Julio Frenk Interview

[Canedude08]

They are two entirely different discussions. One was fundraising, which this article touches on. I am going to trust that school's chancellor and my time as a consultant where we had multiple large athletic associations as clients to see how winning and investing in your program impacts donations. If you want an example closer to home - do you think it is a coincidence that Miami was not able to get a large lead gift for the IPF until it spent some of its own money and hired Mark Richt? Do you think that maybe having Mark Richt, an established coach, lead those efforts vs. Al Golden helped show donors that Miami was at least a little serious about investing into the program?

The second is athletics impacting academics, which I never said they did. What I did say is that Miami is not an Ivy League school, nor is it a Duke, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, etc., not mentioning larger state schools that are better academically. Miami is also not a large state school with a massive alumni network to lean on when you graduate and are looking for a first job. What I did say is that athletics is part of the college experience, and Miami is not good enough in any other area to not offer it to prospective students. You can go to a big state school for less money, have the same (if not better) job prospects, and have that large part of a college experience.

I think you are overrating how much college athletics matter to students today. There's a reason why schools are BEGGING kids to show up to events, begging kids to remain engaged. These kids are starting to realize that college athletics aren't about them, it's about the egos of big money donors and a bunch of bureaucrats who are able to profit off the labor of people who have less financial freedom than the student working in the bookstore.

For some kids, going to the big game is important. For a lot of kids, who feel that their education has been sacrificed at the altar of athletics, there is resentment. Kids are in debt up to their eyeballs, they are frustrated and they aren't happy with the fact that the highest paid person on campus is the football or basketball coach. The system is showing signs of stress, and it's hard to justify to a kid that will have to take out loans to pay for education why their school is able to charge them for an "Athletics Fee", while ****ing money away on gold plated facilities.

 

[Canedude08]

Contrary to belief, was Donna for or against football?

Dr. Shalala didn't hate football, she just wasn't interested as long as the school didn't have any PR issues as a result of the program. In other words, she was your typical University President. She stood up for Randy Shannon, because she liked him personally, but she didn't get to make that hire on her own.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

Yeahhhh, we actually are kinda Purdue.....minus the good engineering program.

I just don't get how you're so resolute that it's an insane idea. His name was repeatedly floated last time to the extent that he was forced to issue a statement that he wasn't interested.

View attachment 107651

It's an insane idea. It's never going to happen.

Which part of that comparison do you find to be identical? Our rankings?

Purdue is a state school. Every state school has expensive "out-of-state" tuition. Miami is a small private school. On an undergrad basis, we are just above 8,000 full-time undergrads, the rest of those numbers are grad-law-med.

So you are trying to compare a state school with triple our enrollment to UM, a small private school.

Why is the state school designation important? Because, often, the decision on who to hire for president is in the hands of political appointees. For instance, Florida state school presidents were often selected by the Florida Board of Regents (before 2001). The Board of Regents was made up of political appointees (13 out of 14 selected by the governor, 1 by the Commissioner of Education).

Now Florida has the Board of Governors. 14 out of 17 are appointed by the governor and 1 out of 17 appointed by the Commissioner of Education.

Thus, it is very easy for state schools to have a politician "selected" as university president.

As for Purdue specifically:

"The Purdue University Board of Trustees unanimously elected Mitch Daniels president of Purdue University on June 21, 2012. As governor, Daniels had appointed eight of the ten board members and had reappointed the other two, which critics claimed was a conflict of interest."

This is a structural issue, and Miami's Board of Trustees is neither appointed by the Florida governor or appointed by anyone currently in politics (insert your Shalala jokes here).

I'm not trying to argue with YOU, I am simply providing the facts. It doesn't matter to me what your opinion of Jeb Bush is, I'm simply telling you, just because Purdue's governor hand-picked 10 people who "selected" him as the new Purdue president doesn't have ANY IMPACT on whether UM would ever hire Jeb.

Sadly, we live in a world where one political ideology will criticize the other ideology for doing something "questionable", and then they will do the EXACT SAME THING once they are the party in power. If people want to criticize Shalala, fine, but she has an actual background in higher education that is separate from her political involvement. Just because "a Democrat" politician was once the president of UM (which many Republicans criticized) doesn't mean that it will be "balanced out" by selecting "a Republican" politician as UM president.

