Phil Culhane ‘88, while resisting my entreaties to join the blog, sends in this comment:

If there is a dead moment in blog correspondence, how about the following question(s):

Does Williams need more money? If so, why? Could Williams achieve its current goals without an additional 400 million? Is Williams transparent enough with its stake holders (alum donors) as to its finances? I don’t know the answers, am on the fence a bit — but I do know that Williams competes for charity dollars in my house against institutions far less well endowed and I would like more from the school on “why give?”

Comments:

1) There are many questions here. As always, your answers are solicited. (Yes, we realize that the blog needs a comments section, but our current (low) level of technical competence does not make that an simple task.)

2) In terms of “transparency,” I would say that Williams (financially) is almost completely opaque. I am unaware of any source (and I have spent time looking) that provides Williams budget, for example. A fair amount of information is provided about the endowment, however.

3) There are some dimensions on which Williams does a very good job of providing information to its stakeholders. The admissions office, for example, provides a pretty good overview. See here for some recent data. And, in terms of how the Eph teams are doing, there is a wealth of information.