Dartblog

In looking at the huge losses suffered by the College at the hands of hedge fund managers and investment banks peddling bad investments and complex derivatives plays to untrained Dartmouth staffers — cash losses in 2009 alone of $31,978,000 in failed hedge fund investments and $43,014,000 from complex interest swap derivatives — large figures shouldn’t lead us to lose sight of the real meaning of money.

Let’s translate this waste back into reality. How much is a million dollars?

● One year of teaching by four senior professors lured from other schools to enrich our weakest departments;

● Eight young, tenure-track profs teaching for a year — newly mined PhD’s who are desperately looking for jobs;

● Ten adjunct professors visiting the College for a year to teach subjects that are not ordinarily found in our curriculum;

● The budget for the men’s and women’s swim team for two years;

● Fifteen years of budget for the club sports program, enjoyed by a quarter of all undergraduates;

● Provost Folt’s salary and expenses for a two years (not including office redecoration);

● Two years payment for the return of high quality photocopiers and printers for members of the faculty, so that they don’t have to wait for slow or broken-down machines;

● Three days of Dartmouth’s bloated benefits package;

● Three days of excess salary and excess staff members.

● An infinite amount of blogging to expose just how poorly managed Dartmouth really is.

As they say in the Pentagon: “A million dollars here, a million dollars there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.”