I'm trying to convey to you, that if anyone on the Board of Trustees regrets any of the negative feedback that arose from Shalala's past, present, and future political involvement, that makes them UNLIKELY to select someone like that in the future.

I'm not against Jeb, I'm just pointing out that there is no way in **** he would ever be offered the UM presidency. You can debate whether he brings "other skills" to the table, separate from academia, and that's fine, but I'm telling you that UM will only hire someone with serious academic credentials. Stavridis is in that category. And Rice would be too, but she is probably TOO political (post-Shalala) to really gain traction.

Just an honest assessment of how the wind is blowing. Not my own personal opinions, just my observations of how the Board is likely to move in the next year.

 

[Cane_Mutiny]

You need to check your ***** *** right out of this country. No one wants your weak minded type in this country but the funny thing is you would probably fit right in at the Hecht center with the rest of the SJW left wing wacko communist anti christian/****** america haters that are the “in” thing to be on college campuses. You disgust me and I’d like nothing more then to be locked in a cage with you WWF style so I can laugh as you cry for your momma for help or even funnier cry for the police that you probably hate because police in your eyes are all ***** right?! Lmao your a cliché, a phony, a twitter **** talker, a new age she-male with no balls but wish more then anything you had a pair of ovaries so you can build up your victim status. Fvck off maricon, ain’t no one buying your crazy here!

Holy sh't dude, you're a f'cking nutjob... Also, aren't you the imbecile that botched the banner by posting your receipt on the internet??

 

[TheOriginalCane]

Contrary to belief, was Donna for or against football?

Absolutely for.

She did a lot of stuff that most university presidents would never do, such as meeting with recruits during visits.

Sadly, some of her overall theories on management (hiring young up-and-comers) were not so great for UM football.

1. Kirby Hocutt - only prior AD experience was at Ohio University. Stayed at UM for 2.5 years.

On January 25, 2007, then-Athletic Director Kirby Hocutt announced the elimination of four varsity sports at Ohio University. Those sports include: men's swimming and diving, men's indoor track, men's outdoor track and women's lacrosse. The decision was announced without any advance warning to the student athletes involved causing major tension between the student body and the administration. The Athletic Department later revealed that the money saved would be used to strategically reinvest in revenue sports. The projected savings totaled $500,000. The cuts also brought Ohio University from 20 varsity sports to the Football Bowl Subdivision minimum of 16.

2. The Shermanator - first-time AD at UM. Stayed at UM for 1.5 years.

Recently fired by Nebraska.

3. Beta Blake James - only prior AD experience was at Maine. Stayed at UM for far too long.

You know the rest.

4. Randy Shannon - first time head football coach.

UM alum, but still.

5. Al Golden - only prior head football coach experience was at Temple.

Clemson happened.

Obviously, this approach to hiring younger "rising" talent has not paid off in these 5 situations where the hiring took place on Shalala's watch. That doesn't mean she is anti-football or wants the program to fail. Many universities have hired "rising star" coaches and ADs and have done very well, it just backfired for Miami.

 

[Insanecane]

Football brings increase in applications, but let's be honest: The kind of kid that is making academic decisions based on how good the football program is most likely not the kind of kid that is going to get in anyway. Most fundraising is done on the academic side, and it's done through research. The most valuable entity in any University are the researchers. They are far more valuable than any sports coach, because they are what will attract the true big money donors. You have some top end researchers, they can and will attract the kind of money that athletics never will. Never mind the fact that athletics tends to hold onto every single dime they raise. What the AD raises or earns, it keeps. Outside of some insanely profitable schools, most schools see little in regards to cash infusions in regards to athletic departments.

Athletics have a purpose, but it's far overblown on this board and among college athletic fanbases in general. No school has ever been built solely on athletics and no school ever will. It's not an accident that the schools that have historically been really, really good in sports are for the most part schools that are mediocre at best in their primary mission, outside of some outliers. For every Michigan, or Texas, there are dozens of LSUs and Alabamas.

