that used to occur– are they gone?
I appreciate that Paresky, of course, has its own containers, it own ‘specialness.’ The questions I am raising range over tradition, excess, and moving too fast– sloppily– without understanding. The Life and Death of our cities is contained, in that question of how we build.
If Sawyer was ugly– I always thought it was– it was also, internally, a very complex building, both a built and lived space. If crowded– one should realize what one has. Echoing Wick, I will suggest that if you visit the library at someplace such as Western Kentucky University– or Berkeley– you gain a sense, of what you have, and where you are.
My worst fear: moving from spaces, and an experience, closer to what is called a “builders’ tradition,” towards more generic, ‘International Style’ spaces, which loose their unique capacity to support a subtle variety of human activities and interactions.
As far as Sawyer’s practical questions– I certainly know that a great deal of time and thought went into the questions. I also have some skepticism; if Wick’s projection of equities allocation may be high, I could be pointed in noting that the ‘space problem’ was to some extent exaggerated.
These are not simple questions– I would be amiss, to ignore the plans to repurpose may elements of Stetson in the new library– but my mind is drawn to Freud’s metaphor, that no structure is lost in a great city such as Rome– all the previous tradition, all the previous building, lies there, underneath, influencing the new.
When you do what Hausmann did– which is exactly what happened to the center of North Adams, and of many of our cities– when you turn the cannons on the existing structure, and wipe them away, and build something entirely new, without attention to what was there–
that seems to me an incredibly destructive and ignorant act, a painful one with incredible, far-ranging consequences that will echo into future history– and a pattern.
I’ll leave with a from Goethe’s journals– he writes of waking one morning to look upon the scarred face of Cologne, after the French bombed it– the burning buildings, the collapsed dome of the cathedral– the scars, running across the face of his beloved city–
the pain, the tears, the anger, –
May 16th, 2009 at 6:17 pmfrank uible says:
If one considers the whole period from the end of WWII to the present, those who have been risk intolerant have been left in the far financial dust.
May 16th, 2009 at 6:53 pmHenry Bass '57 says:
Frank,
You are absolutely right. US equities have done even better since 1978 when BUSINESS WEEK did a cover story called “Are Equities Done For” or something like that. The best buy signal in our life times. I put some $ in the Vanguard S and P 500 about a year later at $14.39. On Friday it was $81.56. Not at all bad for the bottom of a recession. And like all recessions the current one will end. I will be interested to see how well the Williams endowment recovers. Then we will know if the risk portion of the endowment was worth it. Or alternately whether it was a mistake. My prediction is that it will turn out to have been too risky. And we will be wiser for it. But, I could be wrong. I hope DK is at least right that Williams has done relatively well. But, I’m not sure of that.
May 16th, 2009 at 7:37 pmhwc says:
The reality is that colleges no longer have the ability to even put a valuation on their endowments. What is a private equity stake worth? What’s timber land worth?
Within those constraints, at least we’ll get to see the cards laid on the table face up after the fiscal year end in June. They are going to have to come up out of the foxhole and give a number.
I share Wick Sloane’s frustration. I find it very disappointing that none of the best and brightest at the top schools have stepped forward to say, “We need to re-examine the fundamental direction, here.” Instead, the operative assumption is back to business as usual after a bump in the road. Business as usual may be, ultimately, the way to go, but (damn) I sure would like to hear some debate about that in light of new economic conditions.
May 16th, 2009 at 8:36 pmHenry Bass '57 says:
hwc,
Private equity funds eventually need to take their compnies public. When they are able to do that again we will begin to see if their risks paid off. Wilbur Ross held the bigest chunk of the American steel industry only for about a year in his private equity funds. We will know in 2 or 3 years how badly colleges and pension funds did in their risk portfolios. The day of reckoning is coming. Boards will have no choice but to face the music when that day comes. It would be nice if one or two board members were preparing for that day. They did gamble with other folks $ not their own. CALPERS is already quite concerned about its private equity investments. It will be the first to pull the plug if the plug needs to be pulled.
