Author Archives: Joe Brandt

Trustees hold committee meetings on finances and policy

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Temple will pay off Temple Japan’s debts, shift a small pension plan from monthly payments to one final lump sum and allow different offices to have their own credit cards, the Board of Trustees announced at two committee meetings today.

Temple Japan owes $6.3 million on a loan that could be paid off now since the dollar’s value is high, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer Ken Kaiser explained to the trustees. Paying off the loan immediately would save about $1.2 million.

“This seems like a no-brainer,” Chairman Patrick O’Connor said. The recommendation was passed with one motion to abstain from trustee J. William Mills, who is PNC Bank’s Regional President for Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey. The loan in question was a PNC loan.

The executive committee also discussed the termination of the Interest Pension Plan, a plan started in 1946 that gives retired employees annuity payments. MetLife, the disperser of the payments, urged Temple to reform the plan.

Of the initial 200 signed up, 28 retired employees still draw from the fund. They will be given a lump sum that can be re-invested into another retirement plan, Kaiser said. The fund’s total value is $185,000.

The third recommendation concerned an amendment of a policy concerning credit cards for university offices to pay certain expenses. With the new policy, there will be a higher spending threshold before offices are required to obtain administrative pre-approval.

The Budget and Finance Committee met first in executive session before moving to public session, and made one recommendation concerning Temple Japan’s finances. Then the meeting shifted to casual chatting, where Provost Hai-Lung Dai and President Neil Theobald, when asked about the current state of admissions, revealed that 28 thousand students were competing for 4,700 undergraduate seats.

The executive committee met next and made the three recommendations. The public session meeting, which consisted of many of the trustees from the Budget and Finance Committee including McNichol and Lewis Gould Jr., lasted for about fifteen minutes.

The trustees’ general body will meet on May 13 at 3:30 p.m.

Joe Brandt can be reached at joseph.brandt@temple.edu or on Twitter at @JBrandt_TU.

Students for Monteiro hold rally, march to Sullivan Hall

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Students stood outside Sullivan Hall to hand in a petition. They waited roughly 30 minutes until administrators came outside to take the petition.

Students stood outside Sullivan Hall to hand in a petition. They waited roughly 30 minutes until administrators came outside to take the petition.

Members of the coalition Students for Monteiro held a rally this afternoon to demand the reinstatement of Anthony Monteiro, an adjunct African American studies professor whose contract is not being renewed.

People Utilizing Real Power and Temple Democratic Socialists, the main student organizations in the coalition, spoke about topics ranging from gentrification to alleged racism in the College of Liberal Arts and their feelings about Monteiro in front of the Bell Tower. The students said that Monteiro was scheduled to speak, but he was not present and told The Temple News he had not planned to.

After the speeches, the group of about 30 protesters marched toward Anderson Hall and north past the Tyler School of Art before circling back and arriving at the doors of Sullivan Hall, which houses administrative offices.

The protesters chanted “Monteiro in, Soufas out,” “beat back Temple’s attack” and “up with the people, down with the police.” While the protesters gathered around the front door of Sullivan Hall, Temple police put up crowd control barriers on Beasley’s Walk, where there is a side door.

After about a half hour of chanting, Acting Executive Director of Campus Safety Services Charlie Leone along with William Bergman, special assistant to President Theobald, came outside to receive a petition from the protesters. Estimates for the number of signatories to the petition varied, with members of Students for Monteiro citing numbers between 500 and 900.

Last week, the protesters were stationed in front of the Bell Tower gathering signatures for their petition, which made four demands: reinstate Monteiro with tenure, fire CLA Dean Teresa Soufas, get student representation on the Board of Trustees and foster better community relations for Temple.

After Bergman and Leone took the petition, PURP member Paul-Winston Cange dismissed the crowd and announced a joint community-and-students protest on Wed. April 16 at 1 p.m.

“We’ll be right back here next week,” Cange said.

Joe Brandt can be reached at jbrandt@temple.edu or on Twitter @JBrandt_TU.

Investments committee renames account

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The Investments Committee of Temple’s Board of Trustees will rename and re-purpose its Retirement of Indebtedness Fund, it announced at a public session meeting today in Sullivan Hall.

The new fund, now called the Operating and Auxiliary Reserves Fund, will still provide investment support to the auxiliary and operating budgets for debt-financed projects as the predecessor did.

The trustees present, among them committee chair Christopher McNichol in person and Nelson Diaz by phone, agreed that the name change would better reflect the fund’s purpose and eliminate the misconception that the fund’s function is to repay university debt.

The committee also moved to revise parts of the Investment Policies to include guidelines for the new fund. The fund will be allowed up to a 50 percent allocation in U.S. corporate bonds deemed “high-quality.”

This allocation would add about 55 basis points to the investment. One basis point is equivalent to a value rise of one hundredth of one percent.

“It would only slightly change the risk profile,” Ken Kaiser, Temple’s chief financial officer and treasurer said in his explanation to the trustees.

This change is part of an ongoing effort to structure the other investment pools and funds similarly to the pension and post-retirement funds, which have fixed income allocations.

The management of the pension and post-retirement funds was shifted in February from RS Investments to Van Eck Associates Corporation, a larger firm based in New York City.

The meeting met first in executive session at 10 a.m. before moving to public session from 10:25 a.m.-10:35 a.m. It moved back to executive session at that time.

The next Investments committee meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, April 23, at 10 a.m.

Joe Brandt can be reached at joseph.brandt@temple.edu or on Twitter @JBrandt_TU.