Miami can and should do what it takes to have a nationally competitive athletics program, but one shouldn't mortgage the future of the institution itself to do it. A quality AD can work within the confines presented by being a smaller, selective private institution, and create an atmosphere in which accountability and competence reigns. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to not hire Manny Diaz without conducting a search. It doesn't take a ton of money to realize that it's an awful idea to continue to hire inexperienced HCs especially ones that have shown an inability to understand the issues at hand.

Incorrect. I had my choice of schools, some of which were very quality schools with fairly poor football teams; in some cases no football team. I chose and attended Miami in part because I wanted a lifelong hobby of attending and rooting for a winning P5 football school. It mattered.

 

[Ethnicsands]

Here is the answer to your question, straight from their school president/chancellor's mouth:

"The question posed to the academic head of the Alabama University system was simple. As the highest paid coach in collegiate sports, was Saban worth it? Dr. Witt responds without hesitation, "Nick Saban is the best financial investment this university has ever made. We have made an investment that's been returned many fold," he tells Keteyian. "

Nick Saban called UA's "best financial investment" by chancellor

University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban delivered a team that has won three of the last four national championships

www.cbsnews.com

You have to be careful with retrospective justification. The investment in Al Golden didn’t turn out so well.

 

[Fluffhead]

You have to be careful with retrospective justification. The investment in Al Golden didn’t turn out so well.

Obviously like anything, be it hiring a coach, buying a business, investing in the stock market, the return on investment is unknown and investing that money is a risk. However, you have to spend money to make money and in this case, it is a risk and investment that paid off for Alabama.

 

[CaneFan79]

I can see both wspcane and Canedude08 being right...Depends on the region. The role of sports in university life is strongest in the South and ESPN's lockdown of rights in the SEC and (to a lesser extent) the ACC shows that they project the same level of interest or greater in the out years. Students attending Alabama to Georgia, Clemson to Virginia Tech, UNC to Duke, Kentucky to Auburn, Tennessee to LSU want the athletic focus to be there and it is what students expect and desire when they apply to these schools, as wspcane illustrates.

Conversely, as Canedude08 points out, this athletics focus is waning in other regions, and even at institutions formerly at the top of the football and basketballl pyramids:

- The Varsity Blues FBI operation may have had the most apt name ever. At USC, the $$$ was used to fake athletic prowess to gain access to other, now more renowned areas of the university (Annenberg Communications, USC School of Cinematic Arts). Clay Helton not fired? Hey, did you see how parents are going to prison to get their kids in there? No such thing as bad publicity.

- Crosstown UCLA has it's School of Theater, Film and Television (less than 8% admission rate), an exceptional location (Brentwood) and highly ranked business, medical and law programs coupled with a top-ranked public undergrad ranking. They have not been to a Final Four in a decade and new Coach Mick Cronin has only made the Sweet Sixteen once and is essentially an East of the Mississippi Cincy lifer...Not the second coming of John Wooden to a Pauley Pavilion which is pretty lifeless now

- Wonder why Jim Harbaugh isn't fired yet? The word on the ground there (in talking to current UMich students) is his cerebral image is more in line with what a "Michigan Man" is in 2020. Like UCLA, highly ranked business, medical and law programs coupled with a top-ranked public undergrad ranking is now a bigger draw than the big house for many students. OSUck? They now joke that they tell Buckeye students "We both got admitted into Ohio State."

Bottom Line as it pertains to UMiami? Frenk's indifference is hurting UM and he needs to go soon...

 

[NicKane]

Holy sh't dude, you're a f'cking nutjob... Also, aren't you the imbecile that botched the banner by posting your receipt on the internet??

I didn’t botch **** maricon! Me and my brothers banner flew for the fiu game, here’s a little peek of it since you obviously weren’t there to see it “imbecile” lmao

 

[Empirical Cane]

Contrary to belief, was Donna for or against football?

Neither really.

Hobbit Donna (Lebanese btw) was there as a way station to continue her academia-politico career. She started as a professor in the 70s (I think), rose to President of some small college, then was named CHANCELLOR of Wisconsin....yes that WISCONSIN. There are some that credit her for giving the nod to B Alvarez as HC.