May 16th, 2009 at 9:17 pmnuts says:
Wick asks some important questions. When it comes to the college endowment which is funded by gifts, how much risk is too much risk? When it comes to spending on the physical plant, how much of campus development in the last decade has been driven by the LAC arms race, and is it a valid assumption that the building projects are necessary to remain competitive attracting the most highly qualified students?
May 16th, 2009 at 9:54 pmhwc says:
Of course, the report came back that it would be more cost effective to tear it down. Just like the reports Morty asked for showed cluster housing to be the greatest thing since sliced bread.
If the issue is more space, why does the current scheme call for spending $95 million to build a pretty library that only has 25% more square footage more space than the old ugly library they are tearing down, most of that in showy entrances and atriums? For a stinkin’ 25,000 square feet, why bother?
Does anyone really believe that they couldn’t have added 25% more space on to Sawyer? They basically already did: the South and North Academic Buildings added more than 100,000 square feet, doubling the size of the Sawyer complex right now, today.
Nobody in their right mind believes it is cost effective to tear down a 98,000 square foot library building that is only 30 years old.
May 17th, 2009 at 12:12 amJeffZ says:
As one of the bigger (though not totally unapologetic) proponents of recent development on and near campus, I wanted to chime in. First, let’s not forget that several of the building projects have been, by all accounts, enormous successes: in particular the extremely well-executed science complex and the tunnel city building.
The theater is extremely functional and serves a lot of different roles: it was a major, major upgrade for the Williamstown theater festival, features three very different sized and styled spaces allowing for many different types of student productions, plus the awesome dance studio. I think functionality wise, it is a big success, and will serve the college well for many decades. It is also far better where it is than on Spring Street. Unfortunately, it is the least context-conscious building on campus, so while generally an attractive building, it does still feel really out of place and aesthetically, is by far the biggest black mark on Williams’ recent architectural record.
Wick, with all due respect it is pretty ridiculous to suggest that Baxter should have just been replaced by a garden. As others have mentioned, Paresky is one of the most frequently used buildings on campus, and it is WORLDS more useful than Baxter was. Yes, you don’t need great buildings for a great education, but come on, Williams with its resources should not provide comparable spaces to a junior college, nor would it continue to attract students in head to head competitions with other elite schools if it did. And the student center is going to be a building that most students enter into almost every day during their college careers. Baxter was (a) not a historically or aesthetically significant building (unlike the Adams theater), and (b) was built with a footprint to accomodate a school half the size of what it is now. Paresky is vastly superior from a functional perspective, as Baxter had very little and awful common spaces, no movie theater, pub, very little office space, no quiet reading lounge, etc. Paresky is essentially the living room of campus, and Baxter never felt really up to that task. Aesthetically, you can go either way, but it is far more successful than the theater. I am not a huge fan of the unnecessary architectural flourish of the wings and overhang, but others are and at least the building does not shy away from trying to be interesting on its own while, at the same time, echoing the materials and dimensions of the frosh quad and Chapin. The line created by the overhang does also help to direct the eyes towards Chapin and I think the building will age well. But in terms of functionality and need, I think Paresky made a ton of sense both at the time it was built and now.
Finally, on to the library project. First of all, hindsight is always 20-20. At the time, Williams was in the middle of a hugely successful fundraising campaign and was flush with more cash than it knew what to do with. HWC, Wick, etc., if you had tremendous foresight and foresaw exactly what would happen with the markets, congrats, you are both very rich right now. But I doubt it. You really can’t fault Williams for failing to foresee what, ohhhh, 95 percent of economists, not to mention college and universities failed to foresee, namely a 50 percent drop in the Dow and an economic collapse unequaled in our lifetime.
