‘Sale’ of U’s presidential mansion recalls prior turmoil there
“Eastcliff” sounds like the name of an estate at the center of a British episodic series or the creepy castle-like home high on a hill on a stormy night in a Vincent Price horror movie.
But in real life it’s been the residence for more than the past six decades of the president of the University of Minnesota, which recently relinquished ownership of the historic site located just south of the Minneapolis border on 176 Mississippi River Boulevard North in St. Paul.
Ordinarily, the mansion is where the U’s President and family spend the Thanksgiving holiday. But, no thanks, this year. The current head of the school, Rebecca Cunningham, will not be dining there in the living week as she is stuffed into an apartment near campus while the capacious 103-year-old structure undergoes another renovation accompanying the relinquishment by the school of its legal ownership of the facility.
The transaction approved in early October by the University’s Board of Regents to transfer ownership of the century-plus historic facility that has housed the school’s president since 1961 is an unusual legal arrangement.
It also recalls a firestorm that ripped through the institution nearly 40 years ago, involving excessive expenditures, which is worth recalling in an era where the topic warrants greater scrutiny than ever.
The 12-member board, which oversees the five campuses of the University, including its flagship in the Twin Cities, voted to hand over ownership of the mansion, which is on the National Historic Landmarks Registry, to the University’s Foundation, a private, independent, non-profit organization that manages major gifts to the institution.
The 10,000 square foot, 20 room abode has a historic and storied history, dating back to 1921, when it was built by a lumber baron, Edward Brooks, and was given to the University in 1958 and since 1961 has housed the 8 presidents of the school, including the current one, Dr. Rebecca’s Cunningham, as well as for guests and University related activities. Governor Walz and his family resided at the Mansion for more than 1-1/2 years while the Governor’s mansion on Summit Avenue in St. Paul was being remodeled a couple of years ago.
Accounting Artifice
As the Eastcliff transaction goes, it was not exactly a deal of the century. In fact, it was hardly a deal at all. While deemed a “sale,” the transaction looks more like an accounting shift than a change in than any other type of transaction. The Foundation is paying the University $2.1 million to take over the facility, but is leasing it back to the school rent free for 40 years.
In effect, nothing much will change except as a bookkeeping artifice. The University will get approximately $300,000 off its books in annual expenses for maintaining the facility.
The deal was approved by the Regents 9-2. The two dissenters, however, only had mild misgivings, recognizing that after the dust clears, the arrangement will be, as the French say, “plus c’est la meme plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” The more that changes, the more things stay the same.
Keller’s Kitchen
While the octet of residents, including Dr. Cunningham, have resided in Eastcliff, the site was the down fall of one of them, Kenneth Keller. In 1988, the University’s 12th president, a chemical engineering professor, lost his job after three years in that position because of excessively expensive repairs that were done to the home’s kitchen, dining room and other living areas at $1.7 million more than quadruple the $400,000 authorized budget, coupled with disclosure of $20,000 expenses for his office on campus at a time when the University was, as is often the situation, claiming financial distress while the legislature was limiting faculty salaries, among other economic constraints.
The capers were disclosed by Minnesota Daily, the student newspaper, which led to an uproar throughout the state. It was compromised when it was disclosed that much of the excess came from a $50 million secret slush fund at the U. It ultimately resulted in Keller, the first Jewish president at the University, resigning his post under pressure from Governor Rudy Perpich. In departing, Keller said he was “profoundly apologetic” for what he termed the ‘mismanagement” of the projects. The chair of the Regents at the time, David Lebedoff, praised the outgoing Keller for his vision in devising a “Commitment to Excellence” effort to bolster disciplines like science and technology, although it generated criticism from many quarters for departing from the school’s core mission of tiring broad-based educational opportunities for Minnesota students. The Keller affair became, in Lebedoff’s words, a regrettable “symbol of elitism” that underlied his departure.
Keller continued with his professorial career, including a stint at the Humphrey Institute on the West Bank of the campus and a building on the East Bank housing computer science and electronic engineering classes was named for him in 2010 after he completed his educational teaching career at a school in Bologna, Italy, associated with and his alma mater, Johns Hopkins in Maryland.
Some thought that the accusations against him at the U were baloney, but Eastcliff had become a symbol of excess indulgence embedded in the legacy of the University administration. Keller’s departure led to legal challenges for transparency in the search for his successor, which turned out to be another University professor, Nils Hasselmo. After five years, he was succeeded by a Marc Yudoff, the second professor of Jewish faith to hold that position, following Keller.
They and some of their successors, including President Cunningham, have been criticized from time-to-time for relying upon a so-called “kitchen cabinet” of internal advisors. But none of them experienced the type of kitchen capers that led to the demise of their predecessor, Keller.
