| Blog and Media Roundup - Tuesday, November 2, 2010; News Roundup | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 2 2010, 05:21 AM (311 Views) | |
| abb | Nov 2 2010, 05:21 AM Post #1 |
|
http://www.dukechronicle.com/article/low-transparency-grades-weigh-down-duke-s-sustainability-score Low transparency grades weigh down Duke’s sustainability score Michael Naclerio/ Chronicle File Photo : Duke received all A’s in the 2011 College Sustainability Report Card except for two financial disclosure categories, in which Duke was given D’s. Michael Naclerio/ Chronicle File Photo Duke received all A’s in the 2011 College Sustainability Report Card except for two financial disclosure categories, in which Duke was given D’s. By Jessica Kim November 2, 2010 For the fourth year in a row, Duke received a B+ on the Sustainable Endowments Institute’s 2011 College Sustainability Report Card, falling behind some of its peer institutions. Although the University received high marks in many of the categories, it received two D’s for its policy of not disclosing where it invests its money. Duke received D’s in endowment transparency and shareholder engagement, and A’s in all other categories, including climate change and energy, green building and student involvement. The category “endowment transparency” measures the degree to which schools release investment information, and “shareholder engagement” is an indicator of how well schools incorporate university concerns in investment decisions. Although SEI Director of Communication Susan Paykin acknowledged that Duke performed well overall on the report, she said information about where a university is investing its money is also relevant to measuring its sustainability practices. “It is really important for universities to be working on these on-campus, really visible sustainability issues,” Paykin said. “But it’s easy to forget because it’s not as obvious that the University is investing millions of dollars into private companies which have huge effects on social and environmental issues.” Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations, warned against placing too much emphasis on endowment transparency as a primary indicator of a university’s sustainability activities. “All rankings are arbitrary to some degree.... All of those [categories] in which Duke received the highest possible grades is because the actions of the University in these areas are significantly noticeable,” Schoenfeld said. “I think the impact of [the investment categories] on overall sustainability are less apparent.” Only one in five schools makes endowment holdings available to the campus community, according to the SEI website. The average endowment transparency grade across all schools in the 2011 report was a C. Duke received lower than average because it limits information on endowment holdings to a select group—namely members of the Board of Trustees, senior administrators and select members of the school’s community—whereas schools that receive a C usually make some portion of their endowment holdings open to the public, Paykin noted. The University has policies of not disclosing endowment holdings for competitive reasons, Schoenfeld said. The University’s investments had a return of 13.2 percent in the year ending June 30, 2010 and often outperform endowment returns at a number of peer institutions. Some universities, however, have made their endowments transparent and have not suffered in their ability to produce significant returns, said Alexander Robel, Trinity ’10. “One really good example is Dartmouth, which has a sizeable endowment and has a transparent endowment policy,” Robel said. “It has one of the highest grades in endowment transparency and they still make over 10 percent returns year in and year out.” Dartmouth received A’s for endowment transparency and shareholder engagement in the 2011 report and an overall score of an A-. While at Duke, Robel said he and other students confronted the administration about disclosing more endowment information. In Spring 2009, Robel collaborated with other student groups such as the Duke Democrats in circulating a petition requesting that the Duke University Management Company, a private firm that manages Duke’s assets, release details of endowment holdings upon request from any member of the University community. The petition received hundreds of signatures in a few weeks but ultimately did not result in any changes, Robel said. Schoenfeld said although there is no anticipated change in Duke’s policy on disclosing its endowment holdings, the University did respond to concerns about investment transparency. In 2004, the University approved the Guideline for the University on Socially Responsible Investing and set up two committees to voice the University community’s complaints to DUMAC. Concerned individuals can submit proposals that must go through the committees and other institutions before being heard by DUMAC. The petition, however, referred to the multiple-step process as “long and difficult to navigate, as if it were intended to discourage students from questioning the endowment’s holdings.” Despite Duke’s lower scores for transparency, the University excels among its