Now on to the merits of the project. Yes, perhaps Sawyer could have been salvaged in some way. But it has been a major blot on what should have been the center of campus for 30 years, and rather than spend a large amount of money (which even if HWC’s skepticism holds, it undoubtedly would have taken millions and millions to make useful going forward) thereby throwing good money after bad, why not take the opportunity to start fresh and reshape the Williams campus so it finally has a true and logical campus center for the next century or more? The other alternative would have involved displacing all faculty for several years while the rear of Stetson was destroyed and rebuilt, because those faculty offices had to go SOMEWHERE, engaging in the enormously logistically difficult and inconvenient task of trying to reconfigure Sawyer while it was still in use, and ending up with a half-assed result that still included an architectural monstrosity blotting out the sun and destroying any hope for a more coherent, attractive, user-friendly, and sensible campus going forward. Yes, it is costly and a luxury to fix an awful mistake, but the configuration with the NAB and SAB (both of which I happen to really like on their own merits) creating a new quad (and placing the humanities faculty at the center of campus rather than in an after-though addition) along with Stetson, Paresky, and Chapin, is just worlds better on many level than how the campus is configured now. If you are going to inevitably spend a large amount of money (and despite what some on here would argue, modernizing a dated library and creating non-horrific offices for faculty members was inevitable) why not spend a little more to do it 100 percent right, rather than spend all that money for a result that is inevitably constrained by the poor planning of future generations?
In sum, I might have made some tweaks to Paresky’s exterior design, but on some days I really like how it turned out, and the interior is wonderfully functional and attractive; the Stetson-Sawyer project, in particular replacing Sawyer, I wholeheartedly endorse as something that will smartly reshape the very center of campus and which takes a century-long, rather than 10-20 year, perspective on Williams’ future, and I agree with others that the theater, at least aesthetically, was a failure, but at the very least the school reversed course on the disastrous concept of placing it on spring street, and it does serve both town and college well, functionally. Not nearly so bad a record as others suggest, in my opinion.
May 17th, 2009 at 7:59 amJeffZ says:
(Meant poor planning of PAST generations there …).
May 17th, 2009 at 8:02 amhwc says:
Do you know if there is storage capacity in the planned new library complex for a single additional volume other than in the offsite warehouse up on Route 7 and the plans to preserve the basement of Sawyer as an underground storage facility?
May 17th, 2009 at 9:28 amfrank uible says:
The justifications arising out of purported superior aesthetics and function and other excuses notwithstanding, in sum the College has been financially improvident with respect to, is beginning to feel the adverse financial effects of, and in the longer term may very well deeply regret, its construction frenzy of the last decade.
May 17th, 2009 at 9:31 amLarry George says:
Jeff,
I agree with much of what you say. I still continue to rue the unnecessary glitziness of the projects (let’s let the massive stonework on the fireplace in Baxter Hall in Paresky — where a FAR less expensive design and materials, or even no fireplace, would have worked very well — and the much-criticized flat-screen announcements screens in Paresky stand for that). A college does not need to look like, or function like, a resort or a country club. It was the instinct for the –to my mind — over-the-top feeling, and the great added cost of achieving it, that left me cold. I see it everywhere I look at Williams (tulips, a one-time flower, planted extensively, when no flowers at all were necessary, and a perennial should have been chosen if there were to be flowers; huge College-supplied televisions in the individual Mission entries; etc.).
For several years, it has seemed to me that everywhere I looked at Williams I was seeing lavish unnecessary spending, and I have just assumed that the wastage on things I couldn’t see was at least as extreme. And even as this was happening, the increases in tuition and fees were greatly outpacing tuition. I can understand how these things make a person in Wick’s position nearly sick to his stomach. As for me, I used to stretch my — admittedly modest — alumnus contributions to try to help Williams, but I haven’t so much lately because I have felt more and more that I was just heaping more frosting on an already overly rich cake and that I was wasting my money.
Yet, I can see that most of the buildings were necessary and are useful — with the exception of the theater, my chief quarrel is in the way they were executed and their unnecessary costliness.
