Perhaps no statistic better shows how Milwaukee has changed than the growth of endowments. The old Milwaukee was an incredibly tight-fisted town where wealthy people were rarely interested in giving generously. It took the Greater Milwaukee Foundation more than 40 years to build $1 million in assets, which it finally reached in 1956. Today, the foundation has $527 million and is among the nation’s top 30 community foundations.
In most cities, colleges drive the growth of endowments. But as recently as the mid-1960s, Marquette University, the leading college for most of Milwaukee’s history, had a bankrupt medical college and almost nothing in endowment. MU was the main source of doctors and lawyers in town, but few seemed to be interested in giving anything back.
My, how things have changed. By the end of last year, MU had an endowment of $301 million and ranked 180th among colleges and universities for such funds. The Medical College of Wisconsin, which spun off from Marquette in the late 1960s, ranks even higher at 138th place with a $442 million endowment. Just ten years earlier, MCW’s endowment was only $41 million.
UW-Milwaukee, which had next to nothing 15 years ago, had an endowment of $61 million by the end of last year. Little Alverno College had $27 million and Cardinal Stritch had $21 million.
An endowment is money an institution banks, spending only the interest to help pay annual operating costs. In many cities, the universities, museums and symphony orchestras began building sizable endowments from early in their history. In Milwaukee, the wealthy simply didn’t leave many bequests for local institutions. Colleges and cultural institutions have had to play catch up and are still far behind many midsized cities in endowments.
Much of the endowment at the medical college (about $300 million) came from the controversial changeover of the old nonprofit Blue Cross/Blue Shield, which became a for-profit organization and donated $300 million to each of the state’s two medical colleges (UW-Madison got the other half ).
But the explosion in assets at other colleges and the Greater Milwaukee Foundation is largely the result of two factors: a new generation of more generous wealthy people and better leadership by Milwaukee institutions, which became savvier about the need to raise endowment money. At UW-Milwaukee, the one substantive accomplishment of former chancellor Nancy Zimpher was to enhance the university’s image (oh, that “Milwaukee Idea”) so that it became sort of cool to admit you were a graduate, which helped nudge alumni to start donating endowment dollars.
UWM has a long way to go to match UW-Madison’s $1.4 billion endowment. But some progress is better than none. Long-term, if we’re looking to build a great city with a strong university and first-class cultural organizations, those endowments will need to grow even more.
Overkill on Mike McGee?
Is it possible that District Attorney John Chisholm is going a little overboard in his prosecution of Alderman Michael McGee? I get the charges for attempting to bribe tavern owners seeking a license and for trying to buy votes. If true, both are serious examples of public corruption.
But as a result of wiretapping McGee’s phone, Chisholm has thrown in this bizarre conspiracy by McGee and two others to commit bodily harm against someone – except that no violence ever occurred. Even weirder is a charge of contempt of court because McGee was overheard calling a judge names on the phone. Is Chisholm serious? Contempt of court normally occurs in public, in an open courtroom, where negative comments might help undermine our respect for the judicial system. But McGee was having a private conversation with a couple friends and blowing off a little steam.
What’s next, nabbing the alderman for writing naughty graffiti?
The Endangered Male Species
The new movie comedy Knocked Up suggests a divide between a talented, educated young woman (a TV interview show star, no less) and a screw-off, twenty-something pot-smoking male who hangs out with other stoner guys with no prospects. Look at the national and state statistics on college completion and the movie looks scarily on target.
Nationally, males now make up just 42 percent of college students. Over two decades, from 1983-’84 to 2003-’04, the percent of college degrees going to men dropped from 50 percent to 42 percent. In Wisconsin, the decline was about the same.
The statistics look even more dismal at technical colleges. A recent report by the Wisconsin Technical College system, as noted by researcher Dennis Redovich, found that just 33 percent of all students getting degrees in 2006 were men. Wow.
A New York Times series back in July 2006, was headlined, “At Colleges, Women are Leaving Men in the Dust,” and described how women are getting better grades and generally outperforming men.
Some researchers have noted that older students returning back to college are more likely to be women, which has somewhat skewed the numbers. But there has definitely been a gender revolution in education. If the result is a generation of males like those in Knocked Up, the results may not be a laughing matter.
The Buzz:
-As I’ve noted before, the Journal Sentinel’s front page headlines and coverage decisions are skewed to make Democrat Jim Doyle look bad. The latest example is noted by blogger Bill Christofferson.
-Soon to come at the JS, I’m told, is a new, page-two investigative column looking at consumer rip-offs.
-As the skepticism over Tommy Thompson’s run for president grows, the estimates of how hard he works keep going up. Last week, Thompson’s Iowa strategist Steve Grubbs told the media that Tommy “knows he has a lot to prove, and he is working 90 hours a week to prove it.”
-Here’s a neat conflict of interest. You can hire County Supervisor Joe Rice, who runs Rice & Associates, to handle your public affairs and government relations needs, including help “working with … county officials on local issues.” I wonder what it costs to hire Joe to lobby Joe.
And don’t miss critic Ann Christenson’s Dish on Dining.
