Cecilia Chang- NY Mag

Then again at a $500,000 salary, maybe he has an apartment near campus as well. Or maybe he stays with Harrington during the week, which would explain a lot.
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....or then again perhaps St.John's owns an apartment or residence near campus in which Mr. wiles stays.
 
Then again at a $500,000 salary, maybe he has an apartment near campus as well. Or maybe he stays with Harrington during the week, which would explain a lot.
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....or then again perhaps St.John's owns an apartment or residence near campus in which Mr. wiles stays.
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You've got to admit, the circumstances of their relationship is very odd. Here is a Vincentian who I've heard (from a Vincentian) is very distant from the other Vincentians at St Johns, having a "father - son" relationship with a young man whom he befriends at 20 and quickly catapults him to his chief of staff, giving him a stupendous salary. I am pretty sure the BOT had/have no idea what this guy is earning. I am also sure they are dumbstruck that the university would grant an interest free loan, and that he and harrington had a for profit business venture together, funded of course by University coffers, which are largely funded by our BOT donations. Smart people don't like to be suckered, and Harrington has suckered them all, of course by rewarding their huge geneoristy with BOT positions. Only Harrington was running a little side business in addition to getting inappropriate gifts and cash from a criminal, whose shady dealings were absolutely condoned by a guy too smart to accept chinese credit card receipts in lieu of expenses.
 
Over the past several years I have been critical of Harrington and I have been less than less than complimentary about St.John's academic profile.

I am a proud St.John's graduate and am grateful for the opportunities it has provided to me. However "Chang-gate" and Harrington and Wiles dealings, if proven, confirm my belief that St.john's University has not been run in the business like manner with a focus to the "Mission" to which the Harrington apologists like to use as an excuse for the academic failings of St. John's University.

Given the resources of New York City (a subway ride from the financial capital of the world) and the list of successful alums, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever why St.john's does not have a more refined academic profile. A better academic profile and the "Mission" of providing opportunities to first generation college students are not mutually excludable goals if the President and the Board of Trustees take their jobs seriously without a sense of entitlement.

There is absolutely no reason in the world why St.John's University (including School of Pharmacy) does not have a strong academic profile.
 
Over the past several years I have been critical of Harrington and I have been less than less than complimentary about St.John's academic profile.

I am a proud St.John's graduate and am grateful for the opportunities it has provided to me. However "Chang-gate" and Harrington and Wiles dealings, if proven, confirm my belief that St.john's University has not been run in the business like manner with a focus to the "Mission" to which the Harrington apologists like to use as an excuse for the academic failings of St. John's University.

Given the resources of New York City (a subway ride from the financial capital of the world) and the list of successful alums, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever why St.john's does not have a more refined academic profile. A better academic profile and the "Mission" of providing opportunities to first generation college students are not mutually excludable goals if the President and the Board of Trustees take their jobs seriously without a sense of entitlement.

There is absolutely no reason in the world why St.John's University (including School of Pharmacy) does not have a strong academic profile.
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Otis,
You have gone on and on about this issue, and while it is meritorious to be a high profile academic institution - a Georgetown, Notre Dame, Boston College, Duke, on and on, all universities are businesses. They generate revenue and have expenses. Some are on life support (like Dowling). Some were, and recovered (adelphi). Others generate billions of dollars (Harvard) in revenue and donations.

St. John's has no aspirations to raise their academic profile. If so, 40% of their student body today would not be Pell eligible. They are a profitable business, with $400 million in their coffers, 20,000 mostly non-Catholic students (FATHER Harringon boasted about that fact??) and has no desires to improve their standing to the level of the aforementioned schools or anything close to that. Hershey bars don't have to be anywhere near as good as fine Swiss chocolate. Budweiser doesn't even use hops and malt, preferring to use cheaper corn or rice. Both companies reap billions in profits. You have to know what you are, and St. John's is a low to mid tier school, a safety school for many Catholic HS kids, some of whom come here when granted scholarship money.
 
What a wonderful unversity to grant a no interest loan to the tune of nearly 1/2 a million dollars to a valued employee. My, how times have changed.

As a staff member, I was asked to team teach an elective three credit course at St John's as an adjunct professor. I was paid a grand total of $600 for my efforts, which I saw as a resume builder. The elective drew 95 students, an enormous number for a first time teacher, bringing in about $30,000 to the university. Because it took me 6 hours to prepare for each one hour lecture, I took a semester off from grad school, which was free for SJU employees.

The following fall I resumed my grad school, and with a month left in the semester, took a job in industry. When I registered for classes the following semester, the school put a prorated charge on my account of about $300 for the portion of the semester that. When I called my former boss, the Dean, he basically refused to help get it wiped out. My net proceed for teaching a 3 credit course was thus $300. The school then had the audacity to ask me to teach a grad school course a few years later.