I have not gone back to the plans, but I do wonder about something hwc said. He reminded me that there were a lot of atrium and entry spaces on the library project. Are they the best use of the space? In light of budget constraints, should they be scaled back or partially repurposed? I wonder if anyone is going over the plans with an eye towards saving money/using space efficiently, and with a budgetary fine-tooth comb. I hope so. It could be that the changed times will greatly change the analysts’ perspective. Good things could come of the exercise.
May 17th, 2009 at 9:39 amanon says:
“They basically already did: the South and North Academic Buildings added more than 100,000 square feet, doubling the size of the Sawyer complex right now, today.”
How are these buildings meaningfully part of a “Sawyer complex” (first time I’ve ever heard this phrase to refer to these buildings)? They do not serve the purposes of the library in any real way, being almost solely faculty offices and classrooms (and wonderful ones at that).
May 17th, 2009 at 10:20 amhwc says:
Square footage. I know the buildings aren’t part of the library, but they could have been. They could have easily been 100,000 square feet of new space added on to the library — doubling its size.
I’m not saying that how they would have expanded Sawyer. I’m just saying that the proof of concept (expanding Sawyer) is right there, staring you in the face.
Those buildings cost $34 million for a net addition of 100,000 square feet. The remainder of the library project costs $100 million for a net addition of 25,000 square feet (plus whatever is in the underground bunker at Sawyer if that happens).
It could be a very long time before the library project is restarted. Borrowing an additional $100 million is not to be taken lightly. That would put the debt at close to 30% of the endowment value which is a number the bond rating services will not like. The budget won’t even be in balance ’til 2012 at the earliest (after a lot more cutting), so taking on an additional $5 million in annual debt service just compounds that problem.
May 17th, 2009 at 10:56 amwsloane says:
Why shouldn’t we, the people, expect the same library for a community college as for Williams? I’ll cede the gym and the pool to Williams. The library? (In fairness, I know that the community can use the Williams library.)
Even with Baxter as a garden, Williams still has more congregating space than 25 or 30 years ago.
The debate in my own mind is not as binary as the thoughtful posts above. I am not asking risk or no risk, equities or no equities, space for student to gather or banish them to the garden, where Baxter was, in February.
The debate in my own mind is the space in between, where often even a Williams education has a hard time knowing exactly how much to allocate where.
Here is how the question came to me this morning, the question for those who are trustees of places such as Williams —
My premise, again my opinion that others should agree, is that the world have never needed people with educations as good as ours at Williams more. Does that mean Williams must educate everyone? No. I am not making a binary point. I am at the margin, in the grey areas.
Question: If you are a governing body in the fortunate position of being able to decide whether to a.) provide a Williams education, in full or by increasing aid, to one more person, or, b.) bulk order soon-to-be idle flat screen televisions, what’s the prudent man’s decision?
May 17th, 2009 at 11:14 amhwc says:
Because such a library is unnecessary for undergraduate education.
The Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, Haverford libraries wrote an extensive report in 2003 as part of a Mellon Foundation grant. The section on collections and circulation looked at actual use of the volumes. They found that, of the 1.39 million volumes in the combined libraries, 57% (723,000 volumes) had never been circulated since at least 1991 when the combined computer tracking system was implemented. There is no reason at all for a community college (or perhaps Williams or Swarthmore) to have that number of volumes collecting dust for decades. This is part and parcel of the big picture questions that need to be asked.
Tri-College Library study
May 17th, 2009 at 11:26 amstudent10 says:
Umm, Larry, for all the mentions of planted gardens- you might want to get your facts straight. Tulips, while expensive, are pretty much the definition of perennial- they come from a bulb that could be split to plant more tulips- for all I know that’s what they did and the only tulips on campus are next to Morty’s house and Clark, both buildings that have been here for a long time. I’m actually pretty sure that there are no annuals planted anywhere on campus. I have a lot of problems with the way Williams has spent its money, but use a decent example if you want to back up your arguments. Also, the fireplaces, which have a lot of other problems (they didn’t work for 2 years because someone did the calculations wrong on the chimneys, so there needed to be a many thousand dollar renovation), are brick (presumably cheap? ), so no stonework there…There are stones on the floor, maybe that’s what you meant?
