Our criticisms of the MSU administration are not credible unless we also examine UM

Submitted by jbrandimore on

When appropriate.

Apparently, Dave Brandon is still employed at UM, he merely changed his name to L. Eric Lundberg and now runs the UM endowment investment area.

Reading this, he's a DB on the level of the original DB (Dave Brandon).

I personally smack MSU for its misdeeds at every opportunity. I'd be a hypocrite if I overlooked media reports of possible corruption on the UM campus.

Freep warning: https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/05/04/university-m…

billybrown

May 4th, 2018 at 3:02 PM ^

I just saw that you were the genius who started the Betsy devos thread as well. So either you're even more stupid than you've already appeared or you're trolling at this point. Most likely you're just stupid though.

massblue

May 4th, 2018 at 3:38 PM ^

and a stupid post based on them. First, there has been no “corruption” at the endowment. Lack of control does not mean someone has taken advantage of them. First, FP accused endowment of allocating money to funds run by alums, which is a very common practice among univ endowments. When it was shown that these funds had actually performed better than their peers and some had cut their fees for UM assets, FP changed its story and focused on the inflated tax benefits that the donors get. That did prove to be a common practice as well and now FP is changing its tune. Classic click bait. By the way, the reporters working on the story know less about endowment management than a junior Ross student.

Bschool85

May 4th, 2018 at 3:48 PM ^

As in most cases, this one indeed, journalists write their story(ies) trying to sensationalize things they’re rarely experts about. I totally agree, a junior in RSB likely knows much more than the person slinging accusations at the FP. Sadly, it seems trying to equate successful asset management with decades of sexual assaults is the best the FP has to offer.

4yearsofhoke

May 4th, 2018 at 4:08 PM ^

Classic case of how a business operates and spends VS the scrutiny any government/public agency has. 

It looks like UM is working this out internally..

Took non-profit law. Lots of universities have this issue. Because UM is public there's extra scrutiny. Because the endowment is private funds there's going to be tension. Don't forget the endowment funds typically have strings attached to them etc...

I also read the article and thought it was fairly interesting, but not a huge deal. Then I lost all respect for the journalist who went on twitter and tweeted "I thought you'd be interested in this" to like a 1000 entites/people that deal with auditing procedures.

ak47

May 4th, 2018 at 4:08 PM ^

Linking this to MSU is stupid but there are also some really concerning things highlighted in this article if you are worried about the management of the endowment. Derailing an internal audit shouldn't be something the person being audited has control over, the issue raised by the audit aren't being addressed, and like everything else the Michigan FOIA office is being shitty and secretive.

xxxxNateDaGreat

May 4th, 2018 at 5:39 PM ^

"Exactly, but he works for Michigan, so obviously he's perfect"

Literally no on in this thread yet has said that. They are criticizing you for heavily insinuating, if not borderline outright saying, that potential private donor fraud is the same as a public university trying to cover up the worst mass sexual assualt crime against children in the known history of the world.

You have a crime of money vs a sexual crime against about 250 children over the span of two decades and you want to act like it's basically the same. There is no comparison there. None. So you can get pissed at everyone calling you out for this dumb ass point that you are trying to make or just accept that you made a really stupid, insensitive and offensive comparison.

billybrown

May 4th, 2018 at 5:50 PM ^

Keep being deliberately obtuse and digging that hole genius. Of course the one guy you got to agree with you is renown as being a concern troll and an admitted contrarian because he somehow sees the real truth while the rest of us are wild homers. You made a fool of yourself just back away and realize it.

UMForLife

May 4th, 2018 at 9:51 PM ^

I cannot believe you have 3 upvotes. And stop with the we. You either work for freep or MSU fan or both. You should be ashamed of yourself. May be put this kind of effort to make those morons at MSU to realize their idiotic ways

Stuck in Lansing

May 5th, 2018 at 10:59 AM ^

The issue with MSU, as bad as it is, isn't that one guy did one thing one time. It was two guys everyone knew were creeps doing 250+ things, over 20 years. If you can't tell the difference, you should probably avoid making your ignorance public.

Signed, The Rest of the World.