Economics professor Richard Vedder writes into The Post regarding the new McDavis house.
The announcement that Ohio University appears likely to purchase a new presidential home for $1.2 million has stirred a lot of emotions. Three questions are relevant:
1) Should the university president live in an OU-owned facility, or should he or she be given a housing allowance and purchase or rent his or her own housing?
2) Should OU abandon 29 Park Place as the presidential home and purchase the Wharton home on Coventry Lane?
3) Is the $1.2 million purchase price for the Wharton property justified?
Before addressing these questions, it is somewhat relevant what prevailing practices are at other schools. I detect a move away from the university-owned residence right on campus. Texas A&M is giving its new president a $200,000 (!!) housing allowance and letting him deal with the issue as he likes. The Ohio State model (elaborate home several miles from campus) that OU appears to want to emulate is increasingly common. Personally, I think it is a sad commentary on university priorities when the trend is to segregate university leadership from the students and faculty served.
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The one solid argument for a university-owned presidential house is that it typically serves as a major center for wining and dining important visitors to campus, big donors, vital political contacts, etc. This is also an argument for having that home in the center of campus. For example, when President Jimmy Carter delivered a Kennedy Lecture here, then-president Charles Ping hosted a marvelous dinner party for 60 dignitaries before Carter walked to Memorial Auditorium to give his lecture. Presidents Baker, Alden, Sowle, Crewson and Glidden used it effectively in similar fashion.
This has changed under the McDavis presidency — since the home has not been the locus of high levels of entertaining — to the point that the IRS has successfully asserted that the home is primarily a family residence, not a university entertainment facility. I think when used in the traditional fashion, there is a very strong case for having a centrally located presidential residence. Following that reasoning, let the next president remodel 29 Park Place (for less than $1.2 million), get rid of the bats and use the home as it had been for decades under earlier presidents.
Suppose the trustees think presidents need a place to unwind away from campus — the OSU model. The Wharton house is lovely, but its price appears well beyond what they likely would receive from another buyer. Why not, say, $900,000? John Wharton is a strong contributor to OU athletics and is rumored to be a six-digit donor to the proposed Sook Academic Center (which I suspect was conceived as a room for athletic donors to gather and drink on football weekends). Is the high price for the house a way to facilitate Wharton making his athletic gifts in a non-transparent way and perhaps get favorable tax treatment? I don’t know if that is true, but it is a question that deserves answering.
Finally, a major reason for anger over this relates, I think, to the feeling that the university is prioritizing everything but Job One — maximizing the quality of the teaching and research mission. There are too many indoor practice facilities and new dormitories and not enough emphasis on maintaining a reputation befitting the Midwest’s first university.
Richard Vedder is Distinguished Professor of Economics Emeritus at Ohio University and directs the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.
