News and Notes: Sept. 29

Brinkley ’71 to step down as Columbia provost

Columbia University provost Alan Brinkley ’71 will resign from his administrative position at the end of the academic year to return full-time to his duties as a history professor, the Columbia Spectator reported Thursday.

Brinkley, a Wilson School concentrator while at Princeton, has served as provost for the past five years, presiding over the university’s academics, faculty and budget, as well as reviewing applications for tenure and selecting new deans, the Spectator said.

In an e-mail to Columbia students, Brinkley cited a desire to return to research and teaching. According to the Spectator, he is currently writing a biography of American publisher Henry Luce and is a contributor to The New York Times book review and The New Yorker.

Columbia President Lee Bollinger noted in the Spectator that Brinkley led the university through several controversies. Brinkley held the post during Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech and the protests regarding a speech by Jim Gilchrist of the Minutemen.

Brinkley has also penned several history textbooks and is teaching a popular course on U.S. history from 1919-1945 this semester. He was formerly the chair of Columbia’s history department.

Brinkley will take a one-year leave of absence before returning to the faculty full time.

- Sarabeth Sanders

Ivy endowments affected by economic turmoil

As the economy has suffered this year, Ivy League endowments have also been caught by the slump, though some have been affected more than others.

Penn’s endowment has suffered a 3.9 percent decrease, from $6.6 billion to $6.3 billion, over the last fiscal year, The Daily Pennsylvanian reported last week.

This year’s loss comes after record growth of 20.2 percent the previous year. Overall, Penn’s endowment has increased by 9.1 percent in the past three years and 10.5 percent in the past five.

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Brown’s endowment fared better, posting a 6.3 percent gain in the past fiscal year and surpassing $2.8 billion, according to The Brown Daily Herald.

Though the percent growth of Brown’s endowment is higher than that of Yale, Stanford, Cornell, MIT and Penn, it still suffered a precipitous drop from last year, when it gained 21.7 percent.

Elizabeth Huidekoper, Brown’s executive vice president for finance and administration, told The Brown Daily Herald that some capital improvements would have to be slowed down to compensate for reduced revenues.

“This is not going to be a fun time, across the board,” she said, adding that major construction planned for the next few years will continue.

Though the current financial crisis has caused Penn’s holdings to decrease, Penn Chief Investment Officer Kristin Gilbertson told The Daily Pennsylvanian that she believes the endowment “actually had a pretty reasonable performance” considering that equity markets as a whole are down 13.9 percent.

Penn has tried to protect its assets despite the economic downturn by focusing on relatively liquid options, such as cash funds and treasury securities, Gilbertson explained.

“While the return number is not what we would aspire for it to be ... [this year], we sowed the seeds for future successes,” Penn Executive Vice President Craig Carnaroli told The Daily Pennsylvanian.

- Jack Ackerman and Paige Kestenman

Contractors sentenced in Lewis Library bribery case

After pleading guilty to racketeering and bribery charges, two contractors who worked on the recently opened Lewis Science Library were sentenced on Sept. 18.

New Jersey District Court Judge Anne Thompson sentenced Jack Macedo to 15 months’ imprisonment. His wife, Cathleen Macedo, was sentenced to four years’ probation.

Both defendants will have to pay a $10,000 fine within 30 days of the sentence. If they are unable to do so, the court may enforce any sentence that it might have originally imposed.

According to the court documents, the Macedos, who run the Flemington concrete company Macedos Construction, paid a total of $73,500 in bribes to a construction manager at Skanska USA to get the contract for the concrete at the library site.

Court papers from this summer indicate that the Macedos gave the construction manager a $45,000 check to buy a car at a Pennsylvania dealership. The Macedos also admitted to making additional payments, totaling $28,500, to the Skanska manager.

- Paolo Esquivel