From: Selected Professors and Alumni of
the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources
27 March 2013
We
have developed an extensive response to the NR Foundation Dear Friends letter,
and it is cut and pasted below. Please
excuse the length, but this is the most important professional decision about
the future of the College of Natural Resources in our lifetime, so bears
thoroughness and clarity. The response
is divided into NR Foundation Statements in regular
type and our replies in italics. The outline follows; interested readers can
skip to any section they find most relevant to save time.
Outline:
Sale
Rationale
Student
Use
Hofmann
Forest Income
Public
Information and Records
Hofmann and NR Foundation Members,
Valuations, and Expenditures
Financial Assets
Fiduciary Responsibility and Board
Membership
Stakeholder
Consultation and Open Governance
Additional Support and...
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This email was sent yesterday from Brenda Brickhouse and Mary Watzin. As to show they know this is a bad decision and they don't want news coverage of it, they notified the public on a Friday. Or, as they say in political speak, "take out the trash day."Dear Alumni and Friends of the College of Natural ResourcesApril 19, 2013The Board of Directors of the NC State Natural Resources Foundation has carefully considered offers to purchase the Hofmann Forest and found that at least one offer generally meets the price and other key terms and conditions important to it, including recognition of the legacy of the Forest with the College, maintaining the core of the property as a working forest, and retaining access to the property by faculty and students for research and demonstration.Therefore, today, the Board of Directors of the Natural Resources Foundation unanimously recommended to the Board of Trustees of the Endowment Fund of North Carolina State University, that they, as the owners...
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One of the arguments for selling the Hofmann Forest has been
that putting the money in a "diversified portfolio" would yield
higher returns for the Foundation and thus, the college. How, though, do you
determine which portfolio to invest in?A common metric might be
to choose the best performer of the previous X amount of
years. However, it has been found since Fama (1965) to Silver (2012), that past performance has no correlation,
let alone causation, with future performance. For instance, Silver found that
some of the best performing mutual funds from 2002 to 2006 were only average
with, or worse, than the market average from 2007 to 2011 (2012). Additionally,
the financial sector is ramped with "herding behavior;" where firms
wait to downgrade a stock or bond until well after issues arose (Buss et al.
2010).For instance, Sorescu
& Subrahmanyam found that even after Enron stock had lost half of its
value, 88% of surveyed analysts STILL considered it...
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TO: Mary WatzinDean, College of Natural ResourcesCC: David Ashcraft & Jennifer Viets Catalano, Natural Resources FoundationBrenda Brickhouse, Natural Resources Foundation BoardDATE: 14 January 2013FROM: Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources FacultyRE: Prospective Hofmann Forest SaleThe sale of the Hofmann Forest is apparently being considered now, and the process has not provided time or a means to deliberate and develop a position statement by faculty of the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources. Given this, and the timing of the Natural Resources Foundation Board meeting in January, we have circulated the attached petition opposing the sale among many faculty and staff in the Department and College. Signatories represent a vast majority of our Department. A large number of the faculty in Parks, Recreation, & Tourism Management and in Forest Biomaterials also have expressed opposition to the sale.We oppose the sale of the Hofmann Forest for three...
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Below is an email sent to the entire CNR list-serve. Please continue to forward this petition to any and all graduates of the College of Natural Resources at NC State and email Brenda and Mary directly.The Natural Resources Foundation has unanimously recommended the sale of the Hofmann Forest in its entirety, assuming price and other considerations can be met, to continue to support the mission of the College of Natural Resources. Any sale of the Hofmann will be consistent with the values of the College, which include retaining the name in recognition of the legacy of the Forest with the College. The goal is to sell the property as a working forest. The College hopes to retain access to the property by faculty and students for teaching and research.In deciding about the future of the Hofmann, the Foundation considered which options would provide the greatest good for the largest number of CNR faculty, staff and students, and our professions, over the long...
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Thank you to everyone that has signed the petition so far! Please forward to your other classmates! Additionally, please email the Chancellor, Dean and the President of the NR Foundation directly about your concerns. If you do contact the Chancellor, Dean and/or President, please be respectful. Chancellor Bob Woodson: chancellor@ncsu.eduCNR Dean Mary Watzin: mwatzin@ncsu.eduPresident of NR Foundation, Brenda Brickhouse: brendaebrickhouse@gmail.comAdditionally, if you are near the area, you have the opportunity to speak with the Chancellor at these times:Friday, January 25 – 11am-12pm (Location: Hunt Library Game Lab)Tuesday, February 19 – 2-3pm (Location: TBD)Tuesday, March 19 – 1-2pm (Location: TBD)Wednesday, April 10 – 11am-12pm (Location: TBD)
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