Sattler College Turmoil

[Szdfan]

So the checks are being written by Finny's company and not Finny himself? There are no doubt tax reasons for why they are structuring it that way. There are always tax reasons. But it seems a distinction without a difference.

This is the same Finny who has spoken at length on [checks notes] "Capital = Influence: how capital creates influence and impact around the world" https://www.faithdriveninvestor.org/bio ... -kuruvilla

And yes, it is a form of control since the money can be cut off if the institution evolves in a way in which the donor does not approve. In fact a perpetual gift is set up exactly that way to be more controlling. If you donate a lump sum that money is donated and your influence is gone. But if you set up a perpetual gift that can be revoked your influence is perpetual.

Eventide has donated nearly $60 million dollars to global development. For this I have a lot of admiration for Finny.
https://www.eventideinvestments.com/onepercent/

According to the link you provided that represents 1% of their assets under management. I have no idea what their actual earnings are to know if that is a high percentage or not. Is it admirable? Sure. More admirable than for someone who donates their time and themselves to global development efforts? I'm not so sure.

I tend to be skeptical of a world in which wealthy individuals have outside influence by virtue of their wealth. Whether their names are Finny Kuruvilla, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, George Soros, Harlan Crow, or Charles Koch.

I tend to be more approving of efforts and institutions that are broad-based and democratic rather than the pet projects of certain wealthy individuals. Whether we are talking about churches, colleges, political parties, or international development.

Finny could also be the most amazing person in the world, but this financial relationship with Sattler still raises a bunch of red flags.

[RZehr]

To be fair, Finny is one of several owners of the business, not the sole owner. So the company's philanthropic arm is not the same as Finny personally.

Do the donations come from his dividends or from all the owners?

And does it come from the right hand, or from the left hand?

[joshuabgood]

To be fair, Finny is one of several owners of the business, not the sole owner. So the company's philanthropic arm is not the same as Finny personally.

Do the donations come from his dividends or from all the owners?

I am under the impression it comes from all the owners, but I don't really know, or need to know. My impression I guess is based on the fact that I have seen the other owners at some college public events, ie graduation etc. And I believe the business had been thanked as a corporate entity...

[Judas Maccabeus]

Eventide has donated nearly $60 million dollars to global development. For this I have a lot of admiration for Finny.
https://www.eventideinvestments.com/onepercent/

According to the link you provided that represents 1% of their assets under management. I have no idea what their actual earnings are to know if that is a high percentage or not. Is it admirable? Sure. More admirable than for someone who donates their time and themselves to global development efforts? I'm not so sure.

I tend to be skeptical of a world in which wealthy individuals have outside influence by virtue of their wealth. Whether their names are Finny Kuruvilla, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, George Soros, Harlan Crow, or Charles Koch.

I tend to be more approving of efforts and institutions that are broad-based and democratic rather than the pet projects of certain wealthy individuals. Whether we are talking about churches, colleges, political parties, or international development.

Finny could also be the most amazing person in the world, but this financial relationship with Sattler still raises a bunch of red flags.

If whatever trust arrangement that has been made is revoked , the college collapses. That is way too much control. It seems when anything happens, the board gets changed, now if that is not a sign of too much control, I do not know what is.

[Laudatefan]

What most disappoints me on this thread is the misinformation that is thrown around. People throw falsehoods around with a misplaced confidence. We do this in our churches as well and then gleefully describe how much we love our enemies. Let's try to be much more careful.

As someone thinking about sending a child to Sattler, this issue is one that I've needed to research. I've talked to people on both sides and have come to the conclusion that this thread has missed the key issues.

On the financing, the state of Massachusetts took two years to approve Sattler. They had a team of lawyers look at financial independence. This is somewhat oversimplified but basically there is something called a dividend-paying share. If you work at John Deere, you can get stock from the company which pays a dividend. This is basically a certain amount of money that each share of stock generates. You could donate that share to any charity you wanted and that charity would get the benefit of those dividends. So you could donate that to CAM for example and CAM would have the income stream from those dividends. This is what Dr. Finny did--he donated shares of his company to Sattler. The dividends that these shares produce belongs to Sattler. He never touches the dividends nor writes checks since the dividends directly flow to Sattler. Again, the misinformation on this thread from people like Judas Maccabeus is fairly appalling. It seems that many people on this thread believe that they understand the finances and policies of Massachusetts better than the Department of Higher Education in assessing financial control. There is no way that a liberal state like Massachusetts would approve a college if the situation was as described by people on this thread. My hope is that people can show more humility.

Also concerning is the core on why this thread was started. Josh, Ernie, and others missed the key issue. Many of the students at Sattler know this but the real driver of the conflict was the former President Dean Taylor's missteps. He is a classic visionary--he has big ideas but doesn't devote enough time to his family. A member of his family got three students expelled--yes expelled! His negligence as a father should have caused him to resign. It is totally unacceptable that the President's negligence caused students to be expelled. This was the core of the conflict. One contingent believed that Dean was in no place to be taking on more responsibility when his family was doing poorly. Others, especially the old Board, swept the expulsions under the rug. (I didn't see this discussed on this thread, so their cover-up efforts have been successful.)

While Dean Taylor was President, the college was doing poorly with respect to morale. He was too busy with his visions that he missed the people close to him and even basic execution. The cover-up of Dean's failings is especially sad. The old Board misrepresented Dr. Finny's concerns and circulated a letter that dishonestly represented the state of affairs. This is the heart of the issue. Ask the upper class students on campus and you'll hear it about how disappointed that students were expelled because of Dean's failings with his family. But rather than face the issue, David Bercot, Chuck Pike, and others covered up the truth and resorted to misleading and false statements. Despite the misinformation the old Board sowed, Sattler engaged in reconciliation efforts. Bercot was caught in additional duplicity regarding his description of a meeting. Bercot has a history of fear of man and duplicity issues so this should be no surprise. In investigating all of this, it's also no surprise that Marlin Weaver would write so dishonestly about what happened. There is a cluster of dishonesty among these former Sattler affiliates.

