Swarthmore Comparison
At my request, HWC sent in these notes on Swarthmore’s finances and comparisons, in terms of disclosure, with Williams.
There’s some overview stuff in the annual reports. The management discussions are quite good, particularly if you read them over time:
http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/investment_office/
http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/investment_office/FinancialRpt_06-07.pdf
Also, the discussion of each year’s operating budget has some more overview:
http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/investment_office/BudgetSummary08-09.pdf
But, no. Not a lot of detailed level spending information beyond the “spending by natural classification” section of the “notes” right at the end of each year’s financial report.
I don’t expect Morty to provide the level of detail you are seeking. But, when I’ve looked at dozens of colleges’ financial reports and can’t go to Williams’ report and quickly identify the size of the endowment and the endowment spending for operations, something is not as clear as it could be. Endowment per student, operating expenses per student, and net revenue per student are the first things I want to know about a college.
The Williams Econ department’s high ed finance project is all over those indicators. Why should they be hard to find in Williams’ annual report?
I don’t have a problem with Williams’ reporting overall. Williams provides less data that some schools, more than many. The key shortcoming is the lack of any management discussion or historical charts that help the layman understand the annual financial reports. I have to go to the NACUBO endowment survey each year to find out what William’s endowment is because the annual report has it all co-mingled with estate trusts such that the number isn’t the number they report to NACUBO. How hard would it just be to just add a sentence that says: The endowment on June 30th was…
It’s not like one of these schools that needs to obfuscate. Williams College’s financial strength is readily apparent and unassailable.
For now. During good times, Williams can get away with opaqueness. During bad times, openness and transparency is even more important. Why can’t the College tell us the details of its budget/finances?
Morty on the Spot
Kudos to Morty for agreeing to this event and to College Council for organizing it.
College Council has organized an All Campus Question and Answer Session with President Schapiro. President Schapiro has offered to answer any and all questions students have about how the financial crisis will impact student life on campus (ranging from the impact on financial aid packages and expected family contributions, to the impact on funding for academic programs, to the impact on the resources available for student activities and residential life, to anything else students want to ask). Anyone who shows up will have an opportunity to ask questions and receive responses directly from the President.
Good stuff. My questions (with background) below the fold. What question would you ask Morty?
Read more
Comparative Transparency
Williams will never be as transparent as I would like it to be. But perhaps I am just nuts! Yet is it unreasonable to demand that Williams should be at least as transparent as, say, Amherst? Compare the financial reports of Williams and Amherst. Both colleges provide basic financial statements but Amherst does much more. See (pdf) the Descriptive Analysis of Endowment and Other Similar Funds on page 33 and the Statistical Information on page 52 for fascinating details on Amherst.
Why won’t Williams make the same information available to us?
Intellectual Honesty
Information wants to be free, or so all the cool Ephs tell me.
One of my favorite recurring crusades is to encourage/cajole/force Williams into being more transparent. Too much information is too restricted to too few people. A central hallmark of an academic community is openness, a willingness to consider evidence and discuss policy. To that end, I have sought and received permission to publish important documents like the Report on Varsity Athletics (thanks to Professor Mike McDonald) and the Report on Williams in New York (thanks to Professor Chris Waters). It is truly pathetic that the College does not make these reports available on its website. Also of interest (but perhaps reasonable for the College to exclude since they are the statements of individual faculty members rather than official Williams committees) are commentary on athletics from former Coach Dave Barnard and commentary on WNY by Professor Robert Jackall. It seems a shame that, were it not for EphBlog, no one would have easy access to these important documents.
Yet, in all these cases, I received permission from someone in authority to publish this work. What about cases where I do not receive permission? We had this problem during our CGCL seminar two years ago on the Diversity Initiatives. The actual Diversity Initiative report was never made available to the general public. You needed (and still need) a password of some kind. Any high school students considering Williams (or their parents) can’t get in. And, since I did not have permission to make the information public, I did not. The same was true (after an initial tease) in the case of the Alcohol Task Force report from 2005.
But just because I am too fastidious to publish something without permission does not mean that every Eph is, nor does it mean that I won’t ask others to do so. Information wants to be free, after all. A kind-hearted Eph put the Alcohol Report on the web three years ago. Another Eph (could be the same person but the formatting looks different) has done the same with the Diversity Initiatives (portions of) the recent Self-Study. Great stuff!
Williams College should make these all documents public, on its own website. A scholarly community is defined by a openness and transparency. When former Dean of the College Steve Fix spoke at the Boston Alumni Society annual meeting a few years ago, he insisted that “Intellectual honesty is the highest value at Williams.” Exactly correct. When will the administrators who run our College live up to this claim?
Here To Help
Think that EphBlog is never helpful to the Williams Administration? Think again! Andrew Goldston ‘09 reports that at the College Council meeting about poo fighting Dean Merrill said (paraphrased):
I’m not a member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. I’m not shutting down alcohol on campus. What I am doing is reviewing, where are the super big problem points, particularly in the excessive drinking culture at Williams.
In ‘04-’05 we had the Alcohol Task Force, they made an interesting report, but I left it had home. That report should be visible, available.