May 17th, 2009 at 11:49 amBetter points to make- 1)Paresky was clearly designed without taking into account how people move and congregate- thus the inefficiency of Whitmans- the most popular dining hall on campus. 2) I’m pretty sure the new library has actually less space for books than Sawyer, just more square footage- I’ll look for a link later to back this up..
Larry George says:
I did not read that study, but it bears emphasizing that, if the stacks are open, one needs something other than “circulation” (ie., checking volumes or other materials out) to determine use. I used a LOT of volumes in the Williams library during my time. I don’t think I ever checked a book out (I just used them in Stetson and reshelved them) until my senior year, when I “checked out” a number of volumes I was using on my senior paper in order to reserve them at my Stetson reserved study area in the stacks.
May 17th, 2009 at 11:55 amVermando '05 says:
On the “need” for spending, I think we’re confusing two points here.
First, from an absolute perspective, the post is almost certainly correct. The buildings were only a very marginal improvement and certainly are not necessary for providing a high quality undergraduate education.
Second, though, the issue is that Williams lives in a comparative world and not an absolute one. It may be silly to renovate buildings every 25 years when the old ones are still functional, but if our peer schools are doing it, we need to as well. The old theater spaces probably were fine, but they paled in comparison to Swarthmore’s, so they weren’t fine.
It is true that most of the ultra elite colleges and universities could dramatically reduce their fund-raising and still provide great educations. But none of them are, because that’s not their real purpose. They’re not trying just to provide a great education, but to be considered as providing absolutely the very best education in the country. It’s a rat race of diminishing returns and Williams, Amherst, et al are far to the end of the curve. But, until everyone else stops, we’re going to keep spending lots of money to achieve what are very small marginal improvements.
The summary? If Williams remaining at the top of the heap is important to you, then give, or at least encourage others to give, because if we all stop then we won’t be at the top for long. On the other hand, if you want your donations to do a maximum of social good, you’re probably better off donating to a local, broke college or other charity.
In all of this, I don’t really see the point of haranguing the College for spending when it’s incentives to be so “wasteful” are so obvious. Yes, the education Williams provided decades ago was great, but if Williams stood still like that, then other schools would bypass it in prestige. The President and trustees who allowed that to happen would have hell to pay.
I don’t have much to add to discussions on the buildings’ aesthetics – as was said, those decisions were not economically driven – or the College’s investments, which has been well addressed by others above.
May 17th, 2009 at 12:22 pmhwc says:
RE: #34
Yes, that issue was addressed at length in the report. Focus groups with both students and faculty revealed near universal support for bigger, fancier libraries with unlimited numbers of volumes on the shelves for browsing. The faculty were especially noteworth in suggesting that, when they request a book from another Tri-Co branch, it really should be delivered directly to their office so they wouldn’t have to make a trip to their own library to pick i up. Poor babies.
Back in the real world, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, and Haverford – like Williams — have lost 30% of their endowment value and are slowly coming to the realization that limitless growth in revenues may not continue. Which brings us back to the age old metaphor: cut football? cut the museum? cut the library? cut financial aid? cut the faculty?
May 17th, 2009 at 12:28 pmLarry George says:
student10 @33 —
Yes, the (relatively small) interior of the Paresky fireplace is red brick, but I was referring to the massive Vermont slate facing that runs all the way up to the ceiling. That was an extremely expensive addition to the student center, even if the stone was relatively “locally” sourced. Stonework like that is remarkably expensive.
[The tulips may be a nit. Where I live, they tend to be teated as an annual because they don’t usually come back well unless they are lifted for the winter (a practice that is labor intensive and disturbs the other plants), making them an expensive proposition — maybe they do much better in Williamstown, where it is colder in the winter. We did not have flowers around the campus when I was at Williamstown, so I’ve never seen tulips grown perennially in New England.]
