What to do with Harvard's Missing $390 Million?
The Teagle Foundation Wants to Know
(Winter 2007 Newsletter)
Last year, the Teagle Foundation, a New York-based philanthropic
organization that supports leadership in liberal education in America,
recognized Thomas Aquinas College as one of its “Baker’s
Dozen” of “over-achieving” academic institutions.
Inclusion on this list was based on the College’s exceptionally
high graduation rates, its high percentage of students who go on
to earn doctoral degrees, and its having accomplished all of this
through the efficient use of limited resources. Endowments at these
13 “over-achieving” institutions range from Thomas Aquinas
College’s approximately $9.5 million to $430 million.
Committed to doing its part to help strengthen liberal education
in our country, the Teagle Foundation, through its president Mr.
Robert Connor, often consults academic leaders for their insights
into the challenges faced by small colleges that offer the liberal
arts. Intrigued by an article in The Wall Street Journal which described
how a controversy at Harvard University caused disaffected donors
to withhold $390 million in pledges, Mr. Connor queried the leaders
of the Teagle Foundation’s “Baker’s Dozen” about
what these institutions might do with $30 million, representing
each of the 13 institution’s imaginary share of that $390 million
Harvard failed to collect. He then posted his query and their responses
on the Teagle Foundation’s website: www.teaglefoundation.org.
Thomas Aquinas College President, Dr. Thomas E. Dillon, responded
to Mr. Connor that a hypothetical windfall of $30 million would
immediately secure the College’s financial foundation.
As he explained, “$15 million would go toward endowing student
financial aid, which would be especially helpful since the College
has a need-blind admissions policy.” Another $10 million would
go toward endowing the College’s faculty development program.
“Thomas Aquinas College,” President Dillon explained,
“does not present the standard academic fare, with a multiplicity
of departments and programs, but offers only one required curriculum
in the Great Books, spanning the principal disciplines. Therefore,
if we are to help our students see the integration and order among
the academic disciplines, it is essential the College develop each
faculty member in the breadth of the disciplines.”
In the four years of the College’s astronomy sequence, for
example, students read and work through the original texts of Ptolemy,
Copernicus, Tyco, Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and Einstein.
“Over time,” Dr. Dillon continued, “we expect our
entire faculty to be able to conduct tutorials in which they lead
students through a first, but rigorous reading of these texts.”
Endowing the six-week summer faculty development program, therefore,
would ensure the continual strengthening of the faculty.
Lastly, Dr. Dillon would allocate the remaining $5 million to assist
with faculty housing in the Southern California real estate market
that commands prices well over $500,000 for barely adequate housing.
“It is one thing for the College to require that its faculty
have the ability to teach in the breadth of the disciplines and
be able to skillfully lead Socratic seminars and tutorials,”
Dr. Dillon said, “but it is asking too much to require—in
effect—that faculty also be independently wealthy.”
Harvard University’s endowment of over $25 billion—minus
$390 million, of course—is remarkable. Yet, by the grace of
God and the generosity of its friends, Thomas Aquinas College continues
to flourish, uphold its principles of Catholic liberal education,
and produce graduates who become leaders in education, law, medicine,
the priesthood, and many other walks of life.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Winter 2007
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