You think? Was it just two years ago next week that I effusively praised the College for making the Report publicly available?
Congratulations to Williams, and the people who run it, for being so open in discussions of the issue of alcohol on campus. The full report is here. Below the break is the e-mail that Dean Roseman recently sent to the “Williams Community”.
…
The topic of alcohol (much less drugs) is an interesting one. Perhaps the report is worth reading. But, for a process-obsessed curmudgeon like me, the most important thing is that Williams has published it conclusions and the underlying data for all to see. Openness is the sine qua non of a scholarly community. Kudos all around.
Link doesn’t work? Me either! As is so often the case, I was too quick in my praise of College officials. They removed the report the next day.
Thought that my praise of the College’s openness with regard to the Alcohol Report was premature? You were right! Director of Public Affairs Jim Kolesar ‘74 writes:
We made a technical mistake in posting the alcohol web site. The data is intended to inform college discussion. The intent was for it not to be available to the public since we’re not aware of sufficiently comparable data from other schools. The mistake was that the site was posted originally in a way that made it open to all. That’s now been corrected. We intend to make it available to alumni and parents. That correction will take a day or two. When it’s ready, we’ll notify all alumni and parents for whom we have e-mail addresses.
Pathetic. As Jim notes, the site is no longer available.
1) File this under the category of no praise goes rewarded. When will the College learn that, 95% of the time, honesty is the best policy? I find it impossible to believe that any potential applicants would choose, say, Amherst over Williams because of what they read in the Report if Amherst refuses to publish similar data. High school seniors are not that stupid!
2) It would be reasonable for the College to sanitize the Report a bit, prior to publication. Reasonable people might suggest that the raw comments should be summarized and not included. But to hide the entire report from the world over concerns about the lack of “sufficiently comparable data from other schools” is borderline dishonesty. Will tour guides be instructed not to mention the Report? Will applicants who request a copy be denied one?
3) Still want to read a copy of the Report? Well, EphBlog is here to help! Now, the relationship between EphBlog and the College is a tricky one. We are not out to embarrass the Williams; we want more people to apply and more of those accepted to enroll. But, as Dean Fix reminds us, “intellectual honesty is the highest value at Williams.” So, while I have never abused my alumni login privileges by accessing a private document and then making it public, I am happy enough to facilitate such abuse by others. So, where is the student brave enough to post the Report (or at least the highlights an summary) to her own blog?
And, mirable dictu, a responsible Eph did make the report public here because “information wants to be free.” Indeed. Comments:
1) The Report is now “visible” and “available,” just as Dean Merrill requested. No need to thank me!
2) There is some other information that wants to be free. For example, why can’t those of us off-campus look at the Williams Diversity Databook (link won’t work if you are not on campus) portion of the Self Study for Accreditation? Some future Dean may want that to be “visible” too. Let’s help her out!
3) The other major report that should be public is from the Diversity Initiatives. Who will make that information free? Future Deans will thank you! (Note that our CGCL two years ago covered this report in detail.)
4) Unless someone either objects or has a better idea, this year’s CGCL will cover the Alcohol Report and the Self Study for Accreditation Report. Contain your excitement!
Rewarded Praise
Thought that my praise of the College’s openness with regard to the Alcohol Report was premature? You were right! Director of Public Affairs Jim Kolesar ‘74 writes:
We made a technical mistake in posting the alcohol web site. The data is intended to inform college discussion. The intent was for it not to be available to the public since we’re not aware of sufficiently comparable data from other schools. The mistake was that the site was posted originally in a way that made it open to all. That’s now been corrected. We intend to make it available to alumni and parents. That correction will take a day or two. When it’s ready, we’ll notify all alumni and parents for whom we have e-mail addresses.
Pathetic. As Jim notes, the site is no longer available.
1) File this under the category of no praise goes rewarded. When will the College learn that, 95% of the time, honesty is the best policy? I find it impossible to believe that any potential applicants would choose, say, Amherst over Williams because of what they read in the Report if Amherst refuses to publish similar data. High school seniors are not that stupid!
2) It would be reasonable for the College to sanitize the Report a bit, prior to publication. Reasonable people might suggest that the raw comments should be summarized and not included. But to hide the entire report from the world over concerns about the lack of “sufficiently comparable data from other schools” is borderline dishonesty. Will tour guides be instructed not to mention the Report? Will applicants who request a copy be denied one?
3) Still want to read a copy of the Report? Well, EphBlog is here to help! Now, the relationship between EphBlog and the College is a tricky one. We are not out to embarrass the Williams; we want more people to apply and more of those accepted to enroll. But, as Dean Fix reminds us, “intellectual honesty is the highest value at Williams.” So, while I have never abused my alumni login privileges by accessing a private document and then making it public, I am happy enough to facilitate such abuse by others. So, where is the student brave enough to post the Report (or at least the highlights an summary) to her own blog?
4) The most recent example of similar College reticence concerns the Report on Varsity Athletics. To this day, the College refuses to post a copy of this Report on its website, despite the fact that it is one of the most important College documents produced in the last decade. Why should the College be afraid of discussions like this? It is sad to see a similar pattern of secrecy and denial in the case of alcohol on campus.