I think you might be right about the new library having less book space than old Sawyer, but I haven’t checked. I’ll take your two points about space design instead (the surface luxury gets under my skin because it hits me in the face; I haven’t had the honor of using the buildings on a daily basis so I’ve undoubtedly over-emphasized the surfaces).
May 17th, 2009 at 12:33 pmhwc says:
To reframe the library issue in a different way.
The library is going to require a $100 million bond issue. The annual cost of debt service on the bond issue to pay for the new library will be approximately $5 million dollars. In effect, $5 million in “lost” revenue that can’t be spent elsewhere.
The net revenue (after price cutting) from 165 students is approximately $5 million.
So here’s a scenario. What if Williams didn’t build the library and, instead, reduced the size of the student body by 165 students. The impact on the operating budget would be the same. Would the old library be big enough for 1835 students, some 200 less than used it when it was first built and before Williams had the huge science library? Would the student faculty ratio improve by 10% resulting in more small classes? Would it be possible to close a dining hall, thus redirecting savings towards a stronger writing program?
Is Williams really better off with 2000 students and an expensive new pretty library? Or would the education be improved with the old library and 165 fewer students? Same cost (before we even take into account heating the new fancy atriums in the new pretty library.
May 17th, 2009 at 12:41 pmLarry George says:
Verando –
I have long been hoping that Williams and its peers would be wise leaders in this area. I rue that three or four of them didn’t get together and take a strong stance to start a countermovement. And central to my regret is that they all purchased a lot of glitz; I would have preferred for the money to have gone into the core mission and into innovative academic programs.
I keep hoping that these schools will be wise in their cuts and will learn how to forge more moderate paths for the future (and that includes making it a firm goal to keep tuition and fee increases to at or below the inflation rate going forward, as soon as they can).
May 17th, 2009 at 12:47 pmhwc says:
Larry, I actually think the fancy Vermont slate fireplaces are a better extravagance than the money spent on all the outside appendages (wings and overhangs, etc.) that make what is a reasonably scaled building look twice as big and all out of proportion to the surrounding. To me, that’s like a nouveau riche Cadillac with extra chrome.
May 17th, 2009 at 12:47 pmLarry George says:
Remember when we were in college and the gas lines in America were filled with bloated-looking all-“design”-but-little-function features, while the Europeans already had much more modest, but very appealing looking cars? I think about a lot of the buildings that I really like at Williams, and they are simple and stronger for it, without a lot of “hey, look at me” features.
But I’ve now beaten a dead horse. Apologies.
I am glad that Williams is in pretty good shape with its buildings and that construction and renovation have probably set the college up well vis-a-vis the expenses of operating them in the near future (aside from the fact that such a large increase in overall square footage probably counters the gains <– sorry to have, unintentionally, whacked the carcass again).
I guess where I am in terms of giving to Williams is that I’m going to start looking at specific programs to support. I may add to something that is endowed, like the alumni-sponsored summer internship program, which I’m sure has been a godsend to many students this year. I’m also going to listen out for student projects that need funding that I’d like to support — I expect that Chaplain Spaulding would be very glad to get a check to help fund Alternative Break projects, for example. My father used to say that experiences make people a lot happier than things do, and I’ thinking about following that vein in my future giving to Williams for the next few years, aside from a nominal check to the Alumni Fund for purposes of their participation numbers.
May 17th, 2009 at 1:06 pmhwc says:
It’s remarkable how much a donor with a checkbook can influence the campus with a targeted gift. Swarthmore had a parent last year (not me!) give $10,000 with the stipulation that it be spent only to fund non-alcoholic social events this year. It ended up funding twice weekly “Parrish Parlors Parties” (Thurs and Sat nights) that were drawing crowds of up to several hundred students. Students or clubs sign up for a night and get funding for their proposal…all above and beyond the normal student funding channels. It appears to have planted roots as a new tradition — to the point where the Parrish Parlor parties were included on a list of budget items students were asked to prioritize as part of the cost-cutting considerations.