peers in on-campus sustainability and was named one of the 120 campus sustainability leaders in 2011. The report cited Duke’s full-time sustainability committee, its 7 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions since 2007, its use of local organic produce and reusable containers, its transportation system and the Duke Smart Home housing option as indicators of its efforts. The seven schools that received A’s this year included Brown University, Dickinson College, Oberlin College and Yale University. Forty-five others received A-’s. Also known as a “Green Report Card,” the independent evaluation by the Cambridge-based nonprofit has been prepared since 2007 for more than 300 colleges. Data for the report card was compiled from April to September 2010 on the basis of surveys sent to administrators and information available online. |
![]() |
|
| Quasimodo | Nov 2 2010, 08:06 AM Post #2 |
|
✔Fact Checker here. A Deputy Fact Checker has been at work on the endowment disclosure issue. We are trying to work around DUMAC policy in two ways: A) The Duke Endowment (hereafter we shall call it TDE just like the Allen Building insiders) is a separate charity operating out of Charlotte often confused with the University since James B Duke created both. For the past two years, it has gotten its financial advice from DUMAC, the only outside client of DUMAC. Each year The Duke Endowment lists all its holdings. Some of these are "legacy investments" that TDE deposited with DUMAC and will remain its own. But the general rule is that TDE and Duke University funds are co-mingled, and TDE owns a percentage of everything that DUMAC has. Voila, see what is new with TDE, and you know what is new at DUMAC. Or see what's missing from TDE and you get a pretty good idea what DUMAC has sold. Problem: TDE's fiscal year runs Jan 1 - Dec 31. Duke U and DUMAC run July 1 - June 30. Any TDE report that we see will reflect changes in the DUMAC portfolio that are at least 18 months old. We have not yet issued any FC report with information derived in this way. B) DUMAC files reports with the SEC, schedule 13-F, that will show investment activity. We do not believe all activity, however, since DUMAC operates under a plethora of aliases, including Gothic Corporation and Gothic London, which in turn do their real business under other aliases, including Blackwell Corporation and Gretmar Corporation. All of these corporations are owned or operated either by Duke University or DUMAC. We do not know the reason for them; we do know the result, which is to hide everything. Once we check out the Schedule F tangle, we believe we will be able to present a fairly accurate picture of the total university holdings. Beware, however, as much Duke money is in Private Equity Funds and Equity Funds. In the end all we may have found out, for example, is that Duke gave fat-cat Leon Black at Apollo Management LLP, $100 million. Apollo Mgmt is a shell which in turn invested our money in real companies. Apollo runs its own maze that defies accountability, and finding out the real companies is another issue. If anyone would like to join in this research, write Duke.Fact.Checker@gmail.com Be prepared to be treated rudely, your emails to Brodhead administration officials often not answered. Be prepared to be treated like a pariah, not a loyal stakeholder doing your job. Over a long period of time,Fact Checker and predecessors have requested a list of our endowment holdings. Duke historically presented this information to everyone -- even mailed the information to every alum. But current high officials pretended not to know anything about that. We got University Archives to give us the citation for these reports, and ever since providing proof to the people on the 2nd floor of Allen Building, we have heard nothing. On a further note, I am glad to see that no one is quoted this morning with the old argument that holds no water: that revealing endowment holdings would somehow affect our earnings. This claim is absolutely false. Someone mentioned that Dartmouth's year in and year out earnings are above 10 percent. I cannot confirm that. But please be advised that with all its secrecy, the average annual return during the past ten years with DUMAC managing our money has been only 6.5 percent. That's anemic. Anemic. Our portfolio managers should be transparent, and thus held accountable for results. Duke.Fact.Checker@Gmail.com |
![]() |
|
| Quasimodo | Nov 2 2010, 08:58 AM Post #3 |
|
|
![]() |
|
| abb | Nov 2 2010, 03:50 PM Post #4 |
|