Because of their chintziness, I refused to donate for almost 20 years.

With $500K salaries, and gigantic interest free loans as part of a comp package, business ventures with a vow-of-poverty priest boy has SJU changed. Maybe I'm just bitter because I wasn't as cute as Rob Wile.
 
In the mid 1950s there was a joke to the effect that a SJU it was the faculty that got the vow of poverty
 
What a wonderful unversity to grant a no interest loan to the tune of nearly 1/2 a million dollars to a valued employee. My, how times have changed.

As a staff member, I was asked to team teach an elective three credit course at St John's as an adjunct professor. I was paid a grand total of $600 for my efforts, which I saw as a resume builder. The elective drew 95 students, an enormous number for a first time teacher, bringing in about $30,000 to the university. Because it took me 6 hours to prepare for each one hour lecture, I took a semester off from grad school, which was free for SJU employees.

The following fall I resumed my grad school, and with a month left in the semester, took a job in industry. When I registered for classes the following semester, the school put a prorated charge on my account of about $300 for the portion of the semester that. When I called my former boss, the Dean, he basically refused to help get it wiped out. My net proceed for teaching a 3 credit course was thus $300. The school then had the audacity to ask me to teach a grad school course a few years later.

Because of their chintziness, I refused to donate for almost 20 years.

With $500K salaries, and gigantic interest free loans as part of a comp package, business ventures with a vow-of-poverty priest boy has SJU changed. Maybe I'm just bitter because I wasn't as cute as Rob Wile.
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Or Lord Masur
 
What a wonderful unversity to grant a no interest loan to the tune of nearly 1/2 a million dollars to a valued employee. My, how times have changed.

As a staff member, I was asked to team teach an elective three credit course at St John's as an adjunct professor. I was paid a grand total of $600 for my efforts, which I saw as a resume builder. The elective drew 95 students, an enormous number for a first time teacher, bringing in about $30,000 to the university. Because it took me 6 hours to prepare for each one hour lecture, I took a semester off from grad school, which was free for SJU employees.

The following fall I resumed my grad school, and with a month left in the semester, took a job in industry. When I registered for classes the following semester, the school put a prorated charge on my account of about $300 for the portion of the semester that. When I called my former boss, the Dean, he basically refused to help get it wiped out. My net proceed for teaching a 3 credit course was thus $300. The school then had the audacity to ask me to teach a grad school course a few years later.

Because of their chintziness, I refused to donate for almost 20 years.

With $500K salaries, and gigantic interest free loans as part of a comp package, business ventures with a vow-of-poverty priest boy has SJU changed. Maybe I'm just bitter because I wasn't as cute as Rob Wile.
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Incredible story. however at that time tuition was modest compared to today. Listen, the stories are there. How about not taking the cheerleaders to the Final Four. The height of "chintziness"
Yet people complain that they should have ponied up for Kym Barnes Arico. Not with that background.
 
St. John's can improve its academic profile and reputation without harming its finances or its mission. It can exit Staten Island andsell the Staten Island campus. It can remove the departments in the College of Professional Studies that overlap with the other colleges. Doing this should allow it to reduce its incoming classes by 10-20%. Just because we want to make education accessible to the poor doesn't mean we have to accept mediocre students just because they are poor. This will also improve our retention rates.

I spoke to Peter D'Angelo a couple of years ago at a Loughlin dinner about the University's poor academic reputation and he said that, I'm paraphrasing, "We don't want' to be Boston College." Seriously. We are barely at Adelphi's level. This showed me how the Board is blind to the real perception of the school and how that is hurting the majority of students who are excellent and aren't getting the opportunities they should if St. John's reputation was better.
 
This is a terrible story and people should be replaced ASAP.
Crooks!
It breaks my heart as I am an alumni and season ticket holder. I love the University and the people I know because of it.
How does Fr H and this other bozo have a job.
Clean it up!
 
St. John's can improve its academic profile and reputation without harming its finances or its mission. It can exit Staten Island andsell the Staten Island campus. It can remove the departments in the College of Professional Studies that overlap with the other colleges. Doing this should allow it to reduce its incoming classes by 10-20%. Just because we want to make education accessible to the poor doesn't mean we have to accept mediocre students just because they are poor. This will also improve our retention rates.

I spoke to Peter D'Angelo a couple of years ago at a Loughlin dinner about the University's poor academic reputation and he said that, I'm paraphrasing, "We don't want' to be Boston College." Seriously. We are barely at Adelphi's level. This showed me how the Board is blind to the real perception of the school and how that is hurting the majority of students who are excellent and aren't getting the opportunities they should if St. John's reputation was better.
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"STJ FinLaw" thanks for your comments.