Many alums give to the community service organizations. Harvard’s Philips Brooks House Association raises a lot of money from alums who appreciate that the money goes to student run community service projects.
May 17th, 2009 at 1:49 pmfrank uible says:
Do we all now agree that Williams is a foolish, insecure, arriviste, superficial, sybaritic, educationally insincere institution?
May 17th, 2009 at 2:22 pmLarry George says:
Nup — just that we wish it were perfect.
May 17th, 2009 at 3:41 pmGuy Creese '75 says:
As someone who has given consistently to Williams over the years, I would certainly like more transparency and less glitz in where the money is going. Morty’s administration brought Williams into the corporate communications world of today, with Morty “staying on message” and fat newsletters mailed out about the success of the Williams Campaign.
I would like much more information about where the money goes on the Williams web site. As it is, I have to go to a third-party site to get it. Williams should make my life easier.
On a related note, I think an interesting student study would be to simulate Williams going through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. What contracts would it break? How would it re-organize itself? Would the student body expand or contract? Although most companies react in horror at filing Chapter 11, having been through one I can tell you it’s quite a liberating experience. The court orders you to get back to basics as a way to create a credible business plan–and business–going forward. It’s zero base budgeting writ large. Some Econ major I think could come up with some pretty interesting findings.
May 18th, 2009 at 7:36 amfrank uible says:
Any student attempting such a project would be confronted with subtle obstruction from the College.
May 18th, 2009 at 7:49 amAnon '89er says:
Williams won’t be perfect unless they do everything the way I would have it! Which is to say, perfectly dead.
I despaired of the facilities arms race 20 years ago, when the new gym seemed ridiculously overlarge and elaborate for such a small college. Paresky and the new theatre just blow my mind, and not in a good way.
Education is not cheap. But why does it need to be luxurious? Accepting the luxury, gilded-age ethos seems to be unavoidable for modern charitable organizations, the price of having access to the favors of the plutocrats.
May 18th, 2009 at 7:55 ameyetolduso says:
Yes it should be luxurious at a price tag around $1700 a week in direct costs borne by students (30 weeks – 50k tuition & fees) and an implied cost of $2900 a week if you believe that the actual expenditure is $85000 per student. Spending needs to decrease but so should the cost of attending.
May 18th, 2009 at 2:16 pmPTC says:
You all have got to be smoking drugs to believe that Pareksy is in any way superior to Baxter. Baxter should have been re modeled. That building was bomb proof. It was also gorgeous. A small addition and some minor interior work was all that was needed. Now you all are sitting in an airport looking interior. Seriously, if you do not think “modern train station” while walking around Paresky then you have no sense of architectural style at all. Paresky is flat out ugly and generic. A “Velveeta Americana” interior that makes a person cringe. “The white zone is for loading and unloading”.
None of you people who are talking down Baxter is thinking clearly about the old snack bar, the circular window, the awesome pillars of the facade, and the French fries. You all drank the Kool-Aid of “the Donald”. No sense of style at all- You choose Britney over Jackie O. This townie is shocked by the lack of sophistication. Shocked!
May 19th, 2009 at 6:58 pmPTC says:
As Rectal’s dad would say.. “Who are these people and where did they prep?”
May 19th, 2009 at 7:03 pmkthomas says:
LOL, PTC.
JeffZ may appreciate that my first public argument with then- Assistant Dean of Housing Hernandez, no doubt available in the WCFM archives, began with suggesting that Williams needed a student center. Andy’s reply began that it needed no such thing: the wonderful thing about Williams was the quality of its houses, that many had pool tables, meeting and gathering spaces; that the social life, and community, existed there.
For what it was worth, I think both of us had been on campus for about three or four weeks, and it would be another three or so before I dropped by his office.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:58 pm