On February 14, 2006, the Northfield News published an article by Adam Johnson, titled "Regents approve plan for WCAL funds" in which St. Olaf College Dean and Provost James May announced that the college would be using a portion of the proceeds of the sale of the WCAL charitable trust assets to repair Boe Chapel and its organ and fund three "endowed" distinguished professorships at the college.
This decision was made at the February 9-10, 2006 meeting of the St. Olaf College Board of Regents.
The article points to previously published comments of former St. Olaf President Christopher Thomforde where he noted that
"the money [from the WCAL charitable trust] would be better used to fulfill the college's primary mission to improve higher education, an obligation to which the WCAL station [and therefore the WCAL charitable trust] was not contributing directly."
SaveWCAL points out that mission of St. Olaf College, clearly stated on the college's web site, is:
St. Olaf, a four-year college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, provides an education committed to the liberal arts, rooted in the Christian Gospel, and incorporating a global perspective. In the conviction that life is more than a livelihood, it focuses on what is ultimately worthwhile and fosters the development of the whole person in mind, body, and spirit.
We would like to know how WCAL did not fit in with that mission, especially as WCAL was listed in the 2002-2004 St. Olaf College Academic Catalog as a department/division under "Student Services". More to the point, Thomsforde's comments indicate that the college leadership is well aware that the WCAL charitable trust is distinct from the general mission of the college, yet they have attempted — and continue to attempt — to repurpose the WCAL trust to benefit the college in ways other than those specified as the original intent of the trust.
The organ will make a difference to everyone who worships at Boe Chapel, said John Ferguson, who is Elliot and Klara Stockdal Johnson Professor of Organ Music.
SaveWCAL points out that the monies are to pay for repairs and reconstruction, not a new organ. The funds being applied to the Boe Chapel organ will make no difference to thousands of WCAL listeners and St. Olaf College donors who once heard the organ six days a week on WCAL.
In the article, May is quoted as saying:
"Funds generated from the WCAL endowment have provided us…with direct support of [St. Olaf College] academic programs."
The statements in the article acknowledge a planned (and later executed) disbursement of WCAL charitable trust assets by the trustee for purposes wholly unrelated to the core purposes of the WCAL charitable trust—both to the original purposes of the WCAL charitable trust as well as those newly "defined" by St. Olaf College in its December 28, 2006, Petition (and hastily submitted Amended Petition) to the Rice County District Court.
The professorships are named after deceased St. Olaf faculty members Kenneth O. Bjork ‘30 (History), Marie Malmen Meyer (English) and Oscar R. '21 and Gertrude Boe Overby '23 (Music). These names are almost legendary to generations of the St. Olaf College community.
The current St. Olaf professors upon whom these professorships have been bestowed are not only in disciplines wholly unrelated to the aforementioned WCAL charitable trust "core activities", they are in disciplines wholly unrelated to the disciplines and/or legacies of the deceased St. Olaf professors for whom the positions are named:
- Kenneth O. Bjork Distinguished Professorship recipient Martha Wallace ‘75 is a professor of Mathematics.
- Marie Malmen Meyer Distinguished Professorship recipient L. Henry Kermott is a professor of Biology
- Oscar R. and Gertrude Boe Overby Distinguished Professorship recipient Samiha Sidholm Peterson is a professor of Sociology.
NOTE: Both the emertii and current professors are excellent representatives of the St. Olaf College faculty. Comments about actions of St. Olaf senior administrators and the Board of Regents should in no way be construed as a disparagement of the considerable talent, abilities and contributions to the college of these faculty members. Indeed, the current faculty members may be embarrassed to find themselves "honored" with a professorship of questionable, if not illegal, funding and mightily suspicious in conception and intent. Perhaps they already are. Research indicates that the only place St. Olaf College and/or the current faculty members appointed to these positions acknowledge their Distinguished Professorship titles is in small print at the end of the college catalog.
Although May claims in the article that the endowments for the endowed professorships are meant to provide "direct support of…academic programs", there are no apparent direct links between these endowed professorships and any academic departments or programs at the college. Assigning funding to an endowed professorship only replaces funds salary funds that were already being spent on faculty. This is simply creative accounting.
In the case of at least one of the deceased faculty members, at no point did St. Olaf College consult with or seek permission of any family members of the deceased to use the deceased's name for this purpose nor did they inform any family members before making public announcements about the professorships. Relatives first learned about the professorships through the Northfield News article referenced above.
Various relatives and friends of these late professors have stated publicly that there is no doubt in their minds that the late professors (whose voices are now silent and — as St. Olaf knows — unable to speak for themselves) would have fervently and actively opposed the sale of WCAL charitable trust assets and the subsequent attempted dismantling of the trust. As one family member said, these individuals would have been "disgusted" that the creation of these professorships came at such a great cost to WCAL (whose destruction financed the "endowments") and to the St. Olaf community (through the loss of WCAL and resulting loss of donor revenue and goodwill).
After experiencing considerable negative donor reaction as a consequence of the 2004 sale of WCAL charitable trust assets, it is possible that the college hopes the creation of these "endowments", linked as they are to the names of beloved faculty members, will convince disillusioned donors (especially those of a certain generation) to resume giving to the college.
Only after a family member of one of the deceased professors inquired about a recognition event, did the college see fit to schedule a cursory reception to mark the creation of the professorships on May 5, 2006. One person present has said:
"It was the shoddiest reception that I have attended in almost 30 years of association with the college, clearly lacking the college's usual careful planning and execution. It was apparent that the St. Olaf administration did not want to give or draw too much attention to the event and, more importantly, to the source of the funding."
A number of relatives of the deceased who were present were embarrassed and offended.
[http://northfieldnews.com/news.php?viewStory=29081]
