Trustees move money to COAS

The IU board of trustees approved a measure that would allocate $3 million from the "Commitment to Excellence," or CTE fee, to support life sciences within the College of Arts and Sciences during a trustees meeting Friday. Conflict arose after recent reports contended that the trustees had misappropriated funds from the CTE fee in order to cover for recent losses within the IU-based Indiana Genomics Initiative, or INGEN.\nINGEN, a research program based at the IU School of Medicine, is part of the $105 million Lilly Endowment Grant, which went into effect in 2000. University officials said that contrary to published reports, the CTE funds were not spent for programs other than their intended use.\nCTE began in 2002 and was the brainchild of former IU President Myles Brand. It included a $1,000 yearly tuition fee implemented upon incoming freshmen and new undergraduate students. Overall, the fund was expected to generate $7.1 million for the 2003-04 academic year. \nA May 9, 2003 IU press release said the fee was intended "to enhance the academic excellence of the University." IU Board of Trustees member Cora Breckenridge echoed this sentiment.\n"The CTE project began under the administration of Myles Brand, and that money was assessed to our students," Breckenridge said. "It was essentially for improved educational advancement, opportunities and to improve our whole framework of education and enhance education at all of our campuses."\nBill Stephan, vice president for internal affairs and government, said the University did not use CTE funds in order to make up for recent losses within INGEN and the money was not misallocated. \n"A decision was made to use those funds for hires (and) space improvements, so this really hasn't been back filling because there were losses," Stephan said. "It was really how to sustain the life sciences efforts that were underway at the Bloomington campus. That was one of the things the fund was intended for in the first place, and we have carried out its intended purpose."\nStephan said he believed the misunderstanding stemmed from miswording on a report handed out during a recent IU board of trustees meeting. \n"There was a handout at the board of trustees meeting last Friday which was intended to provide an update on the CTE funds," Stephan said. "Within that handout, there was some terminology used that said 'Mandated Transfers of CTE Funds,' and had a subset that said 'Cover INGEN Investment Losses,' and that is not accurate. Essentially, what it meant to say was that investment earnings weren't what we expected them to be."\nTrustees President Frederick Eichhorn also said there wasn't any transfer of funds.\n"There wasn't any transfer, there was a decision made to apply the CTE money in furtherance of a stated goal that the trustees approved," Eichhorn said. "We invested the money in the College of Arts and Sciences. Essentially, there wasn't any transfer of CTE money to backfill for the INGEN money."\nUniversity officials said that even if the INGEN investment hadn't gone down, the money would still have been given to the College of Arts and Sciences. \n"If the investment earnings were still there, I think what you would have had was enhanced efforts," Stephan said. "To some extent, it's a matter of scale, we might have been able to do more and I think that that's the distinction. The CTE money has always been for investment in the University and it is continued to be used for the University. There wasn't any problem with the use of the CTE funds, there was a problem with the investments."\nBreckenridge contends that the trustees have been extremely careful with the both the CTE money and the endowment, and no wrongdoing has taken place.\n"We, as trustees, have been very competent with every penny of that money," Breckenridge said. "And we have made sure that it went to its intended goal of enhancing education for our students."\n-- Contact managing editor Dan Patrick at djpatric@indiana.edu.