Philosophical Question

[friarwolf]

Another thread mentions that Jim Dent is currently shacking up at Jeff Skilling's guest house. Here's the question:

Skilling comes forward and offers to give SMU 40MM (since he's not going to need it in the big fed house) to build a state of the art basketball/practice facility at the Mrs. Baird's site. It will rival any facility in America. The only catch is that it has to be the Jeff Skilling Memorial Field House - in big letters right there on Central for everyone to see. Do you take the money??????

[PonySnob]

Hell yes!

[Hoop Fan]

No, not even as a last resort. I'd rather fix up the lockerrooms, put some lipstick on Moody and build a modest practice facility than take tainted money. Surely we can accomplish that without whoring ourselves to anybody. We do have a business school with a decent reputation, it would be crazy to connect ourselves to the Enron scandal.

[abezontar]

If it would be so easy to get the money for minor upgrades to Moody and a practice facility, then why haven't they already done it? I don't think it is that easy to get money for this project otherwise they would have started something already. As it is they have had plans for years now and done nothing. I think we need to be very very careful before we turn down money from any source. Plus 10 years from now, who in the general public we will be marketing to will remember who Jeff Skilling is? Which of the athletes we will be trying to recruit will remember who Jeff Skilling is next year? Not saying we should do it, but were an opportunity to arise it would be in our best interest to give it some pretty careful consideration.

[Hoop Fan]

i'm as pragmatic as anyone and I think its a disgrace that we haven't done something basketball facility wise by now. However, there are things that moral people do not do, much less institutions of higher learning. Taking dirty money or tainted money from someone on their way to prison is pretty obviously in that category. Are you kidding, it should take less than 2 seconds to tell Skilling and his hypothetical demand to go away. Even if you ignore the moral aspect, its bad business for a university to tie itself to Enron, the biggest scandal in modern american corporate history in any way, shape or form.

And just because Moody has not been touched yet, is it really that impossible for Southern Methodist University to find multiple legitimate ways to renovate its arena every 40 years or so? I expect the new AD can find a way to make it happen. Copeland just ran out of gas on this and other issues.

[Stallion]

....and yet we honor Bill Clements as one of our most distiniguished alumni to this day.

[Hoop Fan]

i frankly dont know the Clements details very well, but he didnt go to prison for fraud did he?

[abezontar]

What if he billed it as a step in giving back to the community? As a way to begin to make amends for the wrongs he committed? Does that change your opinion? That could be good press for SMU in that here is a ugy who made dirty money and is now trying to make good by supporting someone other than himself. Maybe reserve a part of the new arena for low income persons to get to watch the games for free? Does that change your opinion at all?

[Hoop Fan]

somehow I don't think giving money to SMU for an arena with his name on it would in any way be viewed as giving back to the community. There are much better and more valid ways to give back to the community. I didn't create the hypothetical, but part of it was that Skilling would demand for his name to be on the building. Does that connote community interest to you?

[Corso]

.... There are much better and more valid ways to give back to the community....

Like giving for a new basketball facility, a soccer facility overhaul and a new natatorium!

[abezontar]

Depends, we(society at large) accept corporate giving that comes with the string attached that they get to plaster their name on whatever it is they are giving as being altruistic. We also accept that kind of giving as repayment for a debt to society all the time. I'm not saying we should take the money no questions asked, but it is something I think we shoulc consider. Maybe it the threat of having the Jeff Skilling Arena on Campus might spur some of our other alumni to give.

[SMU Football Blog]

When I was at UofH Law School, there was a rumor that John O'Quinn offered a ridiculous amount of money to rename the law school the John O'Quinn School of Law. If you don't know, John O'Quinn is one of the best and worst tort lawyers in the world, and consequently one of the most successful. He has had multiple "ethical lapses." The rumor was the University was all set to sign off on the deal but the law school faculty revolted. The school has still accepted gobs of money from him.

The issue is kind of the same. What is the message when you try to teach things like business ethics when you accept the gifts from the poster child for business ethical lapses and bestow upon him the honor of naming a building after him? It isn't about accepting the money, it is about lauding him with praise. You take the money (you always take the money), but you don't accept the strings attached; and if that is the only way you get the money, well then, you don't get the money.

I don't want the money bad enough to accept the grief that would come with it.

[Blunt Pony]

No, not even as a last resort. I'd rather fix up the lockerrooms, put some lipstick on Moody and build a modest practice facility than take tainted money. Surely we can accomplish that without whoring ourselves to anybody. We do have a business school with a decent reputation, it would be crazy to connect ourselves to the Enron scandal.

To make it a truly moral question, would you accept the money if we were not to name the building after Skilling?

[covok48]

Have no qualms about it. Will anyone know or even remember about the scandal or who Skillman is 10 years from now? No. Will it affect our enrollment? No. Our Endowment? No. Our Recruiting? No. Our Alumni giving? No (it might improve it). Will it upgrade our dilapited facilities that need a major facelift? Yes.

We still hold the likes of Clements (and take his money) in high regard as we did for Dedman for that matter. SMU fans still gloat about our national prominance in the early 80's in football where all of us know now (and certainly knew then) that we were playing our players. So what's this about not giving or accepting money out of principal?

[friarwolf]

Would it change your position if he got acquitted of all charges???????

By the way, I would say no to the money but I would be crying like Ted Knight used to do on the Mary Tyler Moore show as I said no.........