So when people rail against her for "destroying Miami football", she didn't wreck the Badgers now did she?

Stints in Clinton Admin as HHS (I think longest serving). A buddy of mine at WH told me she was Billy's DS (designated survivor) during one of his SOTU addresses (don't know, don't care).

Miami picks her as President, where she presides over a massive Med School underfunding crisis and custodial strike. Nice that the don't have health insurance while you have TWO Board of Director jobs at UM Trustee Corps for $600K/yr ON TOP of your U Miami gig.

She then helped the international pay-to-play org...errrr...I mean Clinton Foundation...we all know how that has turned out...

And now she is Congresswoman Shalala.

We get we who vote for...

 

[caneaddict]

it was a carrot to sell the medical program

 

[Ethnicsands]

Let's walk through this word salad and point out why most of it is mental *********ion.

1) Donations that are earmarked for football are earmarked. In other words, they will not go to the school whatsoever. It's the same reason why the huge donations that go to the med school can't be used to pay for new coaches and athletic facilities. There are legal ramifications involved. That said, the people that tend to donate to academic causes aren't swayed by an athletic department. Why? Because they understand that the athletic department is an independent entity. How do I know this? Look at the schools that raise the most money and have the largest endowments. A large percentage of those schools are dreadful athletically, in fact, most of them don't even try to have major college sports. Yet, schools with big time athletic successes lag behind in a lot of cases. A perfect example of how athletic successes don't line up to fundraising success is Miami in the last 20 years. Momentum I and II were highly successful, despite the football program being mediocre throughout the period. If people are making academic donation decisions based on the athletic department, how did that happen?

You’re confusing issues. I simply pointed out that football success can lead to an increase in unrestricted giving. Your claim was football giving stays within football. That’s a claim, but not a certainty. I’m not debating spending on football to build football-specific giving.

As for your endowment reference, it’s misleading for reasons I have already pointed out. The biggest endowments concentrate in elite institutions with longstanding alumni and wealthy family connections. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton etc. That’s irrelevant to Miami and this discussion.

Miami’s donor target universe is wealthy alumni, mostly. Maybe wealthy locals. The real question for Miami is ‘wallet share’ relative to other giving causes they or their heirs may consider. Things that breed pride and connectivity towards the school can be expected to help here. Miami isn’t going to manufacture wealthy alumni at an accelerated pace and it isn’t going to monopolize their offsprings’ academic careers, either - wealthy tend to socially climb and the University of Miami isn’t high enough up for truly wealthy people. So it’s squeezed. It’s anyone’s guess whether football will move the needle but the rest of your response is distraction. Yale’s endowment has nothing to do with Miami’s situation.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

Here's where canedude is wrong.

He equates actual physical attendance at football games with being a fan of the school/sport.

Look, we all know that live attendance for pro sports is down. People can watch from home, people play fantasy sports, in-person attendance is costly and time-consuming.

BUT, pro sports is enormously popular and makes money hand-over-fist.

So, yeah, the UM students may not be lining up around the block to take a bus to Hard Rock, but that doesn't mean they don't love it when UM wins and it doesn't mean they want to go to FGCU instead.

Who buys all that UM merch at the Bookstore? Who watches on TV? How many UCF students actually get into the stadium each week?

Prospective university students still want to be associated with "a winner", regardless of whether they spend all of their Saturdays sweating and getting sunburned.

 

[RedSquare]

I will preface this by saying that I went to Miami for law school, so I don’t really like saying this, but Alabama’s law school is in the top 25 and their accounting program is extremely well regarded by the accounting firms. Georgia is extremely well regarded and a number of other schools in the SEC or the big football schools. Miami is simply not as well regarded as you may think it is, and certainly not good enough to ignore the full college experience of good athletics. Also, Jesus Christ you are insufferably condescending.

FWIW, between undergrads, MBA's and JD's, we probably see over 750 resumes a year, for new hires, if not more.

We recruit on about 7 or 8 different campuses around the USA directly, (depending upon the year), and the rest of the resumes are either solicited from a list of various on campus career centers at schools we like, or sent in unsolicited.

We wouldn't bother to even interview anyone with a degree from the SEC, with the exception of Vanderbilt which is a very good school.