We should re-center this thread on the real issues.

I should say that I'm very impressed with the new President, Zack Johnson, who has modeled grace and truth. While I wouldn't be comfortable sending my child to the old Sattler under Dean's leadership with people like Marlin, I'm feeling very different about President Johnson. He and his team have modeled Jesus' way in handling conflict. We could learn from him.

[Soloist]

What most disappoints me on this thread is the misinformation that is thrown around. People throw falsehoods around with a misplaced confidence. We do this in our churches as well and then gleefully describe how much we love our enemies. Let's try to be much more careful.

I find it fascinating to have some of us rebuked for falsehoods and then have anyone who privately attempted to rebuke Finny suddenly blamed for all the problems. Some details have truth in them, but other aspects of your post are lies.
I happen to personally know an ex-student and faculty.

Secondly, Dean Taylor’s family trouble was something some of us knew about before hand yet, Finny apparently didn’t see issue.
Sounds a little naive to believe that Dean is the one causing problems.
Dean wasn’t responsible for the Board resignation. Finny is the one making the choices of who and if the people “he” chose resigned, it’s his fault they lost confidence in him. The why clearly has been argued by both sides but the mud slinging seems less factual on Finny’s faction and I know the reputation of the men accused by you.

When multiple men accuse one man of falsehood, And that one man accuses multiple men of falsehood… I think the issue is obvious.

[Judas Maccabeus]

The real issues are:

1. This school is still affiliated, if not driven by a church that teaches, if you are a Mennonite, false doctrine. Some of our people are fooled that they dress somewhat like us, do not be fooled. This is a Church of Christ oriented school/. If you send your young people there, you will be sending them to a place where they are likely to be recruited by this group. Would you send your son/daughter to someplace where people who disagree with your church on key issues will have unfettered access, without the influence of family or church?

2. It had substandard facilities, as they contract out their labs. They have no in house facilities. While we could debate the need of in house labs forever, the bare minimum is that they have these facilities available for students at all hours, and not just on a contract basis.

3. The amount of control the “founder” appears to have is a big red flag. With the amount of instability on its governing board, can we be assured that it will be reaccredited?

Once again Zach may be the most wonderful person around. But is is little more than lipstick on a pig.

[ken_sylvania]

On the financing, the state of Massachusetts took two years to approve Sattler. They had a team of lawyers look at financial independence. This is somewhat oversimplified but basically there is something called a dividend-paying share. If you work at John Deere, you can get stock from the company which pays a dividend. This is basically a certain amount of money that each share of stock generates. You could donate that share to any charity you wanted and that charity would get the benefit of those dividends. So you could donate that to CAM for example and CAM would have the income stream from those dividends. This is what Dr. Finny did--he donated shares of his company to Sattler. The dividends that these shares produce belongs to Sattler. He never touches the dividends nor writes checks since the dividends directly flow to Sattler. Again, the misinformation on this thread from people like Judas Maccabeus is fairly appalling. It seems that many people on this thread believe that they understand the finances and policies of Massachusetts better than the Department of Higher Education in assessing financial control. There is no way that a liberal state like Massachusetts would approve a college if the situation was as described by people on this thread. My hope is that people can show more humility.

Everybody still knows where the money came from and is coming from. Finny's control and influence isn't going to be substantially reduced just due to the fact that he can't legally cut off the spigot.

[Szdfan]

On the financing, the state of Massachusetts took two years to approve Sattler. They had a team of lawyers look at financial independence. This is somewhat oversimplified but basically there is something called a dividend-paying share. If you work at John Deere, you can get stock from the company which pays a dividend. This is basically a certain amount of money that each share of stock generates. You could donate that share to any charity you wanted and that charity would get the benefit of those dividends. So you could donate that to CAM for example and CAM would have the income stream from those dividends. This is what Dr. Finny did--he donated shares of his company to Sattler. The dividends that these shares produce belongs to Sattler. He never touches the dividends nor writes checks since the dividends directly flow to Sattler. Again, the misinformation on this thread from people like Judas Maccabeus is fairly appalling. It seems that many people on this thread believe that they understand the finances and policies of Massachusetts better than the Department of Higher Education in assessing financial control. There is no way that a liberal state like Massachusetts would approve a college if the situation was as described by people on this thread. My hope is that people can show more humility.

Everybody still knows where the money came from and is coming from. Finny's control and influence isn't going to be substantially reduced just due to the fact that he can't legally cut off the spigot.

This is one of the reasons why healthy organizations have multiple funding sources — to dilute the influence of any particular person.

[Ernie]

One contingent believed that Dean was in no place to be taking on more responsibility when his family was doing poorly. Others, especially the old Board, swept the expulsions under the rug. (I didn't see this discussed on this thread, so their cover-up efforts have been successful.)

Actually, that is not the case. There are tons of "juicy inside information" (both for and against Sattler) that I could have shared about this and many other matters. This information would have been readily devoured by people who are surfing the web looking for that sort of thing. But I didn't think that was necessary or helpful. I tried to write some candid summaries regarding some of the questions that were being asked, and tried to leave out the juicy details.
As I said earlier, my purpose for writing in this thread is to encourage people to do research before sending their child to Boston.
It sounds like you have done some initial research. To be fair, I think it would be beneficial to talk to the middle-aged students, the second board, the mid-level managers, the employees, and the faculty who left to see why they left.
And as I said earlier, I hope Sattler can get things turned around and be a blessing to the kingdom. I hope Zach and others can do that with the help of the Spirit of God.