OK...she’s stealing money from the donors. Either way, she represents the type of PC-infected idiots that “educate” our children in this country. Money isn’t everything.
I gave you a scale comparison of the amount of money Gutmann brought in and her salary. Do you really regard drawing a hefty salary for doing your job *very* well “stealing”? After all, the main job of a university President is fund-raising.
I’m inclined to cut her a little slack on this. Penn is in a largely African-American neighborhood, which it redeveloped with its endowment (interestingly this was a better investment than keeping it in the stock-market), and has a program of providing a full-ride scholarship to any kids from the neighborhood who make the admission cut. Good town-gown relations between Penn and its neighborhood have at times been a little tricky, and on that front this was probably a good move. One thing you might not have noticed is the size of Penn’s police force, and the fact they are real police, not the rent-a-cops a lot of colleges and universities have: Penn, at its own expense, provides an extra police presence, not just on campus but in a good portion of West Philadelphia surrounding the campus.
Actually I find President Gutmann amusing. Her last notable foible was occasioned by being photographed with all and sundry at a Halloween party she hosted for the students, including one who came dressed as a Muslim suicide bomber. I tweaked her by e-mailing her that I was glad to see her taking our national costume party in stride and not fretting too much about political correctness, and expressing the hope that next year she’d be photographed with some other horrors like faux Klansmen and pantomime Nazis, and suggesting that she find solace from the media storm by following the old Penn fight song’s advice and drinking a highball.
(Full disclosure: I’m an old Penn man, Grad A&S ‘84.)