Ivory Tower Windfall

Like the government programs they have become, colleges and universities have morphed into bottomless pits for federal and state subsidies and magnets for corruption. Here’s the latest: “Elnora Daniel, the beleaguered president of Chicago State University, told colleagues Wednesday that she plans to retire, following a year in which her spending practices and leadership repeatedly came under fire,” Jodi S. Cohen and Steve Schmadeke reported in The Chicago Tribune on January 30. “She plans to leave on June 30, the day her contract is set to expire, but she will continue to collect her $241,025 salary and other benefits until June 30, 2009, as an ‘educational leave’ clause in her contract allows.”

No one from Enron could work a deal like that. “Daniel announced her departure in an e-mail sent early Wednesday morning to faculty and staff at the 7,000-student South Side university, which serves more African-American students than any other university in the state,” Cohen and Schmadeke wrote.

Some of her pet projects included:

• “A government-funded project in west Africa, the subject of a recent Tribune investigation,”;

• “The doctoral program in educational leadership—the university’s first PhD program,”; and

• “The new College of Pharmacy, which will welcome its first class this fall.”

Some of her business expenses included:

• “Meals,

• “Alcohol,

• “Theater tickets and

• “Purchases for her university-owned house, often without providing invoices, receipts or other justification for the expenses. She later reimbursed the university $8,654.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.

Malcolm A. Kline
Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia. If you would like to comment on this article, e-mail contact@academia.org.