POSTED BY MARTIN KICH

Writing for Inside Higher Ed, Scott Jaschik has reported on how an “Unusual Donor Agreement at UNLV Raises Questions about Fund-Raising and Governance”:

Len Jessup is on his way out as president of the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, after receiving unfavorable reviews from the system chancellor and clashing with several regents. And since he has talked about moving on, a foundation has announced it won’t be donating the $14 million it pledged for UNLV’s new medical school.

Big gifts are sometimes based on the relationships between donors and university leaders. But in this case, the link was formal. UNLV agreed to Jessup remaining president until 2022 (as well as the medical dean staying in office) as conditions of the gift. And the Las Vegas Review-Journal  reported that Jessup signed that agreement nine days after he received the unfavorable review from his boss. A lawyer retained by the chancellor to examine the agreement, in a memo obtained and published by the Review-Journal, said that it raised serious ethical issues. . . .

In . . . the UNLV agreement, the university agreed that the pledge could be revoked if the president or medical dean left office before 2022. Several fund-raising experts (outside Nevada, and not players in the debate there) via email expressed surprise that a university would agree to such a condition.

One fund-raiser for a university that receives many large gifts, and who asked not to be identified, said that “any gift agreement that encroaches upon university governance, especially at the highest levels, should not be accepted.” He said that he “understands that this is what the donor wanted, but the provisions of this agreement unquestionably interfere in university governance.”

Jaschik’s complete article is available at: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/03/19/unusual-donor-agreement-unlv-raises-questions-about-fund-raising-and-governance?width=775&height=500&iframe=true.