http://www.justice4nifong.blogspot.com/ Tuesday, November 2, 2010 Important announcements and information – a wild ride is ahead There are important and exciting changes and events coming soon on the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong’s website: www.justice4nifong.com. First of all, you will notice that there will be much more in the way of audio available. It will be present on various web pages, and not limited to the Multi-media section. Audio will also be presented on videos, especially animated ones such as the second preview trailer for the upcoming educational comic strip, “The MisAdventures of Super-Duper Cooper. A link to it will be provided in this blog. There will also be more animations and videos added to the website, as time permits. A series of previews with variations announcing the upcoming Episode V of “Super-Duper” are in the works and will be added as well. A complete collection of them will be found on You Tube. To celebrate the upcoming New Year, Episode V will have its first installment posted online on our website on 2011’s first Sunday, January 2nd. Successive episodes will be posted each following Sunday. This comic strip episode is much larger than previous episodes… larger than the previous four combined. Not only that, but it will be more educational, and, of course, hilarious. Many familiar North Carolina celebs will be featured in cameo guest spots, especially those in the media. The strip will also feature one of this blog’s commenters in an extended role. Since switching formats for the websites many links are not properly established, and I apologize for that. I will try to get them up and running as soon as possible. A section of which I am extremely proud is Investigative Reports. Currently, the report about MSNBC’s Senior Legal Analyst Susan Filan’s blatantly libelous online statement is featured. These reports contain documents and other forms of evidence to support premises presented. There are two upcoming reports that are in the pipeline that you will not want to miss. One is an extended report about the discrimination against me by Duke University in April 2010. Discrimination was based solely on the fact that Duke did not approve of my beliefs and thoughts… specifically, after attending an event open to the public, I was kicked off campus because I am a supporter of justice for Mike Nifong. Instead of complying with principles of decency and restorative justice, the university tried to defend its deplorable actions. This Investigative Report will include an audio recording of between the security guard and myself (along with a transcript) that is the crux of this horrendous incident. And there are plenty of supporting documents as well that are creatively displayed on the site. Another upcoming topic for the Investigative Report, and a case about which much of this website and blog will be devoted to is about the injustice of a man serving time in jail who was wrongly convicted of murder. He was also convicted and received the death penalty for the deaths of two other individuals… deaths which should have never been considered as premeditated or worthy of the death penalty. Deaths in those cases should have been considered as self-defense and manslaughter. It will be very apparent after viewing that Investigative Report why the Tar Heel state has earned its reputation for meting out “selective justice based on Class and Color.” So, hang on to you i-Pad, laptop, or desktop, because we’re in for a wild ride beginning in the next couple of days. LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0VEljQPwSI |
![]() |
|
| abb | Nov 2 2010, 03:56 PM Post #5 |
|
http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/11/02/776011/wagstaff-running-as-write-in-candidate.html Published Tue, Nov 02, 2010 10:10 AM Modified Tue, Nov 02, 2010 10:09 AM Wagstaff running as write-in candidate in Durham DURHAM Former Durham City Councilwoman and Durham Public Schools Board member Jackie Wagstaff was seen working the polls during early voting, presenting herself as a write-in candidate for Soil and Water Conservation District Supervisor. Wagstaff did not respond to a voicemail requesting comment, but one of the incumbents she is challenging, Ray Eurquhart, did have something to say. "It's just a back-end way of doing things," said Eurquhart, who has been on the Soil and Water board since 1994. "Her thing is just being a big shot." Soil and Water Conservation programs began in the wake of the 1930s Dust Bowl; Durham has had a local program since 1939, to provide landowners with technical assistance and promote conservation practices to the general public. Stream restoration and sediment and erosion control are among its current priorities, in town as well as in the country. Eurquhart and fellow incumbent Robert Rosenthal are running for re-election this fall; no one filed to run against either. "I was trying to retire," said Eurquhart, who is also co-chairman of the Rolling Hills/Southside Steering Committee and a member of the city-county Environmental Affairs Board. "But nobody didn't ever come forward. "We certainly want some people there who can work with the staff and work with famers and work with developers," he said. Elections for the Soil and Water District Board are typically low-key affairs, and typically draw a great many write-in votes: 676 in 2008, 708 in 2006. Durham County Board of Elections results show that among the write-ins, votes went to John Muir, Mike Nifong, Durham Voter # 642520, Clint Eastwood, Homer Simpson, Eugene Debs, Smokey Bear, Humpty Dumpty, Muddy Waters, Greg Fishel and Daffy Duck. |
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
![]() ZetaBoards gives you all the tools to create a successful discussion community. Learn More · Register for Free |
|
| « Previous Topic · DUKE LACROSSE - Liestoppers · Next Topic » |







9:14 AM Jul 11