Just don't have any regard for the academics of the SEC.

 

[Empirical Cane]

You’re confusing issues. I simply pointed out that football success can lead to an increase in unrestricted giving. Your claim was football giving stays within football. That’s a claim, but not a certainty. I’m not debating spending on football to build football-specific giving.

As for your endowment reference, it’s misleading for reasons I have already pointed out. The biggest endowments concentrate in elite institutions with longstanding alumni and wealthy family connections. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton etc. That’s irrelevant to Miami and this discussion.

Miami’s donor target universe is wealthy alumni, mostly. Maybe wealthy locals. The real question for Miami is ‘wallet share’ relative to other giving causes they or their heirs may consider. Things that breed pride and connectivity towards the school can be expected to help here. Miami isn’t going to manufacture wealthy alumni at an accelerated pace and it isn’t going to monopolize their offsprings’ academic careers, either - wealthy tend to socially climb and the University of Miami isn’t high enough up for truly wealthy people. So it’s squeezed. It’s anyone’s guess whether football will move the needle but the rest of your response is distraction. Yale’s endowment has nothing to do with Miami’s situation.

E Sands bringing strong points.

Mas fuerte.

 

[We the Boss]

I saw on the tv while I was at breakfast this morning that Julio Frenk was being interviewed by Jackie Nespral with NBC 6. It was muted but I know they were talking football since they kept showing clips of UM getting smoked on the field. I have tried to find the interview online with no luck. Does anyone have a link or can anyone share what was said?

Question, was he topless during the interview?

@nystateofmind please update ASAP

 

[We the Boss]

Jeb Bush has no immediate future in the Republican Party so this would be a logical choice to replace Frenk- if those rumors are true. Stavridis is fine by me too. We'll probably give it to Debbie Wasserman Schultz or some clown that is currently a dean at Temple if history repeats itself.

I’m trying to meme this into reality.

 

[Fluffhead]

I think you are overrating how much college athletics matter to students today. There's a reason why schools are BEGGING kids to show up to events, begging kids to remain engaged. These kids are starting to realize that college athletics aren't about them, it's about the egos of big money donors and a bunch of bureaucrats who are able to profit off the labor of people who have less financial freedom than the student working in the bookstore.

For some kids, going to the big game is important. For a lot of kids, who feel that their education has been sacrificed at the altar of athletics, there is resentment. Kids are in debt up to their eyeballs, they are frustrated and they aren't happy with the fact that the highest paid person on campus is the football or basketball coach. The system is showing signs of stress, and it's hard to justify to a kid that will have to take out loans to pay for education why their school is able to charge them for an "Athletics Fee", while ****ing money away on gold plated facilities.

I understand sports attendance has been down, but there are still a lot of kids that want that part of college and you saying otherwise is between disingenuous and an entirely made up statement. Schools are still getting 70,000 plus routinely, if not more, and most of the numbers skewing stats downward are games against FCS schools. You are literally making up this entire argument. When your school rankings and reputation is dropping, you need to expand your applicant pool and give more reasons to attend a school, not less. Miami is simply not that elite of a school where it can say just come here and pay $60k a year for academics alone.

Aside from that, it is free marketing when the school is good at football and all over ESPN. There is a reason that the school changed its official logo from the University of Miami to the U when all of our guys were taking over the NFL.

Kids can pay less, get the same job prospects, and have that full experience. That is all I am saying. You also talk about crippling debt - paying $60k a year for Miami is a terrible way to avoid that for most and the $300 athletics fee is not moving the needle on that.

 

[Bunker Mentality]

You are conflating the President's role for Miami as a whole vs what "authority" the position truly has over AD.

Understand before you spew.

No... I think you’re the one who lacks understanding.

President’s role is to protect the University’s brand. Our University-wide brand is our football logo, which was recommended by a professional consulting agency and adopted under Shalala due global recognition and representation of excellence the []__[] holds (I think we were trailblazers in this regard as well). If it were Harvard or Yale, or pre-adoption of the football logo as brand ambassador you’d have a valid point. But once you get behind the excellence of your football program and logo, you have to protect it.