Please tell Mr. D'Angelo that his feelings regarding Boston College are mutual. Boston College does not want to be St.John's.

___________________________________________

p.s. US News ranks the St.John's School of Pharmacy #62 of 80 ranked Pharmacy programs tied with powerhouses South Dakota State and Ferris State but behind North Dakota State.
 
St. John's can improve its academic profile and reputation without harming its finances or its mission. It can exit Staten Island andsell the Staten Island campus. It can remove the departments in the College of Professional Studies that overlap with the other colleges. Doing this should allow it to reduce its incoming classes by 10-20%. Just because we want to make education accessible to the poor doesn't mean we have to accept mediocre students just because they are poor. This will also improve our retention rates.

I spoke to Peter D'Angelo a couple of years ago at a Loughlin dinner about the University's poor academic reputation and he said that, I'm paraphrasing, "We don't want' to be Boston College." Seriously. We are barely at Adelphi's level. This showed me how the Board is blind to the real perception of the school and how that is hurting the majority of students who are excellent and aren't getting the opportunities they should if St. John's reputation was better.
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What is the business case for reducing the size of SJU's incoming class by 10-20%? So let's use the higher number, which presumably would cut freshmen generated revenue by 20%. Do we cut faculty and staff to offset the loss of revenue? Improving academic profile is a gradual endeavor. What I've heard over and over at Villanova when I encountered an alumni parent of a current student there was "I probably couldn't get into the school now." Of course, Villanova has under 7,000 students, and comparitively, their alumni are about 3-4x as generous as ours. since their endowment is about the same as St Johns with a much smaller base.

Would it then take a financial commitment from alumni to upgrade the academic profile, to offset revenue losses caused by cutting the size of class? What would be the catalyst for better students coming here? I would assume several things influence better students: 1) More scholarship money 2) Amenities on campus, like upscale health clubs, state of the art classrooms, great food at cafeterias, beautiful buildings and common areas, coffee shops, movie theatres. 3) Better faculty 4) Strong networks for internships and job opportunities.

We have some of these things. I understand that 95% of students on campus receive some tuition reduction. The campus has been vastly improved, but I don't know about amenities mentioned above. Do we have a top notch faculty, or one that engages students? Is there a strong connection between the career center and alumni to place students in internships and jobs?

I have done a recent college tour for one of my kids. I was at BC last week, and the campus is absolutely incredible - if it were a hotel it would be 5 stars plus. New buildings are stone, matching old buildings. Older buildings have and are being renovated inside and out and look brand spanking new. Students rave about the food, about the spirit on campus. They boast about a very strong internship program. When I asked where most internships are, and if they were around Boston, they said no, most were in NYC.

So, one of the most important factors in upgrading a school's academic profile, presuming you had an interested administration, is an alumni base that is there to provide money for scholarships and improved amenities, and also to provide internships and jobs.

It's frustrating because I recently tried to reach out to the school to establish just that - internships and job opportunities for students in a closely related major to my business. Instead of strongly engaging the reason fro my call, I instead was called for a lunch meeting and got hit with a donation request. I made a doantion, and am still waiting for the curriculum that I requested. I found that there is really no mechanism for career services to build these types of bridges, or at least very low interest or total incompetents.

In effect, if you want to improve the academic standing, it would take a complete overhaul of the infrastructure at SJU. Considering the chief of staff was hired at age 24, with no outside experience as such, this pretty much tells you all you need to know about the quality of admnistration at St Johns.

Perhaps the next "CEO" of St. John's will have an interest in improving academics. Well to me, it would be nice if the next Vincentian wouldn't be boastful about the number of non-Catholics on campus, as stated in the article.
 
St. John's can improve its academic profile and reputation without harming its finances or its mission. It can exit Staten Island andsell the Staten Island campus. It can remove the departments in the College of Professional Studies that overlap with the other colleges. Doing this should allow it to reduce its incoming classes by 10-20%. Just because we want to make education accessible to the poor doesn't mean we have to accept mediocre students just because they are poor. This will also improve our retention rates.

I spoke to Peter D'Angelo a couple of years ago at a Loughlin dinner about the University's poor academic reputation and he said that, I'm paraphrasing, "We don't want' to be Boston College." Seriously. We are barely at Adelphi's level. This showed me how the Board is blind to the real perception of the school and how that is hurting the majority of students who are excellent and aren't getting the opportunities they should if St. John's reputation was better.
Click to expand...

What is the business case for reducing the size of SJU's incoming class by 10-20%? So let's use the higher number, which presumably would cut freshmen generated revenue by 20%. Do we cut faculty and staff to offset the loss of revenue? Improving academic profile is a gradual endeavor. What I've heard over and over at Villanova when I encountered an alumni parent of a current student there was "I probably couldn't get into the school now." Of course, Villanova has under 7,000 students, and comparitively, their alumni are about 3-4x as generous as ours. since their endowment is about the same as St Johns with a much smaller base.

