September 19, 2003 | Opinion

Alumni authors: Big Money hurting Yale's future

BY STEVE SEWALL AND ROBERT BACK

"No one I know at Yale would work for $80,000 a year."

So spoke Adam, a Yale junior, at a presentation that my colleague Bob Back, GRD '60, and I made last August to 30 Yale
undergraduates. The topic was money—Big Money—and its impact on Yale, the nation, and the three Yale graduates who have
occupied the White House since 1989.

The historic, information-age convergence of ethics and economics that erupted with the dot-com bust of 2000 sent a clear message to
the U.S. public: Something has to change. From Enron to Worldcom, a generation of corruption had finally climaxed in full public
collapse. As the institution that has produced the past three presidents, Yale must heed this wake-up call. As the University that grooms
that nation's future leaders, Yale has a responsibility to pave the way for a new generation.

Even though an economic recovery (or election-year rally) is now underway, market rally after market rally will flounder, Back and I
predicted, until torch-bearing universities like Yale—a "laboratory for future leaders," Yale President Richard Levin, GRD '74, boasted—
produce a new generation of leaders to curb endemic corruptions ranging from Enron-itis to the campaign finance that has paved the
way from Yale to the White House since 1988.

Unfortunately, the exact same issue that has led to our nation's downfall also plagues Yale; its risky alignment with a money-driven
political establishment has led the University to lose sight of its educational mission—and of contemporary history, as well. The
domination of Big Money over both national politics and Yale has caused Yale and other torch-bearing universities to neglect public
education. This neglect has contributed to the decline of public education (and civic discourse as well) in America since the 1960s.

Here's where Adam's comment comes in. In order to truly impact the next generation, Yale, I had suggested, needs to create a School
of Education to rival its Schools of Law, Management and Medicine in size, quality, and influence. (It would dwarf the Yale-New Haven
Teacher's Institute.) Principals' salaries in rural and inner city schools where good principals are desperately needed might be around
$80,000.

Adam's remark stunned me. After the presentation, I told him that my 1960s classmates at Harvard, Yale, and U.C. Berkeley gladly
worked for much less. His response, tinged, I thought, with regret: "We've worked too hard and taken on too much debt to work for
$80,000."

But I could not blame him. Since the 1960s, Yale's tuition has risen 10-fold (even as its endowment has grown 11-fold from $1 billion in
1985 to $11 billion today). Who can afford to teach after paying Yale tuition?

Adam's remark is testimony to how Big Money steers students away from certain careers, important ones, that future leaders might
prefer to others. What can Yale do? Ask Bill Gates or media tycoon John Malone, TD '63, to support a cutting-edge School of
Education? Surely they would ask: Will Yale lead the way in improving America's schools?

To lead the way, Yale must change its ways. In the 1950s, Yale President Whitney Griswold closed Yale's School of Education in a
move away from "vocational training" (a murky term that excluded vocations like theology and music) and towards "pure academics."
Other universities made similar moves, launching a half-century of educational research of dubious worth.

"The divorce of educational theory/leadership from teaching practice has brought lots of pain and little gain to public schools," says
Norman Zamcheck, ES '70, a career principal in New York City's public schools. Big Money in its institutional aspect—foundation,
corporate and government grants—has funded this split.

Zamcheck's observation, like Adam's remark and the presidential Yale alumni, points to Big Money's numbing, even narcotic, impact at
Yale. And it prompts a question: How should Yale deal with the blessing and the curse of Big Money? Miserable labor relations whose
resolution has eluded Yale for years proves the immediacy of this question, and its far- reaching implications as well.

That said, this inescapable question—the strike is just one symptom of the larger issue—will haunt Yale like the ghost of Marley until
Yale's privileged community of scholars answers it honorably.
Steve Sewall, GRD '66, is a Chicago-area educator and coordinator of the Chicago Civic Media Project. Robert Back, GRD '60, is a
Chicago-area financial analyst. They are co-authoring the book, Yale and the Modern World: Bush/Clinton/Bush, Big Money and the
Presidential Election of 2004.