The divisional deans had to hold a hard line against the President. They have pledged to keep a ceiling of 25 for class size, for 'most' classes, and to hire 'mostly' tenure-track faculty as needed. Because we can realize a cool 14 million dollars per year in tuition. And in any case, this amount is marginal compared to the entire budget of the University. That 10 million dollars is equivalent to only about 200 million dollars of endowment interest, while our endowment has already been growing at the rate of 300 or 400 million dollars per year since 1995.
Nobody denies that fundraising is our president's greatest strength.
The faculty committee had the same data that the President had, but they came to a different conclusion. Now, if you're Plato or Socrates, disagreement is the best thing ever, because if the two sides are really devoted to the truth, they will talk together until the differences are resolved or at least understood. At the University of Chicago, this kind of discussion in the classroom, this atmosphere of free and open debate, is one of our greatest strengths. But when it comes to money, the President does not seem willing to have a Socratic dialogue. Instead, he told the committee that they were wrong and he was right, and that was the end of that.