Would it then take a financial commitment from alumni to upgrade the academic profile, to offset revenue losses caused by cutting the size of class? What would be the catalyst for better students coming here? I would assume several things influence better students: 1) More scholarship money 2) Amenities on campus, like upscale health clubs, state of the art classrooms, great food at cafeterias, beautiful buildings and common areas, coffee shops, movie theatres. 3) Better faculty 4) Strong networks for internships and job opportunities.

We have some of these things. I understand that 95% of students on campus receive some tuition reduction. The campus has been vastly improved, but I don't know about amenities mentioned above. Do we have a top notch faculty, or one that engages students? Is there a strong connection between the career center and alumni to place students in internships and jobs?

I have done a recent college tour for one of my kids. I was at BC last week, and the campus is absolutely incredible - if it were a hotel it would be 5 stars plus. New buildings are stone, matching old buildings. Older buildings have and are being renovated inside and out and look brand spanking new. Students rave about the food, about the spirit on campus. They boast about a very strong internship program. When I asked where most internships are, and if they were around Boston, they said no, most were in NYC.

So, one of the most important factors in upgrading a school's academic profile, presuming you had an interested administration, is an alumni base that is there to provide money for scholarships and improved amenities, and also to provide internships and jobs.

It's frustrating because I recently tried to reach out to the school to establish just that - internships and job opportunities for students in a closely related major to my business. Instead of strongly engaging the reason fro my call, I instead was called for a lunch meeting and got hit with a donation request. I made a doantion, and am still waiting for the curriculum that I requested. I found that there is really no mechanism for career services to build these types of bridges, or at least very low interest or total incompetents.

In effect, if you want to improve the academic standing, it would take a complete overhaul of the infrastructure at SJU. Considering the chief of staff was hired at age 24, with no outside experience as such, this pretty much tells you all you need to know about the quality of admnistration at St Johns.

Perhaps the next "CEO" of St. John's will have an interest in improving academics. Well to me, it would be nice if the next Vincentian wouldn't be boastful about the number of non-Catholics on campus, as stated in the article.
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If the chief of staff was hired at age 24 with 0 experience, and I am not doubting you as you are only repeating what the article said, it is crystal clear where the problem lies at SJU.
Father Harrington must go ASAP.
The Cecilia Chang allegations, trial, suicide, and the toxic dirt that has come out all portray our beloved school in a horrible light.
It seems to me that Father Harrington's transgressions and what has occurred under his watch is far worse than the $300.00 a month that fat, lazy, arrogant, condescending former coach of ours gave Abe Keita to repay a loan. ( For those who ever saw Keita, and I met him on his recruiting visit to SJU, he was a poor soul in every sense of the word)
I have always stayed out of the Father Harrington discussions as I am Jewish and got an excellent education at SJU that has served me very well in life and I do not feel it is my place to criticize a priest but what has come out and continues to come out is horrible for the school.
I am not criticizing Father Harrington the priest but rather Father Harrington the head of our school.
One has to strongly question why did a 24 year old male with 0 experience become chief of staff at an astronomical salary and interest free loans when there are literally thousands of MBAs, accountants, lawyers, executives who are accomplished leaders in their fields who would be more than qualified for the task and who would have worked for our beloved university at a fraction of the cost.
In conclusion, Father Harrington should do the right thIng and step down ASAP.
 
Beast of the East, thanks for commenting. Read all of my post. I would exit Staten Island and eliminate the overlapping departments in the College of Professional Studies, which would provide the budget savings to allow for reducing class sizes. 20% of our incoming class had a below B average in high school. That is far too many students who are below mediocre that should not be gaining admittance to St. John's if we want the degree to have value and provide opportunity. The academic profile would immediately improve by lessening the bottom tier. The top 50-65% of our incoming classes are very good academically. Hopefully, this would lead to a better academic reputation that would lead to more top-level students applying to and choosing St. John's.

I agree with the above post about the University's lackluster outreach, not just to alumni, but to the NYC industries that would be employers to our graduates. And St. John's marketing and branding efforts need major improvement.
 
I recently got a phone call looking for another donation. The student that called somehow did not realize I answered the phone because for over a minute she was having a conversation with a co-worker about one of her professors. She went on and on while I was trying to get her attention that I was on the phone. She was telling her friend that her professor did not know that Africa was a continent and not a country. Very good example for the school to put out there.
 
Father Harrington also has to be the least visible president out there. I went to school for 5 years and saw him at my convocation the first day freshman year and again as I was walking across the stage to get my diploma and not once in between. I honestly think if he got in the trenches more people would feel more connected to the school.
 
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